TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Independence in South Asia

 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Terms and People

• partition – division
• Kashmir – an Indian state located in the Himalayan
mountains; subject to persistent unrest due to its
divided population of Hindus and Muslims
• Jawaharlal Nehru – India’s first prime minister;
served from 1947 to 1964
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Terms and People (continued)

• Indira Gandhi – daughter of Nehru; served twice

as Indian prime minister, from 1966 to 1977 and
from 1980 to 1984
• Golden Temple – the holiest Sikh shrine
• Bangladesh – formerly East Pakistan; became an
independent Bengali nation in 1971
• nonalignment – political and diplomatic
independence from the two Cold War superpowers
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

How did nationalist demands for

independence affect South Asia and
the world?

As the Cold War was unfolding, global

independence movements were reshaping
the world.
Among the first new nations to win independence
were the former British colonies of South Asia.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

In 1947, India finally won independence

from Britain. But independence brought with
it new conflict.

Mohandas Muhammad Ali

Gandhi and the Jinnah and the
Hindu Congress Muslim League
Party wanted a feared Hindu
unified India. domination.

Britain decided to divide South Asia into two

separate countries. India would be largely Hindu
and Pakistan largely Muslim.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The partition of South Asia led to violence.

When the new Hindus and An estimated

borders were Sikhs in India 1 million
announced, murdered people were
about 10 Muslims, and killed; many
million Muslims in more starved
refugees fled, Pakistan killed or died of
mostly on foot. Hindus. exposure.

Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a

Hindu extremist who opposed his efforts to reconcile
Hindus and Muslims.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Conflict has continued in the decades since

independence.

India and Pakistan

fought a series of
wars over Kashmir,
an Indian province
on the Pakistani
border with a large
Muslim population.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Although the province was given to India in the partition,

a majority of the people of Kashmir are Muslims.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

In the 1970s, a nuclear arms race developed

between India and Pakistan.

• Both nations successfully held nuclear tests

by 1998.
• Neighboring countries in South Asia were alarmed
by the increasing hostility. They feared that
extremists might get access to nuclear weapons.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

When it became The priority of Jawaharlal

independent in Nehru, the first prime
1947, India faced minister, was to improve
many challenges. India’s economy.

Food output increased, but so did population growth.

The government encouraged family planning programs
to reduce the birthrate, but with limited success.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The caste system was a challenge to

modernization.

• India’s 1947 constitution banned discrimination

against the dalits, members of the lowest Hindu
caste, but discrimination continued.

• Nehru’s government set aside jobs and places in

universities for dalits and other lower-caste
Indians.

• Still, higher-caste Hindus generally got better

jobs and education.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

In 1966 the Congress Party elected Nehru’s

daughter, Indira Gandhi, as prime minister.

• She served as prime

minister from 1966 to
1977 and from 1980 to
1984, when she was
assassinated.

• A firm leader, she

challenged traditional
discrimination against
women.
Indira Gandhi with her father,
Jawaharlal Nehru
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

India is the world’s largest democracy, but it has

faced great difficulty in creating unity.

• Uniting speakers of over

100 languages and dialects
has been a challenge.
• Religious hostility among
Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs,
and others has threatened
India’s democracy.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Religious strife has led to several crises.

• Separatists in Punjab, a largely Sikh state, wanted

independence. In 1984, armed Sikhs took over the
holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple.
• After Gandhi sent in troops to end the revolt, her Sikh
bodyguards assassinated her.
• The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) challenged the
secular government. They wanted a Hindu government
and encouraged violence against Muslims.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

• The two parts were separated by

Pakistan was 1,000 miles of Indian territory.
created as a
single nation • East Pakistan was mostly
in 1947, but Bengali, while West Pakistan was
it was home to other ethnic groups.
physically
divided into • West Pakistan dominated the
East Pakistan government, though East
and West Pakistan was more populous.
Pakistan. • The government focused most
economic development programs
on West Pakistan. East Pakistan
remained deep in poverty.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Bengalis in East Pakistan resented governmental

neglect.

• In 1971, they declared their

independence from Pakistan.
East Pakistan took the name
INDIA Bangladesh.
• The Pakistani army tried to
crush the rebellion, but India
sent forces to help Bangladesh.
• Pakistan had no choice but to
recognize the new nation.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

Since winning independence, Bangladesh has

struggled to modernize.

• It is a very crowded and poor

nation.

INDIA
• It suffers from frequent
tropical storms and floods.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

• Muslim fundamentalists
Pakistan favored stricter Islamic law.
has suffered
from political • Other groups sought to
instability. separate government from
religion.
• Tension among ethnic groups
and other factions has caused
frequent conflict.

Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in Pakistan and

Afghanistan. Terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, have
set up strongholds in northwestern Pakistan.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

The British colony of Ceylon gained

independence in 1948 and changed its name
to Sri Lanka in 1972.

• A majority of Sri Lankans are

Buddhists who speak Sinhalese.
• A minority of Tamil-speaking
Hindus have struggled for
independence since the 1970s.
Terrorism and brutality have
been a constant in the conflict.
 TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.

India, Pakistan, and other new nations tried

to stay neutral in the Cold War.

Pakistan and In 1955, India They called for

India were and Pakistan nonalignment,
among the organized a refusing to side
first former meeting of with either the
colonies to newly Western allies or
gain their independent the Soviet Union.
independence nations.
after World
War II.