INDIA

INDIA

Geography of  Today's India:

India is 3 287 263 km² large. It is situated in south-Asia, along the tropic of cancer.

The population is about 936 mill. people. Because there are many catastrophies- for example droughts, floods, typhoons or earthquakes- and parts of the Himalayas in the north, many people leave the land and move to the cities. The two biggest cities are Bombay and Calcutta, there live about 20 mill. people. But the capital is New Delhi.

In India there are 3690 people per doctor. It is a developing country. That means it has a very low average income and a high birth rate.

The official language is English, but many people speak Hindi or one of the numberous religious languages.

The history of India:

The Indus culture is the least known one of the high cultures.

First, it developed in West- Pakistan. In the middle of the third century, groups of farmers began to expand their work to the Indus plain. Once there was a very high moisture, swamps and jungles.

The houses were built by (burned) bricks. The living culture was on a high level. They had a good watering system and canalisation. For example the cities Harappa and Mohendjo- daro

Their mainproduction was wheat and cotten. They traded with the west, nearly all metals had to be imported.They exported signets and cotton.

Bronze and copper were used as prestigeous objects. With clay they produced little statues of cattles, bulls, tigers and elephants.

Archeologists also found colourful dishes.

Even today the old Indian writing cannnot be read by us. The Indians wrote on plates of clay. They had a pictographic writing which was written from right to left.

The definition 'Indus culture' is not completely right, because some parts were found near the river Ganges and near the Gujarat coast.

The Indus culture was destroyed by the Aryans, who destroyed the Gangesvalley too, some time later. The advantage of the Aryans was only military, their culture was less developed.

The Indian people who were called 'Dasa' were allowed to keep their religion, but they were not allowed to marry an Aryan. The Aryans had their own religion with the god 'Indra' that we know from the Veden which is a collection of religious songs and speeches.

The origion of the caste- system must be in India, because nothing like that was ever found in Indo-Europe.

The two main religions of India:

Hinduism

It developed in 1300 BC. It's a mixture of many different religions and philosophical points of view. The Hinduism has no founder and no place where it is taught.

Three rules are for every school of Hinduism:

1) To hold on the vedes.

2) To belong to one caste.

3) Renicarnate

During the Indo- European migrations the Aryans came to India and brought, next to the cattles, also  many religious changes.

In 1300 BC they finally wrote the Vedes. These are collections of songs and poems in which they sing for their gods.

Already in the earlier time two schools- one god/ many gods- came into existence.

First there were four castes which divided the people in social groups. Only the Untouchables were taken away from the Hinduism society.

It is not possible to get into a higher caste. Only if you do all things, religion expects from you, it could be that you would be born into a higher caste after death.

BUDDHISM:

Many years before it came into existence, wise men said that it would be developed about 500 BC-they were right! The founder of Buddhism was Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

He had everything when he grew up but when he married he suddenly wanted to know the secret of life.

He left his wife and his son and became a monk. Many years later he got the answers while he was sitting under a fig-tree. He became the Buddha.

The knowledge that you reincarnate again and  again until you come to the Nirvana is the most important thing in Buddhism.

There are some things you must do if you want to get there:

right living

right thinking

right doing

right

and so on, these things are very important but only that way you can reach the Nirvana.

Women in India:

It is a big problem that women are discriminated by religion. Although it is not allowed by government

Indian men have to 'buy' husbands for their daughters. But because many families can't affort a high dowry (Mitgift) they have to give the young girls, who are between 14 and 22, to 'bad' husbands, because they accept a low dowry.

There are many dowry deaths because men kill their wives if their fathers can't pay the price after the marriage.

In 1989 there were 4006 murders registrated but women's-rights-groups think that there were far more. Some young girls even kill themselves, when they realise that they are only a burden (Bürde) for their parents.

Childlabour:

Another great problem in India is childlabour. Like in each developing country children are exploited and forced to do hard work just because they want to survive. But in India, the rate of childlabour is extremely high. Often these children are not older than 3 years. Bad illnesses can be caused by the hard work and often the working conditions are really fatal. There is no safeguard against poisonous gases and in many cases these children have to suffer all the rest of their life.