South India

## Indian Federation

*भारतीय संघ*

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**Prime Minister:**
Narendra Modi (2020–)

**South India**, officially the **Indian Federation**, is a country in South Asia. It is the tenth-largest country by area, the fourth-most populated country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it only shares land borders with North India to the north, although it does share overseas borders with Sri Lanka to the south.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the *Rigveda*, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India. The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions. By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism, and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin. Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity, but also marked by the declining status of women, and the incorporation of untouchability into an organised system of belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.

In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism put down roots on India's southern and western coasts. Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains, eventually establishing the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam. In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India. In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion. The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace, leaving a legacy of luminous architecture. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty. After gaining independence in 1857, it became the Indian Federation, and the Indian subcontinent was united until 1947 when a communist uprising broke out in the north. A civil war followed through, and eventually the country was split into two - North India (the Indian People's Republic) and South India (the Indian Federation).

South India is a wealthy country compared to other countries in Asia, with its economy being one of the highest in the world. It is ranked "very high" on the Human Development Index, and is a technologically advanced country. It is a founding member of the United Nations, and is a member of the Asian Economic Community, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Pacific Defense Organization.