Full country name: Republic of India

Area: 3,287,590 sq km (1,229,737 sq mi)

Population: 1,014,003,817

Capital city: New Delhi

People: 72% Indo-Aryan, 25% Dravidian, 3% other

Language: Hindi

Religion: 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.4% Christian, 2% Sikh, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.5% Jains, 0.4% other

Government: Federal Republic

Activities

The number of trekkers visiting the Indian Himalaya is small compared to those tramping the tracks in Nepal , so if you want to peacefully experience the world's greatest mountain range, try trekking in Himachal Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh. The trekking season runs roughly between April and November, but this varies widely and some routes are only open for a couple of months each year. India 's main trekking centres are Lahaul, Spiti and the Kullu and Kangra valleys in Himachal Pradesh; north of Rishikesh in northern Uttar Pradesh; Darjeeling in West Bengal ; Yuksam in Sikkim ; and Leh in Ladakh.

The ski season runs from January to March, and there are resorts at Narkanda in Himachal Pradesh and Auli in Uttar Pradesh. Facilities are rudimentary but that makes it all the more fun. There's usually one lift in working order and a place to hire gear. Après-ski consists of chapatis and a nice cup of ginger tea.

India is not renowned for its beaches, but there are popular beach centres with acceptable swimming in Goa , just across the Karnataka border in Gokarna and at Kovalam in Kerala. There are also beaches at Diu , and at Puri in Orissa. The Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal have good beaches and boast India 's only diving and snorkelling opportunities.

Camel treks can be arranged in the deserts around Jaisalmer and Pushkar in Rajasthan. Treks last anywhere between a few hours and a few days. The best season is between October and February. If camel trekking leaves you feeling scorched and sore, try white-water rafting on the Indus. Trips can be organised in Leh.

History

India 's first major civilisation flourished for a thousand years from around 2500 BC along the Indus River valley. Its great cities were Mohenjodaro and Harappa (now in Pakistan ), ruled by priests and bearing the rudiments of Hinduism. Aryan invaders swept south from central Asia between 1500 and 200 BC and controlled northern India , pushing the original Dravidian inhabitants south

The invaders brought their own gods and cattle-raising and meat-eating traditions, but were absorbed to such a degree that by the 8th century BC the priestly caste had reasserted its supremacy. This became consolidated in the caste system, a hierarchy maintained by strict rules that secured the position of the Brahmin priests. Buddhism arose around 500 BC, condemning caste; it drove a radical swathe through Hinduism in the 3rd century BC when it was embraced by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, who controlled huge tracts of India .

A number of empires, including the Gupta, rose and fell in the north after the collapse of the Mauryas. Hinduism underwent a revival from 40 to 600 AD, and Buddhism began to decline. The north of India broke into a number of separate Hindu kingdoms after the Huns invasion; it was not really unified again until the coming of the Muslims. The far south, whose prosperity was based on trading links with the Egyptians, Romans and South-East Asia, was unaffected by the turmoil in the north, and Hinduism's hold on the region was never threatened.

In 1192 Muslims arrived from the Middle East . Within 20 years the entire Ganges basin was under Muslim control, though Islam failed to penetrate the south. Two great kingdoms developed in what is now Karnataka: the mighty Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar , and the fragmented Bahmani Muslim kingdom.

Mughal emperors marched into the Punjab from Afghanistan , defeated the Sultan of Delhi in 1525, and ushered in another artistic golden age. The Maratha Empire grew during the 17th century and gradually took over more of the Mughals' domain. The Marathas consolidated control of central India until they fell to the last great imperial power, the British.

The British were not, however, the only European power in India : the Portuguese had controlled Goa since 1510 and the French, Danes and Dutch also had trading posts. By 1803, when the British overwhelmed the Marathas, most of the country was under the control of the British East India Company, which had established its trading post at Surat in Gujarat in 1612.

The company treated India as a place to make money, and its culture, beliefs and religions were left strictly alone. Britain expanded iron and coal mining, developed tea, coffee and cotton plantations, and began construction of India 's vast rail network. They encouraged absentee landlords because they eased the burden of administration and tax collection, creating an impoverished landless peasantry - a problem which is still chronic in Bihar and West Bengal . The Mutiny in northern India in 1857 led to the demise of the East India Company, and administration of the country was handed over to the British government.

Opposition to British rule began in earnest at the turn of the 20th century. The 'Congress' which had been established to give India a degree of self-rule now began to push for the real thing. In 1915, Gandhi returned from South Africa , where he had practised as a lawyer, and turned his abilities to independence, adopting a policy of passive resistance, or satyagraha .

WWII dealt a deathblow to colonialism and Indian independence became inevitable. Within India , however, the large Muslim minority realised that an independent India would be Hindu-dominated. Communalism grew, with the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and the Congress Party, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, representing the Hindu population. The bid for a separate Muslim nation was the biggest stumbling block to Britain granting independence.

