History 11 Final

Natya Shastra

Treatise on Natya; an ancient book service as an encyclopedic treatise on the arts, which has influenced Indian dance, music, and literary traditions.

Bharatnatyam

Possibly the biggest classical Indian dance, reflecting emotion, melody, and rhythm, originating from Tamil Nadu

Kathak

A dance invented in 19th/20th centuries, but rooted in 13th century; comes from North India; performed by female temple dancers

Zia ul-Haqq

Military dictator of Pakistan from 1977-1988; launched a plan to make Pakistan Muslim

Constituent Assembly

The group elected in 1946 to draft the Constitution, who acted as India’s first Parliament upon independence

SITA Act

The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, passed in 1956, is India’s foundational legislation aimed at reducing human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation

MF Husain

One of India’s most famous painters; he was shamed by the Indian right-wing movement for ‘denigrating Hindu icons of faith;’ he was permanently exiled because of a drawing

The Nation-State

A sovereign political entity inhabited by a relatively homogenous group of people; this emerged in postcolonial South Asia, with the partition into several nations based on religious majority populations

Raja Ravi Varma

(1848-1906), an Indian painter who fused European academic art with Indian sensibility and iconography; he combined art and nationalism; believed colonialism provides the intellectual and artistic substrate of a modern Indian artistic imagination

Bharat Mata

(a.k.a. “Mother India) — a national personification of India as a mother goddess, typically dressed in a red or yellow/orange sari, sometimes holding the national flag

Annie Besant

(1847-1933) An English socialist activist, involved in women’s rights, Home Rule, and Indian nationalism; in 1917, she became the first female president of the Indian National Congress. She founded the Indian Home Rule League in 1916; she remained in India for the rest of her life after moving there in 1893; she was president of the Theosophical Society from 1907-1933

Theosophical Society

An organization headquartered in Chennai, promoting universal brotherhood, comparative study of religion/science, and investigation of natural laws. It gained prominence while Annie Besant was president, fostering social reform, education, and spiritual understanding

Tawaif/Devadasi

They were highly skilled dancers/entertainers in Mughal India. They had origins in the Islamicized north Indian culture, in the temple dancing courtesan tradition. They evolved into highly educated people, often trained in performing arts and languages. They were often independently wealthy, and often politically important due to their guests’ status

Thanjavur

A city in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Around 1010 CE, a king built a temple here, which is still around, The walls of this temple depict the 81 dance positions outlined in the Natyashastra. Supposedly, thousands of dancers were brought to serve at this temple. After the end of the Chola Dynasty, it was ruled by a vassal of the Delhi Sultanate, until it was taken over by the Vijayanagara Empire.

Annexation of Awadh

February 11, 1856; Governor-General Lord Dalhousie cited “maladministration” by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and took over the state. It disrupted local social order, dispossessed nobles, and fueled deep resentment. This was a primary cause of the 1857 Rebellion.

First Urbanization

Indus Valley Civilization; flourished from around 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. The Bronze Age civilization was known for its advanced planning, grid-pattern cities, baked brisk structures, sophisticated drainage systems, and trade

Second Urbanization

(c. 600-200 BCE) New urban settlement arose at the Ganges plain; Magadha gained prominence, which formed the base of the Maurya Empire. This period saw the rise of the 16 Mahajanapadas.

Bengal

Now divided between eastern India and Bangladesh, this region has been incredibly historically important in South Asia. In 1943, a famine here left up to 3 million dead. When the Mughals arrived here in the 17th century, it was largely unsettled and uncultivated, with the incredibly dense mangrove Sunderban forest being difficult to settle

Treaty of the Indus

304 BCE: Agreement between Seleucus I of the Seleucid Empire and Chandragupta Maurya of the Maurya Empire. Seleucus ceded modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan to Chandragupta in exchange for 500 war elephants and a marriage alliance

Seleucus I Nikator

A Greek general who succeeded Alexander the Great, and founded the Seleucid Empire. In 320 BCE, he was awarded Satrapy of Babylonia. From 315-312 BCE, he was in an entourage with Ptolemy of Egypt.

