1885: The Indian National Congress (INC) convenes to make demands from the colonial British government on behalf of Indians of all regions, religions, castes, classes et al. The British administration approves of the INC as a “safety valve” to dissipate Indian dissent.
1887: Syed Ahmed Khan forecasts inevitable conflict between Hindus and Muslims in post-British India, echoing the fears of North India’s declining Muslim aristocracy that had been in power for over six centuries. He dubs the INC as a Hindu organization and warns Muslims against it.
1900: The British administration promotes Devnagari-script Hindi to equal status with Persian-script Urdu in United Provinces (modern day Uttar Pradesh), a Hindu-majority historically Mughal stronghold. Syed Ahmed Khan detests this loss of cultural dominance and champions Urdu as a language of distinct Muslim heritage.
1905: George Curzon, the viceroy of British India, partitions Bengal into a Muslim-majority eastern province and a Hindu-majority western province. A new generation of Indian politicians aggressively oppose it by starting Swadeshi, a movement of self-reliance for the Indian economy.
1906: Muslim aristocrats convene the All-India Muslim League to promote Muslim interests and negotiate policies with the British. The party is very supportive of the partition of Bengal.
1909: The Indian Councils Act grants separate electorates to Muslims. This consolidates Muslims as a separate community from the rest of India, laying foundations of separatism.
1911: Relenting to persistent protests, the British administration reunites the Bengal and shifts India’s capital from Calcutta to New Delhi. The Muslim League sees this as a violation of Muslim interests in East Bengal.
1914: World War I begins a new phase in India’s independence movement. The INC supports the British Empire with hopes of negotiating for “home rule” after the war. The German Foreign Office creates elaborate plans to support numerous radical parties and instigate a pan-India revolution.
1915: The Sarvadeshak Hindu Sabha, later called the Hindu Mahasabha, is founded at Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela, Hinduism’s largest religious gathering. The organization seems to promote Hindu interests and counter Muslim separatism.
1919: The British administration introduces the draconian Rowlatt Act to suppress popular dissent and restrict the growth of communism. An opposition gathering at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar faces massacre, resulting in 400–1,000 deaths.
1919: Sunni Indian Muslim leaders launch the Khilafat Movement to oppose the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. They consider the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI at this time, their spiritual leader as the caliph or khalifa, giving the movement its name. Muslim intellectuals find this pan-Islamism seductive and later join the Muslim League.
1920: The INC launches the Non-Cooperation Movement under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a Gujarati lawyer who has recently returned after 21 years in South Africa. Gandhi collaborates with the Khilafat Movement to tap Muslim sentiment against British imperialism and make the INC a mass Hindu–Muslim movement. Disillusioned at this uneasy alliance, a well-known Bombay High Court lawyer named Muhammad Ali Jinnah quits INC and takes to the cause of the Muslim League.
1921: In South India’s Moplah Uprising, Muslims from the Malabar coast (known today as Kerala) resist feudal systems created by the British. Muslim ire turns against Hindus, leading to about 10,000 casualties. As a result, Hindu–Muslim unity and the Non-Cooperation Movement begin falling apart.
1923: In response to the Moplah killings, the Arya Samaj, a reformist Hindu organization, launches the Shuddhi movement to bring Muslims who were recent converts back into the Hindu fold. Muslims respond with the Tabligh and Tanzim movements to prosyletize and propound fundamental interepretations of Islam in India. Communal riots erupt across North India.
1925: Indian physician Keshav Baliram Hedgewar forms the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a volunteer organization to organize Hindu society. The group champions Hindutva, a new form of Hindu nationalism formulated by Vinayak Savarkar.
1926: Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi starts the Tablighi Jamaat to reform and revive Islam among Indian Muslims. It responds to Hindu mobilization through pan-Islamism inspired by the Khilafat Movement.
