INDIAN TIMELINE (1510-1947 A.D.

1510: Portuguese Catholics conquer Goa to serve as capital of their

Asian maritime empire, beginning conquest and exploitation of India by
Europeans.

1526: Mughal conqueror Babur (1483-1530) defeats the Sultan of Delhi

and captures the Koh-i-noor diamond. Occupying Delhi, by 1529 he
founds the Indian Mughal Empire (1526-1761), consolidated by his
grandson Akbar.

1542: Portuguese Jesuit priest Francis Xavier (1506-1552), most

successful Catholic missionary, lands in Goa. First to train and employ
native clergy in conversion efforts, he brings Christianity to India, Malay
Archipelago and Japan.

1556: Akbar (1542-1605), grandson of Babur, becomes third Mughal

Emperor at age 13. Disestablishes Islam as state religion and declares
himself impartial ruler of Hindus and Muslims; encourages art, culture,
religious tolerance.

1565: Muslim forces defeat and completely destroy the city of

Vijayanagara. Empire's final collapse comes in 1646.

1569: Akbar captures fortress of Ranthambor, ending Rajput

independence. Soon controls nearly all of Rajasthan.

1588: British ships defeat the Spanish Armada off the coast of Calais,
France, to become rulers of the high seas.

1589: Akbar rules half of India, shows tolerance for all faiths.

1595: Construction is begun on Chidambaram Temple's Hall of a

Thousand Pillars in South India, completed in 1685.

ca 1600: "Persian wheel" to lift water by oxen is adopted, one of few

farming innovations since Indus Valley civilization.

1600: Royal Charter forms the East India Company, setting in motion a
process that ultimately results in the subjugation of India under British
rule.
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1605: Akbar the Great dies at age 63. His son Jahangir succeeds him as
fourth Mughal Emperor.

1613-14: British East India Company sets up trading post at Surat.

1615-18: Mughals grant Britain right to trade and establish factories in

exchange for English navy's protection of the Mughal Empire, which
faces Portuguese sea power.

1619: Jaffna kingdom is annexed and Sri Lanka's ruling dynasty deposed
by Portuguese Catholics who, between 1505 and 1658, destroy most of
the island's Hindu temples.

1627-80: Life of Sivaji, valiant general and tolerant founder of Hindu

Maratha Empire (1674-1818). Emancipates large areas confiscated by
Muslims, returning them to Hindu control. First Indian ruler to build a
major naval force.

1630: Over the next two years, millions starve to death as Shah Jahan
(1592-1666), fifth Mughal Emperor, empties the royal treasury to buy
jewels for his "Peacock Throne."

1647: Shah Jahan completes Taj Mahal in Agra beside Yamuna River. Its
construction has taken 20,000 laborers 15 years, at a total cost
equivalence of US$25 million.

ca 1650: Robert de Nobili (1577-1656), Portuguese Jesuit missionary

noted for fervor and intolerance, arrives in Madurai, declares himself a
brahmin, dresses like a Hindu monk and composes Veda-like scripture
extolling Jesus.

1658: Zealous Muslim Aurangzeb (1618-1707) becomes Mughal

Emperor. His discriminatory policies toward Hindus, Marathas and the
Deccan kingdoms contribute to the dissolution of the Mughal Empire by
1750.

1660: Frenchman Francois Bernier reports India's peasantry is living in

misery under Mughal rule.

1675: Aurangzeb executes Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur, beginning the Sikh-
Muslim feud that continues to this day.

1679: Aurangzeb levies Jizya tax on non-believers, Hindus.

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1688: Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb demolishes all temples in Mathura,
said to number 1,000. (During their reign, Muslim rulers destroy roughly
60,000 Hindu temples throughout India, constructing mosques on 3,000
sites.)

ca 1725: Jesuit Father Hanxleden compiles first Sanskrit grammar in a

European language.

1751: Robert Clive, age 26, seizes Arcot in modern Tamil Nadu as
French and British fight for control of South India.

1761: Afghan army of Ahmad Shah Durrani routs Hindu Maratha forces
at Panipat, ending Maratha hegemony in North India. As many as
200,000 Hindus are said to have died in the strategic eight-hour battle.

1764: British defeat the weak Mughal Emperor to become rulers of

Bengal, richest province of India.

1769: Prithivi Narayan Shah, ruler of Gorkha principality, conquers

Nepal Valley; moves capital to Kathmandu, establishing present-day
Hindu nation of Nepal.

