India is a mystical land of seductive images. Hinduism and its religious rites and red-letter days are woven into the fabric of everyday life. It is also India’s vastness that challenges the imagination, being home to one sixth of the world’s population.

Its intoxicatingly rich history can be traced back to at least 2500BC when the first known civilisation settled along the Indus River. There was an influx of Moghuls in the 1520s from Central Asia, who maintained effective control of the north until the mid 18th century.

At the end of that century, as the Moghul Empire declined, the British took control of the whole subcontinent, and the whole of India was administered by a single alien power... more about India...