The impact of British imperial colonization left India with several geo-political characteristics. Such effects have to an extent prescribed the region’s behavior since the East India Company established a political dominance in the latter half of the eighteenth century. When India claimed its independence in 1947, establishing its own form of centralized government, the notion of the pre-colonial state had since passed, and with it, the period’s migratory and societal uniqueness. Though pre-colonial India had been admonished, the culture of the region presiding within remained rich and ever changing. The diversity of culture and belief that’s visible in this region today stems from its extended history of conflicting empires and migrant populations, and periods of stasis and change over its multitude of centuries.

The twentieth century produced historical evidence of Indian civilizations that date back to 6,000 B.C. Harappa, a developed city that existed during the following centuries, is known to have had connections with other large and distant civilizations of the time. The unearthing of early artifacts has proven literacy and religious devotion to a deity amongst both Harappa and Mohenjobaro, a similar ancient society. The ancient Indian religion of Buddhism gave root amidst India’s early civilizations, and begun a slow process of travel and change. Theravada, a more traditional and conservative sect of Buddhism spread to neighboring countries, while Mahayana Buddhism venerated more personal appeal and spread further, to China, Japan.

Throughout the third and fourth centuries B.C., regional empires would grow and recede. Over centuries, certain kingdoms would grow and spread throughout of the country. The Maurya Empire became one such autonomous authority around 300 B.C., led by King Ashoka. Though his intentions were at one point that of a violent and aggressive ruler, a non-violent and moral ideology grasped his agenda, spreading messages of respect and undertones of the Buddhist religion. This period of Mauryan rule, especially during the reign of King Ashoka was a period of economic and political stability for the regions of South Asia; a peaceful environment of growth. Ashoka’s death was consequential, for soon there after the agrarian kingdom developed weaknesses in different areas and became decentralized, and no longer held affective rule.

Centuries without political dominance were not atypical in the earlier centuries of Indian history. Such was the 500-year period, from 200 B.C. to 300 A.D., following the decline of the Maurya. During this authoritative dormancy, the last streams of Arian migration were passing through. By 100 B.C., Inda had been receiving this migration of nomadic populations for over a thousand years. The Arian migration carried with it the teachings of Islam, and though the religion was rarely substantially portrayed to the areas through which it passed, the migrants’ final destinations proved resting grounds for their beliefs to spread and converge with local culture and religion.

The Gupta Empire rose to power following this period of authoritative dormancy in 320 B.C., and revived the ideologies of ancient Vedic texts. The Brahmin was a potent symbol, and Vedic texts reintroduced social customs. The Rig Veda reestablished the caste system, tightening up social consciousness and class distinctions. The Shramanik religion was a popular contemporary to Brahmanism, while Buddhism also continued to flourish. Guptan rule lasted through the 6th century, long enough to witness the emergence of Hinduism. Hinduism incorporated many forms of thought and current dogmas, considering their contrast and function within the sociological and economical trends of the times. The continuous rise and fall of varying ideologies presented each new generation with different political situations, spiritual values, and morals, creating new definitive systems of belief like Hinduism. Ideologies carried and congregated over generations, dawning each new century with a multitude of subtle features, the result of many socio-political environments.

Muhammad’s prophecy would gather a large following of Islam after his vision in the 7th century. Over the time this religion would spread from the Arabian Peninsula and reach many continents. Political Muslim movements of the Arab Islamic spread to South Asia in the late 7th and early 8th century, and the mercantile Arab class spread Islam to India along its western seaboard. Islam spread throughout South Asia by invasions from the West, the Arab nations arriving first, followed by the Turk and Afghan Islamic in later centuries. The Islamic religion “allowed for tolerance and assimilation of regional and local cultures” (Bose, 17), which acquainted the religion well with a continent of cultural diversity and peaceful religious coexistence.