Faced with a political stand-off and rising tension, Viceroy Mountbatten reluctantly decided to divide the country and set a rapid timetable for independence. Unfortunately, the two overwhelmingly Muslim regions were on opposite sides of the country - meaning the new nation of Pakistan would be divided by a hostile India . When the dividing line was announced, the greatest exodus in human history took place as Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs relocated to India . Over 10 million people changed sides and even the most conservative estimates calculate that 250,000 people were killed. On 30 January 1948 , Gandhi, deeply disheartened by Partition and the subsequent bloodshed, was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.

Following the trauma of Partition , India 's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru championed a secular constitution, socialist central planning and a strict policy of nonalignment. India elected to join the Commonwealth, but also increased ties with the USSR - partly because of conflicts with China and partly because of US support for arch-enemy Pakistan , which was particularly hostile to India because of its claim on Muslim-dominated Kashmir . There were clashes with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

India 's next prime minister of stature was Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who was elected in 1966. She is still held in high esteem, but is remembered by some for meddling with India 's democratic foundations by declaring a state of emergency in 1975. Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 as a reprisal for using the Indian Army to flush out armed Sikh radicals from the Golden Temple in Amritsar . The Gandhis' dynastic grip on Indian politics continued when her son, Rajiv was swept into power.

Rajiv brought new and pragmatic policies to the country. Foreign investment and the use of modern technology were encouraged, import restrictions were eased and many new industries were set up. These measures projected India into the 1990s and out of isolationism, but did little to stimulate India 's mammoth rural sector. Rajiv was assassinated on an election tour by a supporter of Sri Lanka 's Tamil Tigers.

The dangers of communalism in India were clearly displayed in 1992, when a Hindu mob stormed and destroyed a mosque built on the site of Rama's birth in Ayodhya. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been keen to exploit such opportunities, and has led several disparate coalitions to power in recent years. Despite the dangers of playing communalist politics, the BJP's traditionalist Hindu stance has attracted voters concerned about retaining traditional values during the sudden onslaught of modern global influences.

In 1998 India tested its first nuclear weapons. Despite international outrage, the nuclear tests were met with widespread jubilation in India and caused a groundswell of support for the BJP.

But by April 1999 PM Vajpayee had lost majority support in parliament and was forced into a vote of confidence, which he lost by one vote. Sonia Ghandi, Rajiv Ghandi's widow, was expected to lead the Congress Party to victory after its three years in the political wilderness, but she was unable to secure a coalition and India was forced to the polls for the third time in as many years. The BJP was returned to government but with a significant decrease in support.

Culture

Religion seeps into every facet of Indian life. Despite being a secular democracy, India is one of the few countries on earth in which the social and religious structures that define the nation's identity remain intact, and have continued to do so for at least 4000 years despite invasions, persecution, European colonialism and political upheaval. Change is inevitably taking place as modern technology reaches further and further into the fabric of society but essentially rural India remains much the same as it has for thousands of years. So resilient are its social and religious institutions that it has absorbed, ignored or thrown off all attempts to radically change or destroy them.

India 's major religion, Hinduism, is practised by approximately 80% of the population. In terms of the number of adherents, it's the largest religion in Asia and one of the world's oldest extant faiths. Hinduism has a vast pantheon of gods, a number of holy books and postulates that everyone goes through a series of births or reincarnations that eventually lead to spiritual salvation. With each birth, you can move closer to or further from eventual enlightenment; the deciding factor is your karma. The Hindu religion has three basic practices. They are puja or worship, the cremation of the dead, and the rules and regulations of the caste system. Hinduism is not a proselytising religion since you cannot be converted: you're either born a Hindu or you're not.

Buddhism was founded in northern India in about 500 BC, spread rapidly when emperor Ashoka embraced it but was gradually reabsorbed into Hinduism. Today Hindus regard the Buddha as another incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. There are now only 6.6 million Buddhists in India, but important Buddhist sites in northern India, such as Bodhgaya, Sarnath (near Varanasi) and Kushinagar (near Gorakhpur) remain important sites of pilgrimage.The Jain religion also began life as an attempt to reform Brahminical Hinduism. It emerged at the same time as Buddhism, and for many of the same reasons. The Jains now number only about 4.5 million and are found predominantly in the west and south-west of India . The religion has never found adherents outside India . Jains believe that the universe is infinite and was not created by a deity. They also believe in reincarnation and eventual spiritual salvation by following the path of the Jain prophets.

There are more than 100 million Muslims in India , making it one of the largest Muslim nations on earth. Islam is the dominant religion in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh , and there is a Muslim majority in Jammu & Kashmir. Muslim influence in India is particularly strong in the fields of architecture, art and food. The Sikhs in India number 18 million and are predominantly located in the Punjab . The religion was originally intended to bring together the best of Hinduism and Islam. Its basic tenets are similar to those of Hinduism with the important modification that the Sikhs are opposed to caste distinctions. The holiest shrine of the Sikh religion is the Golden Temple in Amritsar .