Megesthenes’ Indica

A now lost historical account of Mauryan India from c. 3-4th c. BCE. It claims that Herakles founded several cities, including Palibothra/Pataliputra. Only fragments in later Greek and Latin works have survived.

Filkhana

A locality in Uttar Pradesh that was historically a British-era cantonment area. Its name translates to “Elephant Yard” or “Elephant House.” Now it is a bustling centrally located area.

Shikar

Organized, big-game hunting on the Indian subcontinent during colonial times. During the British Raj, it was considered a “sport of kings.”

Dakshin Rai

A mythological deity, the legendary “King of the South,” who rules over the forests, beasts, and spirits of the Sunderbans, a mangrove forest in Bengal.

Goddess Durga

(6th c. CE) a protector goddess who destroys dangers. She is depicted seated on a lion. She did not exist as a goddess when the Achaemenids first arrived in South Asia; the iconography was picked up from a royal tradition, which in turn had been picked up from a lion-human interface from earlier human civilizations. She is an embodiment of divine feminine energy, strength, and protection.

Cow Vigilantism

Groups often affiliated with Hindu nationalist organizations that enforce bans on cow slaughter and beef consumption.

Pulao

a.k.a. pilaf, a one-pot aromatic rice dish popular across South Asia, made by cooing basmati rice with whole spices, herbs, and other things like vegetables, meat, or nuts.

Biryani

Theorized to have emerged as a military food in the 13th century. It’s a rice dish made of layers of spiced rice, meat or vegetables, and aromatic ingredients like saffron and herbs, cooked in a sealed pot.

Husna Bai

A Tawaif in the late 19th and early 20th century, known in Uttar Pradesh as a master of several styles of music. She was trained by Thakur Prasad Mishra, and mastered tappa gayaki under legendary Chote Ramdas Ji. She is credited with redefining and revolutionizing the singing tradition in the early 1900s, singing patriotic songs and inspiring others to do the same.

Muziris Papyrus

(2nd c. CE) A Greek document discovered in Egypt, that provides evidence of trade between Roman Egypt and the Malabar Coast of India. The ship that the document was for held a 250 ton load of pepper, ivory, and spikenard (used in the aromatic oil used to anoint Jesus).

All India Radio (AIR)

India’s state-owned public radio broadcaster, under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It is one of the largest radio networks in the world. It covers almost 92% of India’s geographic area and 99.19% of its population.

Shah Jahanabad

The new part of Delhi established and built under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as the new capital in 1638-1648, and was the capital until 1857. It is now known as Old Delhi. It has historic landmarks like the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid.

New Delhi

The newest part of the city, built starting in 1911, designed by British architects. The new capital was inaugurated in February 13, 1931. It is still the capital of India, and serves as the seat of all three branches of the Indian Government.

The Durbar

Three massive events in 1877, 1903, and 1911, organized by the British to mark the succession of British monarchs as Emperors/Empresses of India. They were increasingly ornamental processions and public performances; they had to make themselves available to the Indian people (the important/wealthy ones) now that they were ruling. They ended with the 1911 creation of New Delhi.

Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936) An English author born in British India, whose work often centered on British soldiers in India and British imperialism, including The Jungle Book. He also wrote The White Man’s Burden.

Amrita Sher Gil

(1913-41) A Hungarian-Indian painter, who is considered a pioneer in modern Indian art. “Young Girls” (1932) is one of her famous paintings. She moved to India in 1934, and began traveling in India in 1935, looking for Indian art. She was attentive to women and saw them in a profound way; she saw a kind of life of the people of India in a sympathetic way, not a life of the gods.

Bengal Famine of 1943

During World War II, a famine in which 2.1-3 million people died. They called for freedom from hunger, and Nehru was quoted saying “the fight for freedom is the real fight for food.”

