A History of India

387 Pages·2016·6.556 MB·English

by  Hermann Kulke, Dietmar Rothermund

A HISTORY OF INDIA
Presenting the grand sweep of Indian history from antiquity to the present, A History of India is
a detailed and authoritative account of the major political, economic, social and cultural forces
that have shaped the history of the Indian subcontinent.
Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund provide a comprehensive overview of the struc-
tural pattern of Indian history, covering each historical period in equal depth. Fully revised
throughout, the sixth edition of this highly accessible book has been brought up to date with
analysis of recent events such as the 2014 election and its consequences, and includes more
discussion of subjects such as caste and gender, Islam, foreign relations, partition, and the press
and television.
This new edition contains an updated chronology of key events and a useful glossary of Indian
terms, and is highly illustrated with maps and photographs. Supplemented by a companion
website (www.routledge.com/cw/kulke), it is a valuable resource for students of Indian history.
Hermann Kulke is Professor Emeritus of Asian History at the University of Kiel. He is the
author of Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (1993) and
editor of The State in India 1000–1700 (1995). In 2010 he was awarded the the order of ‘Padma
Shri’ by the Indian government.
Dietmar Rothermund is Professor Emeritus of History at the South Asian Institute, Univer-
sity of Heidelberg. His books include Contemporary India: Political, Economic and Social Devel-
opments since 1947 (2012), India: The Rise of an Asian Giant (2008), The Routledge Companion to
Decolonization (2006), The Global Impact of the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (1996) and India in
the Great Depression (1992).
This page intentionally left blank
A HISTORY OF INDIA
Sixth edition
H K D R
ERMANN ULKE AND IETMAR OTHERMUND
This edition published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1986, 1990, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2016 Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund
The right of Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund to be identifi ed as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent
to infringe.
First edition published 1986 by
Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd
Fifth edition published 2010
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kulke, Hermann, author. | Rothermund, Dietmar, 1933– author.
Title: A history of India / Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund.
Description: Sixth edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2016020599 | ISBN 9781138961142 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781138961159 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315628806 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: India—History.
Classifi cation: LCC DS436 .K85 2016 | DDC 954—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020599
ISBN: 978-1-138-96114-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-96115-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62880-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Garamond
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Preface viii
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: History and the Environment xii
Chapter One Early Civilisations of the Northwest 1
Prehistory and the Indus civilisation 1
Immigration and settlement of the Indo-Aryans 11
Chapter Two The Great Ancient Empires 27
The rise of the Gangetic culture and the great empires of the east 27
Ashoka, the Beloved of the Gods 39
The end of the Maurya empire and the northern invaders 45
Subjection and alliance: Shakas and Vakatakas 60
Chapter Three The Regional Kingdoms of Early Medieval India 77
The rise and confl icts of regional kingdoms 77
Kings, princes and priests: the structure of Hindu realms 91
The emergence of regional kingdoms 93
Gods, temples and poets: the growth of regional cultures 101
India’s impact on southeast Asia: causes and consequences 111
Chapter Four Religious Communities and Military Feudalism in
the Late Middle Ages 121
The Islamic conquest of northern India and the sultanate of Delhi 121
The problems of administrative penetration 134
The states of central and southern India in the period of the sultanate of Delhi 136
Chapter Five The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Empire 151
The Great Mughals and their adversaries 151
Indian land power and European sea power 170
The struggle for supremacy in India 179
Chapter Six The Period of Colonial Rule 194
Company Bahadur: trader and ruler 194
The colonial economy 207
The regional impact of British rule 211
The pattern of constitutional reform 224
vi Contents
Chapter Seven The Freedom Movement and the Partition of India 231
The Indian freedom movement 231
The return to the constitutional arena 241
The partition of India 252
