Taking a Look at India's Geography

Chapter four targets western Europe. Western Europe has the biggest economy in the world, this may be a result of the long, navigable rivers, that were made for trading and transporting goods. It may also be considered the origin of the modern world. The fifth chapter relates to Africa. Africa is commonly known as a less successful region. Many of its rivers are counterproductive, as you encounter a waterfall every few miles. The one river that is effective is its most popular, the Nile River. Because borders in Africa are artificial, many ethnic conflicts arise. The next chapter is about the Middle East. The Middle East contains the world’s largest sand desert called the Rub al Khali or “Empty Quarter”. The Middle East is also home to several countries in poverty, and the familiar terrorist organization ISIS. The seventh chapter focuses on India and Pakistan. Although they were once a single country, Pakistan and India can agree on one thing, they don’t want to be around the other. India is a striving country with a rich economy, while Pakistan is the complete opposite. The countries have had countless wars over

Disputes over land seem to be a catalyst for almost every hostility and war since the dawn of time. The addition of politics and religion into the matter only serves to aggravate an already tense situation. Kashmir knows this all too well. The conflict between Hindus and Muslims seems to be an ever reoccurring battle. This is also evidenced in population battles. Hindus make up the social majority of the population of India by almost eighty percent. Feelings of tension and uneasiness are a natural reaction to being dominated by a majority and are a problem unto itself.

As history repeats itself, we continue to notice that there are many geographic factors that effect regions across the world. A few of the most noticeable are monsoons and deserts. Over time these factors have altered the relationships between certain regions and benefitted our development in society. However, they can be extremely demoralizing as well. Not only is nature disrupted but the way in which people live on a daily basis. We are forced to make changes and adapt to the overwhelming geographic factors.

Dr. Lalvani brought up the fact that the British helped India by building 10,000 miles of track in just 25 years, and made India the world's largest employer and increased trade. However those tracks were used to extract and transport India’s raw materiels, and flood Indian markets with British textiles (Doc 3) Therefore the British tracks did not help India, it actually hurt them because of the unfair trade, and loss of their own countries raw materials. In addition to that, Dr. Lalvani also claimed that the British built national parks in India. National parks are used to preserve the land. The British cut down forests and replaced them with farms that grew cash crops, not food for the people, also the soil deteriorated, the water tables dropped, and the temperatures rose (Doc 6).The British did not preserve India's land, they destroyed it and on top of that, caused

Britain had taken an economic interest of India long ago in the 1600’s. India had quickly become the “Jewel of the Crown.” However as time went on, the British’s interest had developed India into a target for imperialism. In 1757, the British empire had won their battle and took control. The Englishmen had taken India’s power, caused them poverty, killed their environment, drove them into starvation, increased death rates, and wasted their time with ineffective education.

The Ganges River is very significant in the religion Hinduism, because it is believed that bathing in the water cleanses

As a society many are not aware that development can be more compelling through knowledge about other society’s life experiences. Even when becoming aware, societies continue with the lack of knowledge. This results in consequences in these societies and with international relations. There are tremendous forms of ethnocentrism that can cause crucial social problems, such as ethnic cleansing, colonialism, and racism. Many of these views are destined by world communities, however many frequently see the cases.

“Why Geography Matters” is a 282 page book, including the epilogue, written by Harm de Blij. It was published in New york, New York in 2005. Over the Summer I read and finished this book. This book is full of amazing facts and knowledge that pertain to , what geography is, how it effected past societies, how it will affect future societies, and how geography is a crucial part in our society. In the following summarization of “Why Geography Matters”, i will explain three main points that embody what this book is about, and what it tries to teach.

A: The Ganges River is the sacred river for Hinduism. Hindus consider its incessant flow and spiritual healing power as Earthly demonstrations of the Almighty.

Perhaps the lengthy, storied, and rich pasts of these people may cause them to cling to their traditions even though we understand that their way of life is no longer viable, as indicated by the extinction of tribes like the Ona (Nolan and Lenski 2014: 118). Unfortunately, the continued maintenance of hunter-gatherer ways may actually be explained as maladaptive for the survival of these societies – in essence, a form of intrasocietal selection maintained by elders for the benefit of preserving dying traditions at the expense of group survival. Many countries in various regions of the world are still significantly behind the curve in comparison to developed nations even without considering hunter-gatherer populations. Although the exact causes of this phenomenon remain up for debate, the promotion of problematic cultural aspects may worsen the already dramatic results of geographic isolation in affected areas; for instance, rigid socioeconomic castes inhibited India’s development of technology (Diamond 2005: 119). Debates about relativism remain controversial, but it appears rather clear that all cultural elements are not equally conducive to survival or dominance – although preservation is a noble end, certain practices may need to be gradually phased out to ensure the survival/equality of all, and

From religion to social order to even economic of the Indian subcontinent the affected by geography was always in action. Throughout the history of India, the geography always would play a role in the how India would development as a civilization.

The British rule in India can be summarised in two facts which are “India’s per capita income went stagnant from 1757 to 1947” and “the life expectancy of Indians fell by 20 percent” (Davis, 2000). This shows that the British rule in India was not one in which India flourished but it deteriorated. The British brought about changes in all spheres of life. There brought about many social, cultural and economic changes however, this paper will only focus on the economic aspect of colonialism. The British tried to commercialise Indian agriculture and therefore, promoted cash crop farming. They forced farmers to move away from traditional and subsistence based farming and practice cash crop farming. This shift caused many farmers to suffer as they did not get much share in the profit even though the demand for cash crops like cotton and wheat was very high. The farmers fell into poverty and lived in terrible conditions whereas, the middle

The history of the nation of India is a long and interesting one but most westernizes lack any true understanding of it. Like any long standing culture there have been good and bad periods in their history but one period has been identified as the "Golden Age of India (Dehejia, 1993)." This period, which lasted over a hundred years (322 BCE 185 BCE), began when an exiled general by the name of Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the reigning king Dhana Nanda. Once Chandragupta Maurya had established his new government in the Eastern area of India he began expanding his power westward across Central and Western India and, in the process, the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism also began to spread throughout India (Avari, 2007).

In this essay I hope to look at the issues of conflict in South Asia focusing on India and in particular the continuing Hindu-Muslim tensions, and look at possible reasons for the continuing conflict which appears to have escalated since the withdrawal of British Rule from India. Multiple events had shaped the Indian subcontinent with

The Ganges is a trans-limit waterway of Asia which courses through the countries of India and Bangladesh. The 2,525 km river ascends in Himalayas in the Indian province of Uttarakhand, and streams east and south through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it flows down into the Bay of Bengal. It is the third largest waterway on the planet by release. It is a main source of irrigation, water for drinking, fishing, precipitation and main species Royal Bengal Tiger and The Great Ganges Dolphin. It is considered as a holy river by the Hindu people so they worship it and perform some rituals in it which makes it dirty.