Subhas Chandra Bose

(1897-1945) An Indian anti-colonial nationalist who defied British authority, but allied with Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II. He was a radical leader in India’s movement for independence, who believed in armed struggle against British rule, unlike Gandhi. He founded the Indian National Army and the Provisional Government of Free India in 1943.

Green Revolution

1965: American corn arrived in India. The hub of this movement is the International Rice Research Institute, which was creating new varieties of rice with higher yields, funded by the private Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. It was part of the international development economics idea.

Indira Gandhi

(1917-1984) Prime minister of India from 1966-1977, and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She is the only female prime minister in the history of India. She was the leader of the Indian National Congress, and was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. Her son succeeded her as prime minister.

The Emergency of 1975

A 21 month period when prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a national state of emergency, citing internal and external threats to the country. It gave the prime minister authority to rule by decree, cancelling elections and suspending civil liberties.

Operation Blue Star

June 1984. A military operation by the Indian Armed Forced, with the stated objective of removing militant members of Damdani Taksal from the Sikh holy site, the Golden Temple. This operation led to Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her own bodyguards.

Ahmadiyya

A Muslim community founded in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in British India, advocating for peace and adherence to original Islamic teachings. This community is considered heretical by many mainstream Muslim groups, and still faces a lot of violence and discrimination.

Nizam of Hyderabad

The ruler of the state of Hyderabad, the title given to Asaf Jah I when he became Viceroy of the Deccan.

Communist Party of India

Political party founded in 1925. The Razakar Militia tried to suppressed this party, which ended the communist revolutionary struggle in India.

Hudud Ordinances

A set of laws introduced in Pakistan in 1979 as part of the Islamization process. It replaced parts of the British-era penal code with Islamic-based punishments for offenses like theft, alcohol consumption, false accusation, and adultery.

Maharaja Hari Singh

(1895-1961) Former Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. He was the last ruling Maharaja of this princely state. He was Hindu, but a quite unpopular ruler. He threw Sheikh Abdullah, the leader of the National Conference, in jail, because he was trying to get autonomy.

Kashmir and Jammu

A state in northern India, which has special autonomy until its revocation in 2019. It has no central government holding significant control, and is instead governed by a Lieutenant Governor.

Article 370

An article of the Indian Constitution that granted special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir, allowing it a separate constitution and flag. It was revoked in 2019, integrating this region into India.

Shaikh Mujib ur-Rahman

(1920-1975) A Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, and activist, who was the founding president of Bangladesh.

Madras

Now known as Chennai; the capital city of Tamil Nadu. This city came into existence profoundly under colonialism. In the 1600s, it was a center of colonial industry.

Lahore

Annexed by the British in 1849. The British built new suburbs outside of the city; they heavily differentiated between the new city and old city, with explicit racial divisions.

Times of India

Newspaper started in Bombay. It was founded by Europeans, but most of the people actually working on it were Indians; it became “Indianized.” It was started in 1838.

Calcutta

A colonial city built by the British East India Company in the 18th century; it was designed to be grand in a European style. It was the center of British power in India for a long time.

Jahangir (in the context of the Koch article)

The first Mughal emperor under which art shows a distinct cartographic interest. He was often depicted holding or standing on a globe. He is known for having engaged with European forms of cartographic representation.

Ban Bibi

A forest goddess revered in the Sunderbans forest. She is worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims as a protector against forest dangers and tiger attacks, and is considered the “Lady of the Forest.” She is believed to be the daughter of Ibrahim, a Sufi ascetic from Mecca.

Mahajanapadas

16 major kingdoms and republics representing the second urbanization in ancient India, which showed a shift from tribal societies to powerful, fortified city-states. They flourished in the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. These set the stage for the Maurya Empire.

Ajanta

A cave complex in Maharashtra, India. They were built between 200-700 CE, and feature rock-cut caves, where Buddhist monastic communities lived. Over hundreds of years, more and more were built, expanding to include Hindu temples as well. The inside of the caves feature painted frescos portrayed the Jataka Tales. The area is heavily forested, and began to be preserved in the early 19th century.