Chapter Eight The Republic 266
Internal affairs and political development 266
External affairs: global and regional dimensions 299
Perspectives 319
Glossary of Indian Terms 321
Chronology 325
Bibliography 333
Index 337
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES 6.1 Durbar Procession of Great Mughal Akbar II 200
6.2 A textile printer, Indian painting c.1800 210
1.1 Aerial view of the acropolis of Mohenjo-Daro 2
7.1 Bal Gangadhar Tilak 232
1.2 Mohenjo-Daro, the so-called ‘Priest King’ 2
7.2 Swami Vivekananda 234
1.3 Bhaja, Maharashtra, Indra on his elephant
7.3 Gopal Krishna Gokhale 235
Airavata 15
7.4 Mountbatten with Nehru and Jinnah 260
2.1 Kausambi, excavated rampart, c.600 BC 30 7.5 Jinnah and Gandhi 261
2.2 Kausambi, Ghoshitarama complex 30
8.1 Dr Rajendra Prasad 267
2.3 Bodh Gaya, Mahabodhi Temple 32
8.2 Dr Manmohan Singh 283
2.4 Sarnath, capital of an Ashoka pillar 40
8.3 Raj Kapoor in the film Shri 420 288
2.5 Kanaganahalli, Karnataka Recently discovered
sculpture of Ashoka 42
2.6 Buddha, Gandhara style at Takht-i-Bahai 45
MAPS
2.7 Kushana gold coin 50
2.8 Sanchi, first century AD, eastern gate 56 I.1 History and the environment xiii
2.9 Udayagiri (Vidisa), Varaha 62 I.2 Population density according to the Census of
2.10 Amaravati, railing depicting king India, 2001 xxiii
Shuddhodana 70 1.1 Indus civilisation 3
3.1 Nymph at Gyaraspur, Madhya Pradesh 78 1.2 Early cultures of the Gangetic Valley
3.2 Nalanda, ruins of monastery 85 (1000–500 BC) 23
3.3 Rock relief at Mahabalipuram, showing 2.1 Maurya empire under Ashoka (262–233) 44
the descent of the Ganga and the penance 2.2 India AD 0–300 54
of Arjuna 86 2.3 The Gupta empire (320–500) 59
3.4 Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram 87 3.1 Regional kingdoms in the early seventh
3.5 Sun god Surya at Bhubaneswar, Orissa 98 century 94
3.6 Chidambaram, temple city 105 3.2 Regional kingdoms of the early Middle
3.7 Borobudur, Java 115 Ages (900–1200) 95
4.1 Delhi, Qutb Minar 126 3.3 Territorial development of Orissa
4.2 Bijapur, Gol Gumbaz 137 (600–1400) 96
4.3 Konarak, Surya Temple 139 4.1 Late Middle Ages (1206–1526), Delhi sultanate
4.4 Konarak, Orissa 140 and late regional empires 127
4.5 Virupaksha Temple at Vijayanagara 145 4.2 Temple donations and ritual policy in
4.6 Vijayanagara, inner protective fortification Vijayanagara (1505–9) 144
of the royal centre 148 5.1 The Mughal empire 156
5.1 Baber hunting a rhino 153 5.2 Northwestern campaigns of the Great Mughals,
5.2 Fatehpur Sikri 160 1645–48 165
5.3 Mausoleum of Itimad-ud-Daulah 161 5.3 Mughal empire around 1700 166
5.4 Mughal drawing of wine drinking 162 6.1 The British penetration of India
5.5 Fortress Gwalior 168 (1750–1860) 205
5.6 Indian soldiers in British service (Gun Lascar 8.1 The Republic of India 300
Corps) 180 8.2 Jammu and Kashmir and the Line of
5.7 Warren Hastings 187 Control 316
PREFACE
India’s history is the fascinating epic of a great been reprinted in India and is widely used as
civilisation. It is a history of amazing cultural a textbook.
continuity. Today, it is the history of one-sixth The authors have benefited from discus-
of mankind. Both Indian and foreign histori- sions with Indian, British and American
ans have been attracted by this great theme. colleagues, many of whom cannot read their
Several histories of India have been written German publications. They are glad to com-
in recent times, thus the present authors may municate with them by means of this book.
be asked why they have dared to produce yet However, this book is not restricted to a dia-
another account of Indian history. logue among historians, it is written for the
Research in Indian history to which both student and the general reader. To this reader
authors have contributed in their own way is the authors want to introduce themselves
progressing rapidly and an adequate synthe- here. Hermann Kulke studied Indology (San-
sis is needed at more frequent intervals. This skrit) and history at Freiburg University and
kind of up-to-date synthesis the authors hope did his PhD thesis on the Cidambaramahat-
to have provided here. It is difficult for one mya, a text which encompasses the tradition of
author to cope with the span of Indian his- the south Indian temple city Chidambaram.
tory from ancient times to the present. Con- His second major book was on the Gajapati
sequently, many surveys of this vast subject kingship of Orissa. He has actively partici-
have been done by teams of authors, but rarely pated in the first Orissa Research Project of
have these authors had the benefit of working the German Research Council and was the co-
together in the same department, compar- editor of The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional
ing notes on Indian history for many years. Tradition of Orissa (1978). He continued to
This has been the good fortune of the pres- work on Orissa and co-ordinated the second
ent authors who have worked together at the Orissa Research Project from 1999 to 2005.