1773: British East India Company obtains monopoly on the production

and sale of opium in Bengal.

1784: Judge and linguist Sir William Jones founds Calcutta's Royal
Asiatic Society. First such scholastic institution.

1786: Sir William Jones uses the Rig Veda term Aryan ("noble") to
name the parent language (now termed Indo-European) of Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin and Germanic tongues.

1787-95: British Parliament impeaches Warren Hastings, Governor

General of Bengal (1774-85) for misconduct.

1787: British Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed,
marking the beginning of the end of slavery.

1792: Britain's Cornwallis defeats Tipu Sahib, Sultan of Mysore and

most powerful ruler in South India, main bulwark of resistance to British
expansion in India.

1799: Sultan Tipu is killed in battle against 5,000 British soldiers who
storm and raze his capital, Srirangapattinam.
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1803: Second Anglo-Maratha war results in British Christian capture of
Delhi and control of large parts of India. 1803: India's population is 200
million.

1809: British strike a bargain with Ranjit Singh for exclusive areas of
influence.

1820: First Indian immigrants arrive in the US.

1825: First massive immigration of Indian workers from Madras is to

Reunion and Mauritius. This immigrant Hindu community builds their
first temple in 1854.

1828: Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) founds Adi Brahmo Samaj in

Calcutta, first movement to initiate religio-social reform. Influenced by
Islam and Christianity, he denounces polytheism, idol worship;
repudiates the Vedas, avataras, karma and reincarnation, caste and more.

1831: British Christians defeat Ranjit Singh's forces at Balakot, in Sikh

attempt to establish a homeland in N.W. India.

1833: Slavery is abolished in British Commonwealth countries, giving

impetus to abolitionists in United States.

1835: Civil service jobs in India are opened to Indians.

1835: Macaulay's Minute furthers Western education in India. English is

made official government and court language.

1835: Mauritius receives 19,000 immigrant indentured laborers from

India. Last ship carrying workers arrives in 1922.

1837: Britain formalizes emigration of Indian indentured laborers to

supply cheap labor under a system more morally acceptable to British
Christian society than slavery, illegal in the British Empire since 1833.

1837: Kali-worshiping Thugees are suppressed by British.

1838: British Guyana receives its first 250 Indian laborers.

1840: Joseph de Goubineau (1816-1882), French scholar, writes The

Inequality of Human Races. Proclaims the "Aryan race" superior to other
great strains and lays down the aristocratic class-doctrine of Aryanism
that later provides the basis for Adolf Hitler's Aryan racism.
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1843: British conquer the Sind region (present-day Pakistan). 1845:
Trinidad receives its first 197 Indian immigrant laborers.

1846: British forcibly separate Kashmir from the Sikhs and sell it to the
Maharaja of Jammu for pounds1,000,000.

1849: Sikh army is defeated by the British at Amritsar.

1850: First English translation of the Rig Veda by H.H. Wilson, first
holder of Oxford's Boden Chair, founded "to promote the translation of
the Scriptures into English, so as to enable his countrymen to proceed in
the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion."

1851: Sir M. Monier-Williams (1819-99) publishes English-Sanskrit

Dictionary. His completed Sanskrit-English Dictionary is released in
1899 after three decades of work.

1853: Max Muller (1823-1900), German Christian philologist and

Orientalist, advocates the term Aryan to name a hypothetical primitive
people of Central Asia, the common ancestors of Hindus, Persians and
Greeks. Muller speculates that this "Aryan race" divided and marched
west to Europe and east to India and China around 1500 bce. Their
language, Muller contends, developed into Sanskrit, Greek, Latin,
German, etc., and all ancient civilizations descended from this Aryan
race.

1856: Catholic missionary Bishop Caldwell coins the term Dravidian to

refer to South Indian Caucasian peoples.

1857: First Indian Revolution, called the Sepoy Mutiny, ends in a few
months with the fall of Delhi and Lucknow. 1858: India has 200 miles of
railroad track. By 1869 5,000 miles of steel track have been completed
by British railroad companies. In 1900, total track is 25,000 miles, and
by World War I, 35,000 miles. By 1970, at 62,136 miles, it has become
the world's greatest train system. Unfortunately, this development
depletes India's forest lands.

1860: S.S. Truro and S.S. Belvedere dock in Durban, S. Africa, carrying
first indentured servants (from Madras and Calcutta) to work sugar
plantations. With contracts of five years and up, thousands emigrate over
next 51 years.

