India

India (287,223), British dependency, consisting of the great peninsula in the S. of Asia, which has the Bay of Bengal on the E. and the Arabian Sea on the W., and is separated from the mainland by the Hindu-Kush and the Himalaya Mountains; politically the name includes besides the Punjab in the N. and Burma in the E.; the centre of the peninsula is a great plateau called the Deccan, between which and the snow-clad Himalaya stretch the great fertile basins of the Ganges, the Thar Desert, and the arid wastes of the Indus Valley; great varieties of climate are of course met with, but the temperature is prevailingly high, and the monsoons of the Indian Ocean determine the regularity of the rainy season, which occurs from June to October; the country generally is insalubrious; the vegetation is correspondingly varied, but largely tropical; rice, cereal crops, sugar, and tobacco are generally grown; cotton in Bombay and the Central Provinces, opium in the Ganges Valley, jute in Eastern Bengal, and indigo in Behar; coffee and tea are raised by Europeans in the hill country on virgin soil; the chief mineral deposits are extensive coal-fields between the Ganges and the Godavari, the most valuable salt deposits in the world in the Punjab, and deposits of iron, the purest found anywhere, in many parts of the country, which, however, are wrought only by native methods; native manufactures are being largely superseded by European methods, and the young cotton-weaving industry flourishes well; the country is well populated on the whole, with a relative scarcity of big towns; the people belong to many different races, and speak languages representing four distinct stocks; the vast bulk of them are Brahmanists or Hindus; there are many Mohammedans, Buddhists (in Burma), and Parsees (in Bombay); 2¼ millions are Christians, and there are other religions; India has been subject to many conquests; the Aryan, Greek, and Mussulman invasions swept from the NW.; the Portuguese obtained a footing on the SW. coast in the 15th century; the victories of Plassey 1757, and Seringapatam 1799, established British rule throughout the whole peninsula, and the principle that native princes where they retained their thrones were vassals; Sind was won in 1843 and the Punjab in 1849, and the powers of the East India Company transferred to the Queen in 1857, who was proclaimed Empress in 1877; the government is vested in a governor-general aided by an executive and a legislative council, under control, however, of a Secretary of State for India and council at home; there are governors and lieutenant-governors of the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and of the various provinces; native States are all attached to and subject to the supervision of the government of a province; there is a native army of 146,000 men, and 74,000 European troops are maintained in the country; British rule has developed the resources of the country, advanced its civilisation, and contributed to the welfare of the people; Indian finance is not yet satisfactory; the currency is based on silver, the steady depreciation of which metal has never ceased to hamper the national funds.

India, (1) The Imperial Order of the Crown of, founded in 1878, includes the Queen and certain royal princes, English and Indian, female relatives of the Viceroy, of the governors of Bombay and Madras, and others in high places in India; (2) The Most Exalted Order of the Star of, founded in 1861 and since enlarged, with the sovereign for head and the viceroy as grand-master, and three different grades of knights, designed severally G.C.S.I., K.C.S.I, and C.S.I., a blue ribbon with white stripes being the badge; and (3) The Most Eminent Order of the Empire of, founded in 1878 and enlarged in 1887, with queen and empress at the head, and a knighthood similar to the preceding, their motto, “Imperatricis auspiciis.”


Indian Civil Service, a service which, besides embracing the ordinary departments of civil administration, includes judicial, medical, territorial, and even military staff appointments, appointments dependent on the possession of regulated, more or less academic, qualifications.

Indian Mutiny, a wide-spread rebellion on the part chiefly of the Sepoys against British authority in 1857, and which was suppressed by a strong force under Sir Colin Campbell in 1858.

Indian Ocean is that stretch of sea between Africa on the W. and Australia, Java, and Sumatra on the E., which separates in the N. into the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal; the monsoons, or trade-winds, blow here with great regularity; from April to October they are strong from the SW., from October to April more gentle in the opposite direction; there are many islands and reefs of coral formation, such as the Maldive group; St. Paul's and Mauritius are volcanic, while Madagascar and Ceylon are typical continental islands.

Indian Territory, a stretch of country in the basin of the Arkansas, Canadian, and Red Rivers, with Kansas on the N., Arkansas on the E., Oklahoma Territory on the W., and separated by the Red River from Texas on the S., set apart for the occupation of the Indian tribes of the western prairies; formerly double its present size, it has been reduced by the purchase in 1890 of Oklahoma.; in the centre and east are fertile plains and great forests of walnut and maple, in which deer and bears abound; the west is a treeless prairie supporting vast herds of cattle; mineral resources are probably rich, but are undeveloped; the principal tribes have their own organisations and civilised institutions, churches, schools, banks, and newspapers; the towns are small, Tahlequah, Lehigh, and M'Alister are the chief.

Indus, a great river of India, 1800 m. long; rises in Thibet, on the N. of the Himalayas, flows NW. through Cashmere, then SW. through the Punjab and Sind to the sea; its upper course is through great gorges and very rapid, but after the entrance of the Kabul River its way lies through arid plains, and it is navigable; after receiving the Panjnad its volume decreases through evaporation and the sinking of some of the many streams into which it divides in the sand; on one of the branches of the delta stands the thriving port of Kurrachee.