“The very cultural assimilation of influences emanating from a succession of new arrivals – Aryans, Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Shakas and Huns before the eighth century, as well as the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Afghans and Mongols between the eighth and the twelfth centuries – was a vital and dynamic process” (Bose, 16).

South Asia had been and was still receiving, upon Islamic arrival, the influx of many migrants to countries that were undergoing adaptation to rising levels of cultural diversity.

Muslim political presence began soon after the initial Arab invasions. Muslim control was taken in Sind, and limitations in Brahmin power allowed for conversions to Islam. Towards the end of the twelfth century Turkish invasion resulted in the Delhi Sultanate, when Muslim powers took Delhi. The Delhi Sultanate would last through the early years of the sixteenth century, a strong Muslim presence on a continent of greater and greater ‘Indo-Islamic’ proportions. Islam’s egalitarian notions appealed to a large number of India’s lower-caste gentry who therein found freedom from economic distinctions of the Vedic text. The separation of Islam into sections branched the religion in different directions and offered adherents different views of origin and practice. The spread of Islam and the continual arrival of migrants from the northwest had integrated into India’s society by the twelfth century. Evidence of the nations of neighboring states and of states of countries afar could be found within the melting pot of Indo-Islamic India.

Strong regional powers like the Delhi Sultanate had governed India for some time through the centuries before the 1500’s, when the Mughal Empire would emerge to be India’s most longstanding and far-reaching establishment. The Delhi Sultanate saw its demise at the hands of Babur after his rise in power, and Muslim political presence slipped into the shadows of the Mughal rise to dominance. Babur’s death led to Akbar’s reign over the Mughal Kingdom, and the establishment of a rank system designating levels of responsibility within political and civilian related Mughal organizations. This structure seems similar to the caste-system, though reincarnated in political form, a long-standing social tradition reincarnated for political hierarchy. The Islamic identity within the Mughal Empire at this time was nearly obsolete, though Akbar was objective to religion and philosophy, and was open to ideological discourse and forays into religion.

And though religious conservative and traditionalists disliked Akbar’s explorations into mystical and collaborative thought, many enjoyed the freedom this period of the Mughal Empire employed. Arurangzeb’s successive rule reinstated taxation upon followers of select religious affiliations, and revenue extractions of agrarian production filtered up through the mansabdari, rank system, in large proportions. Other powerful empires of the era included the Ottoman and Turkish, and by the seventeenth century export of Indian product became a great source of revenue for the Mughal Empire and for merchants of India.

The widely diverse though integrated society that lay before King Babur in the sixteenth century, with the development of the Empire over following generations, would create the interface between society and polities. The era of Mughal rule more universally affected India’s populations throughout the country by means of widespread control (more so than by preceding decentralized powers), and when shifts towards international exports occurred, a merchant class was mobilized and providing momentum for the revenues of trade. While the underpinnings of centuries of religious migration, ideological and social convergence could be seen in pre-colonial centuries, economic and political movement grasped South Asia with the amounting presence of the merchant class and international trade.

The Mughal Empire’s profits from international trade brought great wealth to India, though the export establishment marked a transition to external dependence on India’s history. Also, the forum that was to become British means of colonialism, the move to an export economy, assimilated political discourse once of ideology, to the conformed ambitions of capitalism. The great wealth of cultural and religious heterogeneity of India’s population, lay behind the unified curtain of commercial activity, though their attributes and beliefs the true colors of South Asia. The recent history of India’s colonialism, centralized government, and economic market, gives a notion of permanence to social change. It must be understood, however, that the richness of India’s society is the actualization of a twenty-six century history, with the origins of ancient civilizations. The balance has always been between culture and empire, ceaseless accommodations on either side, shaping both atmospheres and resulting in the overtones of an era. This has been and still remains a relationship whose interplay creates temporary environments of social definition, contributing to a more timely depiction characterized in the uniqueness of South Asia.

Works Cited
Bose, Sugata. Jalal, Ayesha. India Between Empires: Decline or Decentralization? Routledge, 2004.