South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University He also worked on Indian historiography and
for nearly two decades. medieval state formation in India and Indo-
In the late 1970s they first embarked on nesia and on the Devaraja cult of Angkor. He
this joint venture at the request of a German published a book on kings and cults in India
publisher. The German edition was published and Indonesia, edited a volume on The State in
in 1982, revised editions appeared in 1998 India, 1000–1700, and wrote another history
and 2006. The first English edition was pub- of India in German which was published in
lished by David Croom of Croom Helm, Lon- 2005. Most recently he has co-edited a volume
don, in 1986. Subsequently the rights were on the Chola naval expeditions in the eleventh
acquired by Routledge, London, and ever century. In 1988 Hermann Kulke was called
since the Routledge editorial team has been to the new chair of Asian history at Kiel Uni-
helpful in bringing out new editions of this versity. The distance between Heidelberg and
text. Inspired by the interest in their work Kiel has not reduced the contacts with his
the authors have submitted this thoroughly co-author.
revised text in September 2009. Earlier edi- Dietmar Rothermund studied history and
tions of this comprehensive survey have been philosophy at Marburg and Munich univer-
translated into several languages. The first sities and at the University of Pennsylvania,
one was the Italian edition in 1991. This was Philadelphia, where he did his PhD thesis on
followed by Turkish, Romanian, Polish and the history of eighteenth-century Pennsylva-
Hungarian editions and by a Chinese one pub- nia. He then went to India and worked on a
lished in Beijing in 2008. The book has also history of the freedom movement which was
Preface ix
published in German in 1965. He subsequently advice on the new section on Indian literature
wrote a book on India and the Soviet Union in Chapter 6.
and a major research monograph on agrarian When writing a history of India one is
relations in India under British rule. He also faced with a dilemma with regard to the term
wrote a comprehensive biography of Mahatma ‘India’. Before 1947 it refers to an area which
Gandhi in German and then published a is now usually called South Asia and includes
shorter version of it in English. In the 1970s other states such as Bangladesh and Paki-
he participated in the Dhanbad Research Pro- stan. The history of the latter states is covered
ject of the German Research Council, a project by the present book up to 1947 whereas for
which was devoted to the history, politics and the subsequent period it is restricted to the
economics of an Indian coalfield. Subsequently, Republic of India. Bangladesh and Pakistan
he mostly worked on Indian economic history are mentioned only to the extent that they
and published a research monograph on India have affected the Republic of India.
in the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (1992), fol- For the transcription of Indian names and
lowed by a general text on The Global Impact terms the authors have adopted the standard
of the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (1996). In English style and omitted diacritical marks. In
the 1990s he turned his attention to the lib- recent years the names of some major Indian
eralisation of the Indian economy and edited cities have been changed, i.e. the pre-colonial
a volume on Liberalising India: Progress and names have been restored. In the present text
Problems (1996). He also produced The Rout- the new names have been used wherever it
ledge Companion to Decolonization in 2006 and a seemed to be appropriate. In historical con-
book devoted to current affairs: India: The Rise texts the old names have been retained. Names
of an Asian Giant, published by Yale Univer- such as Bombay Presidency and Madras Presi-
sity Press in 2008. dency cannot be converted into Mumbai Pres-
In keeping with their respective fields of idency and Chennai Presidency. The glossary
specialisation the authors have divided the lists both new names and old names found in
work on the present text. Hermann Kulke has the text.
written Chapters 1 to 4. He benefited a great The general emphasis in this book is on
deal from discussions with Martin Brandtner, the structural pattern of Indian history rather
Kiel (now Heidelberg), while revising the first than on the chronology of events. A chrono-
chapter. Dietmar Rothermund has written the logical table has been appended to the text.
Introduction and Chapters 5 to 8. In addition Several maps have been inserted into the text
to his contribution to the present text, he also to help the reader to locate the names of places
published An Economic History of India. Its sec- and the shifts of territorial control. More illus-
ond edition was published by Routledge in trations have been added to the text as visual
1993 as a companion volume to A History of representation often transcends the power of
India. But readers then missed the economic words. Quotations from literary sources and
dimension in the subsequent editions of the from important speeches and statements
present text. This was remedied in the fourth inserted in boxes convey the views of those
edition. In the meantime the ‘cultural turn’ who have made history, which sometimes dif-
has had its impact on historiography. Taking fer from the verdict of historians who have the
note of this, the authors have also referred benefit of hindsight.
to the history of Indian art and literature in The authors are glad to notice the inter-
the current edition. These references are nec- est of their readers as reflected in the constant
essarily brief because political and economic demand for their text. They have tried to sat-
history could not be curtailed too much nor isfy their readers by providing them with this
could the text be expanded beyond a managea- sixth revised edition of A History of India. In
ble size. In this context Dietmar Rothermund the meantime they have also published other
wants to thank Hans Harder, Heidelberg, for texts which they wish to mention here briefly.