Abanindranath Tagore

(1871-1951) An Indian painter who was the principal artist and creator of the Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907. He was the first major exponent of Swadeshi values in Indian art. In 1905, he painted the famous Bharat Mata painting, depicting a national personification of India as a mother goddess.

Chromolithography

A 19th century technique for making multi-color prints. It allows copies of paintings and other artworks to be created and distributed. In India in the 1860s, the technique allowed for the mass-production of affordable, vibrant images of Hindu deities, often called “calendar art.” In the reading by Christopher Plinney, he describes how this method revolutionized visual culture in India.

Dandi March

Led by Mahatma Gandhi in April 1930 to protest the government’s monopoly on salt. It was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India, also known as the Salt Satyagraha.

The Telangana Uprising

(1946-48) It was a communist-led insurrection of peasants against the princely state of Hyderabad. At its peak, the rebellion directly administered at least 4,000 villages. It ended when the Nehru government set up a military administration, which launched an unexpected attack on the communes following the annexation of Hyderabad.

Amitabh Bachchan

An Indian actor considered one of the most accomplished and successful actors in the history of Indian cinema. His most famous works include Sholay (1975) and Deewar (1975).

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

A militant separatist organization founded in 1976. They engaged in a violent 3 decade civil war against the government of Sri Lanka. They wanted to create an independent Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. It was effectively dismantled in May 2009.

Manmohan Singh

(1932-2024) The prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He was a member of the Indian National Congress, and is the only Sikh to serve as Indian prime minister. He is known for liberalizing India’s economy during his tenure as Finance Minister in 1991, sparking high growth. His time as prime minister saw major rights-based social reforms, and rapid economic expansion.

Operation Searchlight

A military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in March 1971 to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan. It directly precipitated the Bangladesh genocide, in which up to 3 million Bengalis were killed and around 10 million fled to India as refugees. The violence escalated the nationalist movement, and the Pakistani forces surrender December 1971.

Daulat

A term meaning “wealth,” “prosperity,” or “state.” It is also the name of a 1982 Hindi crime drama.

Lucknow

The capital city of Uttar Pradesh. It was a major center of British rule, and was one of the major centers of the 1857 Rebellion and India’s independence movement. After a joint session held here in 1916, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League reached an agreement to get religious minorities represented in provincial legislatures.

Wajid Ali Shah

(1822-1887) The last Nawab of Awadh. He was deposed by the British in 1856, but is still known as having transformed Lucknow into a center of music and dance; he was a premier patron of arts and culture.

Jim Corbett

(1875-1955) An Anglo-Indian hunter and author. He gained fame for hunting and killing several man-eating tigers and leopards in Northern India. He wrote about this experience in Man-Eaters of Kumaon.

George Orwell

(1903-1950) An Anglo-Indian writer. He is most famous for novels like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He wrote about his experience being an officer under the British colonial government in India in Burmese Days, including a story of him shooting an elephant that went mad.

Sunderbans

A mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta, now spanning between India’s West Bengal and Bangladesh. Much of the area in both countries is now protected land. The colonial period led to land reclamation, deforestation, and then systemic management of the remaining forest after 1869.

Red Fort

A historical Mughal fort in Old Delhi. It was built by Emperor Shah Jahan, serving as the royal Mughal residence for 200 years. Under British rule, many of the structures were destroyed, but it was used as the location of the series of English Durbars in the early 20th century.

The Discovery of India

A book by Jawaharlal Nehru written during his 1942-1945 imprisonment. It’s a historical account of India’s history, philosophy, and culture, and brings in his personal reflections on India’s identity, democracy, and future.

Faiz

An Arabic term meaning successful and victorious.

Turani Mughals

A group of Mughal nobility from Central Asia. They were Turkic-speaking people, often in high-ranking military positions. During the early years of Akbar’s reign, they dominated the nobility, but their position eventually became more balanced. They were important generals, administrators, and governors through the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.

