With almost 1.4 billion people, more than 13 different languages spoken, and an emerging market with a seemingly bright future ahead India is an extremely important country to learn more about. In this article I will be talking about the history of India, government, geography and more.
Early India used to be known as the Indus Valley Civilization. It is hard to know too much about the Indus Valley Civilization since nobody can read their language, but historians were able to figure out a few things. The Indus Valley Civilization was located around the Indus rivers within a valley. The Indus rivers flooded predictably making farming easier. The Indus Valley civilization also started trading a lot earlier than other early civilizations at the time making them bigger than most other civilizations. Throughout the history of the Indus Valley Civilization they went through many different rules with varying religious beliefs making India one of the most religiously diverse countries. So of the religions include: Hinduism (most commonly), Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, and Jain.
India is considered an emerging market, this means that it has some things about it that make it a market, but doesn’t meet all the standards. The emerging part of it means that it is starting to become more and more developed and will probably become a market one day. India has one-sixth of the world's population putting it in second place after China as the most populated country. It is predicted that India may have a higher population than China by 2030. There are many languages spoken in India including: Hindi (about 30% of people), English (commonly used for business), Bengali, Tenagu, Urdu, Marathi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Gujarati, Tamil, Oriya, Sindhi, Sanskrit, and Hindustani.
India is one of the most diverse countries with a population of around 1.2 billion people, speaking 13 different languages, and with more than six religions. While India is only an emerging market right now, it has huge potential for a booming economy.
India’s government is structured where each of their 29 states has a mini government controlling it. The governments are a democracy in which religious beliefs and backgrounds have a lot of influence over who people vote for. So while India has a democracy, a lot of what dictates whether someone is going to be nominated is by whether their religion is the largest within the voting population. There is often political tension between different religions as well. With a lot of conflict between different religions, and India's huge diversity in beliefs, this can sometimes be problematic. A few times there have been Muslim rebels against the government because of this.
First, to start talking about India’s economy, we should probably talk about why India is considered an “emerging market.” Previously I defined an emerging market as “If something is an emerging market it means that it has some things about it that make it a market, but doesn’t meet all the standards. The emerging part of it means that it is starting to become more and more developed and will probably become a market one day.” India has the fastest growing trillion-dollar economy in the world. In 2019 India became the fifth largest economy in the world! The main force driving India’s economy is agriculture, but India also has many commodities that they can export to other countries such as: coal, iron, and bauxite. A lot of its advantage is India's abundance of various natural resources.
Many people believe that a big reason why the United States became the world's biggest superpower was because of geography. The United States has a giant moat around east and west borders called the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. This is highly convenient since the US didn’t have to worry too much about conflicts with surrounding countries and could focus on growing itself to become the world’s superpower. India has not as much benefit from geography but enough that India has already started rapidly growing their economy. The lower half of India is completely surrounded by water providing India with a moat just like the US. And the border India shares with China is protected by the Himalayas. The only inconvenience seems to be the border with Pakistan. Especially because India and Pakistan have had many conflicts over the years.
As the world increasingly becomes more flat with technology, and more companies willing to hire those from other countries, it seems as though India is positioned to be a strong part of the workforce and economy worldwide in the future.