1869-1948: Lifetime of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian

nationalist and Hindu political activist who develops the strategy of
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nonviolent disobedience that forces Christian Great Britain to grant
independence to India (1947).

1876: British Queen Victoria (1819-1901), head of Church of England,

is proclaimed Empress of India (1876-1901).

1876-1990: Max Muller, pioneer of comparative religion as a scholarly

discipline, publishes 50-volume Sacred Books of the East, English
translations of Indian-Oriental scriptures.

1877-1947: Lifetime of Sri Lanka's Ananda Coomaraswamy, foremost

interpreter of Indian art and culture to the West.

1879: The "Leonidas," first emigrant ship to Fiji, adds 498 Indian
indentured laborers to the nearly 340,000 already working in other
British Empire colonies.

1885: A group of middle-class intellectuals in India, some of them

British, found the Indian National Congress to be a voice of Indian
opinion to the British government. This was the origin of the later
Congress Party.

1888: Max Muller, revising his stance, writes, "Aryan, in scientific

language, is utterly inapplicable to race. If I say Aryas, I mean neither
blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who spoke the
Aryan language."

1893: Swami Vivekananda represents Hinduism at Chicago's Parliament

of the World's Religions, first ever interfaith gathering, dramatically
enlightening Western opinion as to the profundity of Hindu philosophy
and culture.

1894: Gandhi drafts first petition protesting the indentured servant

system. Less than six months later, British announce the halt of
indentured emigration from India.

1896: Nationalist leader, Marathi scholar Bal Bangadhar Tilak (1857-

1920) initiates Ganesha Visarjana and Sivaji festivals to fan Indian
nationalism. He is first to demand complete independence, Purna Svaraj,
from Britain.

1900: India's tea exports to Britain reach 137 million pounds.

1905: Lord Curzon, arrogant British Viceroy of India, resigns.

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1906: Muslim League political party is formed in India.

1906: Dutch Christians overtake Bali after Puputan massacres in which

Hindu Balinese royal families are murdered.

1909: Gandhi and assistant Maganlal agitate for better working

conditions and abolition of indentured servitude in S. Africa. Maganlal
continues Gandhi's work in Fiji.

1912: Anti-Indian racial riots on the US West Coast expel large Hindu
immigrant population.

1913: New law prohibits Indian immigration to S. Africa, primarily in

answer to white colonists' alarm at competition of Indian merchants and
expired labor contracts.

1914: US government excludes Indian citizens from immigration.

Restriction stands until 1965.

1917: Last Hindu Indian indentured laborers are brought to British

Christian colonies of Fiji and Trinidad.

1918: Spanish Influenza epidemic kills 12.5 million in India, 21.6

million worldwide.

1919: Brigadier Dyer orders Gurkha troops to shoot unarmed

demonstrators in Amritsar, killing 379. Massacre convinces Gandhi that
India must demand full independence from oppressive British Christian
rule.

1920: Gandhi formulates the satyagraha, "firmness in truth," strategy of

noncooperation and nonviolence against India's Christian British rulers.
Later resolves to wear only dothi to preserve homespun cotton and
simplicity.

1920: System of indentured servitude is abolished by India, following

grassroots agitation by Mahatma Gandhi.

1923: US law excludes citizens of India from naturalization.

1924: Sir John Marshall (1876-1958) discovers relics of the Indus Valley
Hindu civilization. Begins large-scale excavations.

1927 & 34: Indians permitted to sit as jurors and court magistrates.
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1928: Hindu leader Jawaharlal Nehru drafts plan for a free India;
becomes president of Congress Party in 1929.

1931: Dr. Karan Singh is born, son and heir apparent of Kashmir's last
Maharaja; becomes parliamentarian, Indian ambassador to the US and
global Hindu spokesman.

1939: Mohammed Ali Jinnah calls for a separate Muslim state.

1941: First US chair of Sanskrit and Indology established at Yale Univ.;

American Oriental Society founded in 1942.

1942: At sites along the lost Sarasvati River in Rajasthan, archeologist

Sir Aurel Stein finds shards with incised characters identical to those on
Indus Valley seals.

1947: India gains independence from Britain August 15. Pakistan

emerges as a separate Islamic nation, and 600,000 die in clashes during
subsequent population exchange of 14 million people between the two
new countries.

(adapted from the Hindu Time Line site.)