1929: At their annual conference in Lahore, the INC declares its aim for Poorna Swaraj, complete independence from British rule. Jawaharlal Nehru, a lawyer from a Kashmiri Brahmin family settled in Allahabad, presides over the proceedings. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, Nehru is a Fabian socialist and an internationalist. He is backed by Gandhi.
Mar 1930: Gandhi begins a 24-day march to the sea, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement. The goal is India’s independence. The strategy is peaceful noncompliance. Gandhi begins by breaking laws that give the British a monopoly on salt production. The ruling British negotiate with the INC and invite Gandhi to the 1931 Second Round Table Conference to discuss reforms.
Dec 1930: Philosopher Muhammad Iqbal gives the Allahabad Address to the annual session of the All-India Muslim League. He outlines the two-nation theory, which makes the case that Muslims are a distinct nation and deserve political independence from the rest of India. This appeals to the Muslim League and becomes the bedrock of the idea of Pakistan.
1933: Choudhary Rehmat Ali and three others publish “Now or Never” at the University of Cambridge. This pamphlet demands a separate Muslim state named Pakistan, comprising “Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan.”
1937: The INC wins power in eight out of ten provinces after the first elections mandated by the Government of India Act (1935). The Muslim League fails to gain power in any province. This convinces Jinnah to support the Pakistan movement.
1938: Subhas Bose, a popular socialist-leaning leader, becomes the president of the INC thanks to strong support from eastern and southern India. He advocates the use of force to win complete independence. Gandhi and Nehru strongly oppose him.
1939: Bose wins a second presidential term with popular support. However, pro-Gandhi Congress Working Committee obstructs him and forces him to resign. Bose and other socialist-leaning factions quit the INC to form the All India Forward Bloc. Meanwhile, Viceroy of India Lord Linlithgow announces India is entering World War II. Outraged, the INC resigns from all provincial governments.
1940: In its annual session at Lahore, the Muslim League passes a resolution demanding an independent state. Its territory is to lie both in the northwest and the east. The All India Azad Muslim Conference in Delhi, which is five times larger, opposes partition and argues for composite nationalism. The Muslim League resorts to intimidation and coercion tactics to consolidate power.
1941: Bose escapes house arrest and reaches Germany via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. He seeks German support for Indian struggle against the British. The Germans hand Bose 4,500 Indian prisoners of war from North Africa and transport him to Japan, which gives further support.
1942: Gandhi gives the call of “do or die” and launches the Quit India Movement. The INC now wants immediate independence. Vallabhbhai Patel mobilizes a many people, citing Britain’s chaotic retreat from Japan’s invasion of Burma. However, Britain crushes the movement and makes over 100,000 arrests. No other major party supports the movement.
1943: With Japanese support, Bose founds a 50,000-strong Indian National Army (INA) in Singapore, comprising volunteers from British Indian prisoners of war and expatriates. Together with Japanese troops, the INA launches attacks on Nagaland and Manipur along the Indo–Burma border.
1943: A terrible famine breaks out in Bengal under Minister of Civil Supplies Huseyn Suhrawardy. British policies regarding food shipments are to blame for the food shortage. Two to three million people die as the province descends into anarchy.
1945: The INA ends up on the losing side of World War II. Bose takes a flight to Tokyo and disappears en route. He is presumed dead. His disappearance and death remain a mystery to this day.
1945: Archibald Wavell, the viceroy of India as of October 1943, proposes a transfer of power to Indians and a Hindu–Muslim power sharing arrangement. The INC and the Muslim League do not agree to this arrangement. Gandhi gets sidelined in future power transfer talks.
Jan-May 1946: Three INA commanders face numerous charges, including treason. Red Fort in Delhi holds their public trials. The INC and the Muslim League support the British. The British administration is eventually forced to commute sentences due to a huge public outcry. Many Indians, including naval ratings serving the Royal Navy, revolt, but the British crush the mutiny. It shakes British confidence in Indian troops. Independence is now a matter of time.
