Ok, so now we're getting into the second half.
And here we go again:
11. Shankaracharya and Advaita Vedanta ~ 800 AD:
The revival of Hinduism and its formation in the way we know it today began to take shape during this time. Shankaracharyya, Madhava and Ramanuja played an important role in eliminating other contemporary schools of thought and consolidating what would become the mainstream Hinduism. An already declining Buddhism would gradually be absorbed into mainstream Hinduism in the centuries that would follow.
12. Rajendra Chola's Rule - 1012-1044 AD:
While Northern India was being ravaged by the hordes of one Sultan Mahmud of Ghazani, an Afghan invader who plundered the country in seventeen raids, South India saw one of its greatest rulers on the throne of the Chola Empire. Rajendra Chola's empire directly held Deccan in almost its entirety and thrugh his ambitious naval campaigns he spread his influence across South East Asia.
13. Second battle of Tarain - beginning of the Delhi Sultanate - 1192 AD.
After the fall of the Pala Empire, Northern India was once more in disarray and the power vacuum was finally filled up by the Turko-Afghan ruler Muhammad Ghauri. Ghauri who was defeated in an earlier battle against the Rajput King Prithwiraj Chauhan, came back to defeat Chauhan and rapidly spread his empire across the plains of Northern India, establishing the first Islamic Empire in India.
14. Second battle of Panipath- Rise of Akbar - 1556 AD.
Humayun was routed by the prolific Afghan Sher Shah Suri, and the prospect of Babur's descendants were appearing grim. At Panipath, the Mughals make a comeback lead by Akbar the great and recapture Delhi. In the course of time, Akbar would expand his empire across India, establish a strong system of governance and his rule would be later remembered to be the high point of the Mughals in India.
15. Aurangzeb's Death:- 1706 AD Beginning of the end of the Mughals
Aurangzeb expanded the Mughal empire to its greatest extent, but his negative and communal policies lead to rising dissents across India, notably among Shikhs, Jaaths and Marathas under Shivaji. The Empire would collapse in a few decades.
16. Battle of Plassey:- 1757 AD.
The British win their first war in India through treachery and backstabbing and capture the rich province of Bengal in the process, thereby establishing the foundation of British India. What follows in the next few years is a systematic depletion of wealth and oppression of the highest kind; something that would lead to the infamous Bengal famine.
17. Third Battle of Panipath:- 1761 AD. Decline of the Marathas.
A regional power that could have been India's last hope against the British face a crushing defeat in the hands of Ahmad Shah Abdaali, the Afghan warlord. Once again, a decisive battle is fought at Panipath, and once again, the defenders are on the losing side.
18. The Great Mutiny, 1857:-
First nationwide armed resistance against British authority. Hindus and Muslims jointly revolt against British authority and an army revolt snowball into a nationwide uprising, perhaps the first of its kind in India. Once the mutiny is crushed, India is brought under the direct rule of the British Monarch, thereby bringing an end to East India Company's rule.
19. Foundation of the Muslim League in Dhaka, 1906 :-
While Bengalis participate in a mass movement against the partition of the province of Bengal on the basis of religion, apprehension about Hindu dominance grows within a section of the Muslim society as they form a political organization. This event would gradually polarize the population along religious lines and would later lead to the birth of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
20. Independence and Partition, 1947:-
An unarmed old man speaking of peace leads a nation to her freedom. Amidst the tragic scenes of mass migration and communal riots that kill and displace millions, two new nations are born out of British India; two countries that would remain hostile to each other for years to come and would face each other in several wars, both open and covert.
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