Bombay

The most European city in India, with sidewalks and public spaces. It was a vital commercial hub to the British East India Company, and was called the “Gateway to India.”

Kamathipura

A historic red-light district in Bombay, which was established in the late 18th century. It was written about in “Secret Geographies of Bombay’s Sex Trade, 1880-1920” by Tambe.

Contagious Diseases Acts

19th century British laws regulating prostitution and managing venereal diseases among troops. They forced female sex workers in cantonment towns to register and submit to medical exams; they were later repealed in the 1880s. They were criticized for only targeting women, and ignoring men transmitting diseases.

Assam

A state in northeastern India. In recent decades, this region has faced many issues due to its large Muslim population. Detention centers here house many residents suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This region has been especially affected by the National Register of Citizens.

The Brahmaputra River

A river flowing through China, India, and Bangladesh. It has shaped the region’s culture and economy. It floods frequently, temporarily displacing many people who live in its floodplains regularly.

National Register of Citizens

An official record of legal Indian citizens, mandated by a 2003 amendment to the 1955 Citizenship Act. It is designed to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. It serves as a complete list of citizens, so anyone left off the list is at risk of being deemed an illegal immigrant, and being detained or deported. This has primarily affected minority religious populations.

All India Women’s Conference

An NGO founded in 1927 to improve women’s and children’s education in India. It is involved in legislative advocacy, supporting the Child Marriage Restraint Act, Hindu Code Bill, Devdasi Act, and more. It was influential in framing the Indian Constitution.

Aurangzeb (Alamgir I)

(1618-1707) The Mughal emperor under which the empire reached its greatest extent. Under his reign, it encompassed nearly the entire Indian subcontinent. He sought to run the state strictly according to Islamic law, and re-imposed the jizya tax, and banned practices he considered un-Islamic.

Satyagraha

A philosophy of nonviolent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi. It translates to “approaching truth” and advocates for “surrender without subordination.”

Liaquat Ali Khan

(1895-1951) The first prime minister of Pakistan. He was fairly left-leaning, but wanted a Muslim democracy. He was so unpopular that the communist and authoritarian groups conspired against him, and he was assassinated in 1951 He played a key role in the consolidation of the state of Pakistan.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz

(1911-1984) A Pakistani poet and author. He was known for revolutionizing Urdu literature, and his ideas remain widely influential in and beyond Pakistan and India. His poetry challenged oppression and demanded social justice.

Hindi Belt

A linguistic region in northern, central, eastern, and western India, where Hindi languages are spoken. It encompasses all Indian states whose official language is Modern Standard Hindi. This area is central to India’s politics, culture, and demographics, and represents about 40% of India’s population.

Atal Buhari Vajpayee

(1924-2018) Prime minister of India from 1998-2004. He was a co-founder and senior leader of the BJP. He carried out nuclear tests, and sought to improve diplomatic relations with Pakistan.

Diaspora

The dispersal of a population across regions outside of its geographic place of origin. South Asians make up the largest of these populations globally. Communities around the world maintain strong cultural ties to South Asia.

Naxalites

A communist ideological group of political and insurgent groups from India. They are influenced by Maoist political sentiment and ideology. This insurgency remains in parts of India to this day.

Telegraph

Communication technology introduced in the mid-19th century, with the introduction of railways. The offices tied India into a system connecting them to the world, from Australia to England. It made it possible to send. news and information in a completely new and efficient way.

The Blood Telegram

A communication sent on April 6, 1971, via the US State Department’s Dissent Channel. It is one of the most strongly worded expressions of dissent in the history of U.S. Foreign Service. It criticized the Nixon administration’s support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh genocide, and accused the US government of “moral bankruptcy.”

The Blue Mutiny

A small uprising in Bengal in 1859 as a result of the forced cultivation of indigo. It led to the passage of the 1862 Indigo Act.

Pepper

A major agricultural product in South Asia. It made up most of the load on an Egyptian ship from the 2nd century CE that had traded with India.

Schedule Castes and Tribes

Classifications within Indian society tha