Jan 1946: Even as nationalism surges thanks to INA trials, the Muslim League wins 87% of the Muslim seats in provincial elections. This helps them leverage their claim as the sole representative of Indian Muslims.
Mar-Sep 1946: Clement Attlee, Britain’s new prime minister, sends the Cabinet Mission to negotiate the transfer of power in India through a three-level structure. The Muslim League reluctantly accepts this proposal and agrees to share power with the INC. As Hindu–Muslim communal violence breaks out later in the year, this power sharing structure falls apart.
Aug 1946: Pressured by soldier revolts and wavering British administration, Jinnah races against the clock to found Pakistan. He and Suhrawardy, the prime minister of Bengal, call for a Direct Action Day to demand Pakistan, a new nation in the image of the first Caliphate in the Saudi city of Medina. This instigates communal riots in Calcutta, which spread quickly across eastern India on an unprecendented scale.
Jun 1947: On June 3, Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy to India, introduces the Indian Independence Act, creating two separate countries: India and Pakistan. British Law Lord Cyril Radcliffe moves to divide Punjab and Bengal. The 584 princely states choose which country to join. Attlee plans to transfer power by June 1948, but Mountbatten moves it to August 15, 1947 — the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II.
Aug 1947: India and Pakistan emerge as independent dominions. Nehru and Jinnah are sworn in as their prime ministers in New Delhi and Karachi, respectively. Over 14.5 million people move across the new borders within four years, marking the biggest human migration in history. While Punjab and Sindh see Hindu, Muslim and Sikh migration, Bengal sees an overwhelming migration of Hindus. Almost two million people die due to communal violence.
Oct 1947: Fending off Pashtun tribesmen sent by the Muslim League to conquer his territory, Maharaja Hari Singh of Jammu and Kashmir signs the Instrument of Accession. His kingdom joins India despite having a Muslim majority. An India–Pakistan war immediately breaks out in the region, begining the ongoing Kashmir Conflict.
Jan 1948: Gandhi is assassinated by a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party for making too many concessions to the Muslim League. The RSS is banned across India for more than a year. It begins to mobilize public opinion in princely states, such as Junagadh and Hyderabad, to join India.
Jan-Feb 1948: Rohingya Muslim leaders in Arakan State, Burma, form mujahideen groups to launch a jihad and join East Pakistan. Clashes begin with local Rakhine Buddhists. The Burmese army crushes this movement and begins classifying Rohingyas as British-era, illegal Bengali migrants.
1948: Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s deputy prime minister, starts integrating 565 princely states into the new nation. Large-scale communal violence begins in Hyderabad, the largest Muslim-ruled state with a Hindu majority. In response, India annexes the state.
Jan 1949: Nehru abides by the United Nations resolution on Kashmir and stops military operations even though Indian troops have the upper hand. Both India and Pakistan now control parts of the former princely state with the Line of Control acting as the boundary. Both India and Pakistan agree to hold a plebiscite after withdrawing troops. The withdrawal never happens, nor does the plebiscite.
Dec 1949: Hindus install idols of Rama and Sita, two deities they hold holy, at a disused Mughal-era mosque in Ayodhya called Babri Masjid. They call it Ram Janmabhoomi, the birthplace of Rama and the site of a former Hindu temple. Nehru orders the removal of the two idols, but the district magistrate refuses to comply. Instead, he opts to lock the gates of the mosque.
Jan 1950: The world’s longest constitution comes into effect and India becomes a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. It adopts a federal structure, but the union government in New Delhi has much greater powers than the federal government in Washington, DC.
Feb-Mar 1950: Massive anti-Hindu riots erupt across East Pakistan. About two million refugees stream into the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Jogendra Nath Mondal, Pakistan’s first law minister, flees to India. Ironically, he had urged lower caste Hindus to stay on in Pakistan.