India is as close as the world comes to Babel . There's no 'Indian' language per se, which is partly why English is still widely spoken almost half a century after the British left India . Eighteen languages are officially recognised by the constitution, but over 1600 minor languages and dialects were listed in the 1991 census. Language is a heavily politicised issue, not least because many state boundaries have been drawn on linguistic lines. Major efforts have been made to promote Hindi as the national language and to gradually phase out English. A stumbling block to this plan is that while Hindi is the predominant language in the north, it bears little relation to the Dravidian languages of the south. In the south, very few people speak Hindi. The Indian upper class clings to English as the shared language of the educated elite, championing it as both a badge of their status and as a passport to the world of international business. In truth, only about 3% of Indians have a firm grasp of the language.

Indian art is basically religious in its themes and developments, and its appreciation requires at least some background knowledge of the country's faiths. The highlights include classical Indian dance, Hindu temple architecture and sculpture (where one begins and the other ends is often hard to define), the military and urban architecture of the Mughals, miniature painting, and mesmeric Indian music. The latter is difficult for visitors to appreciate since there is no sense of harmony in the Western sense, but don't be put off by this.

Indians love the cinema and the Indian film industry, centred on Bombay , is one of the largest and most glamorous in the world. The vast proportion of films produced are gaudy melodramas based on three vital ingredients: romance, violence and music. You'll know what to expect from the fantastically hand-painted cinema billboards that dominate many streets. Imagine Rambo crossed with The Sound of Music and a Cecil B De Mille biblical epic, and you're halfway there. It's cheap operatic escapism, extremely harsh on the ears, and should not be missed.

Contrary to popular belief, not all Hindus are officially vegetarians. Although you'll find vegetarians everywhere, strict vegetarianism is most prevalent in the south (which has not been influenced by meat-eating Aryans and Muslims) and in the Gujarati community. There are considerable regional variations from north to south, partly because of climatic conditions and partly because of historical influences. In the north, much more meat is eaten and the cuisine is often 'Mughal style', which bears a closer relationship to food of the Middle East and Central Asia . The emphasis is more on spices and less on chilli; grains and breads are more popular than rice. In the south, more rice is eaten, there is more vegetarian food, and the curries tend to be hotter. Another feature of southern vegetarian food is that you do not use eating utensils; just scoop the food up with your fingers - though not with those of your left hand.

Environment

India is a large, triangular-shaped country in southern Asia , buttressed by the long sweep of the Himalaya in the north and protruding into the Indian Ocean in the south. It's bordered by Pakistan to the north-west, China , Nepal and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. Sri Lanka is the teardrop-shaped island hanging off its southern tip. India covers a land area of some 3,287,000 sq km (1,281,930sq mi), though disputed borders with Pakistan and China make this figure somewhat arbitrary. It is the seventh largest country in the world.

Northern India contains the snow-bound peaks and deep valleys of the Himalaya and the vast Gangetic Plain, which separates the Himalayan region from the southern peninsula and stretches from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal . South of the plains, the land rises up into a triangular-shaped plateau known as the Deccan , which ranges in altitude from 300m (985ft) to 900m (2950ft). The plateau is bordered by the Eastern and Western ghats , ranges of hills which run parallel to India 's eastern and western coasts and separate the fertile coastal strips from the interior.

Wildlife in India is often purported to have enjoyed a privileged and protected position thanks to the religious ideals and sentiments of Hindus, Jains and Buddhists, but much of this tradition has been lost. Extensive hunting by the British and the Indian rajahs, large-scale clearing of forests for agriculture, poaching, pesticides and the ever-increasing population have had disastrous effects on India 's environment. Only around 10 per cent of the country still has forest cover, and only 4 per cent is protected within national parks and reserves. In the past few decades the government has taken serious steps to improve environmental management and has established over 350 parks, sanctuaries and reserves.

The highlights of India 's fauna are its lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, elephants and rhinoceroses, but the country is also home to a rich variety of deer and antelope, wild buffaloes, massive Indian bisons, shaggy sloth bears, striped hyenas, wild pigs, jackals and Indian wild dogs. Monkeys include rhesus macaques, bonnet macaques and long-tailed common langurs. The reptilian world boasts magnificent king cobras, pythons, crocodiles, large freshwater tortoises and monitor lizards, while the diverse birdlife includes large hornbills, serpent eagles and fishing owls, as well as the elegant national bird, the peacock.

Climate varies greatly, from the arid deserts of Rajasthan to the cool highlands of Assam , allegedly the wettest place on earth. But basically India has a three-season year - the hot, the wet and the cool. The heat starts to build up on the northern plains around February and by April it becomes unbearable. The first signs of the monsoon appear in May with high humidity, short rainstorms and violent electrical storms. The monsoon rains begin around 1 June in the extreme south and sweep north to cover the whole country by early July. The monsoon doesn't really cool things off, but it's a great relief - especially to farmers. The main monsoon comes from the south-west, but the south-eastern coast is affected by the short and surprisingly wet north-eastern monsoon, which brings rain from mid-October to the end of December. The main monsoon ends around October, and India 's northern cities become crisp at night in December. In the far south, where it never gets cool, the temperatures are comfortably warm rather than hot