A short history of India in eight maps

IN HIS DECADE in power Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has centralised the state to an unprecedented extent. Yet his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has failed to attract many voters in the more prosperous south. The regional divergence is not unique to the BJP. Throughout India’s long history, rulers have tried and failed to unite the subcontinent under central authority. The chief reason is India’s diversity, summed up in clichés about dozens of cuisines, hundreds of languages and thousands of gods. The clichés may be trite, but they are also useful. A whirlwind tour through 2,500 years of Indian history helps explain why.

India, Hindi (the language), Hindu (a follower of the religion) and Hindustan (the country) all take their name from the Indus, the mighty river that flows from the Himalayas into the Arabian Sea. Outsiders typically used these names for the subcontinent and its people. A much older name is “Bharat”, used by the subcontinent’s people itself. Scholars believe it was first used in reference to a tribe called Bharata who populated northern India.