1951: Rajendra Prasad, India’s first president, inaugurates the rebuilt Somnath Temple. About 1,000 years ago, this temple had been smashed by legendary Muslim invader Mahmud Ghazni and was one of Hinduism’s holiest sites in the princely state of Junagadh. Nehru opposed reconstruction while Gandhi, Patel and Prasad supported it.
Feb 1956: Massive student protests erupt in East Pakistan when Urdu is imposed as the sole national language of Pakistan. Eventually, West Pakistan agrees to make Bengali a national language as well.
Mar 1956: Pakistan introduces its first constitution, declaring the new country to be an Islamic Republic with a Westminster-style government. Within two years, General Ayub Khan launches the country’s first coup d’etat and suspends the constitution.
Aug 1956: India begins reorganizing its states on a linguistic basis. Elections become a regular feature in India, although the INC dominates both at the national level and in almost all states.
Dec 1963: Kashmiris believe that Moi-e-Muqqadas, a strand of the beard of Muhammad — the founder of Islam — is preserved at the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar, India. The hair disappears on December 27, triggering riots and ethnic cleansing of Hindus in East Pakistan, modern day Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of them flee to India.
1964: Riots against Hindus and Buddhists break out again in East Pakistan. The INC is reluctant to support or help refugees. In contrast, the communists adopt a pro-refugee stance and gain popularity in West Bengal.
1965: Bolstered by an alliance with the US and close ties with China, Ayub Khan declares war against India. Pakistan fails to achieve its aims. India signs a ceasefire despite holding the upper hand. After the war, defense becomes the largest item of expenditure in the Pakistani budget. This ends a decade of strong economic growth in West Pakistan.
1966: Mujibur Rehman starts the Six Point Movement, calling for greater autonomy of East Pakistan. Bengalis are tiring of the yoke of West Pakistan. Three years later, this movement leads to mass nationalist protests that General Yahya Khan, Ayub Khan’s successor, crushes brutally.
1970: Cyclone Bhola ravages through East Pakistan, killing around 500,000 people in one of the worst natural disasters ever recorded. Meanwhile, the Awami League led by Mujibur Rehman wins a landslide election victory. Yahya Khan rejects the results and appoints Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a flamboyant Sindhi politician, as prime minister. Rehman ends up in jail instead of the prime ministerial residence and outraged Bengalis launch mass protests in East Pakistan.
Mar 1971: Tikka Khan, East Pakistan’s new governor-general, launches Operation Searchlight, which results in a genocide. Pakistani troops kill about three million Bengalis. Most of them are Hindus. Over ten million refugees flee to India. Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister, asks army chief General Sam Manekshaw to prepare for a war against Pakistan.
Dec 1971: In a 13-day war on land, air and sea, India defeats Pakistan decisively and liberates East Pakistan. The new nation of Bangladesh emerges. India takes 93,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war. In contrast to Pakistan’s all-Muslim army, Indian troops are led by Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian officers in senior ranks. Following defeat, Yahya Khan resigns.
1972: India and Pakistan sign the Shimla Accord, recognizing Bangladesh and exchanging prisoners of war without any changes to their western border. Both sides agree to resolve the Kashmir conflict bilaterally. Many maintain that India won the war but lost the peace.
1973: Bhutto becomes prime minister and introduces a new constitution that complies with the Quran and establishes Shariat courts. He has already promised to eat grass to develop a nuclear bomb to counter India. Bhutto develops close ties with the Muslim world. The Islamization of Pakistani society begins.
1974: India tests its first nuclear bomb. Pakistan’s nuclear program kicks off in high gear. Bhutto vows a thousand-year war against India.
Jun 1975: Indira Gandhi is convicted of election fraud. She is at risk of being banned from politics for six years. Massive protests break out across India. In response, Indira Gandhi declares a national emergency and rules by decree for the next two years. She locks up the opposition and censors the press. Her younger son Sanjay Gandhi imposes a forced sterilization program to seek IMF and World Bank loans. Independent India gets its first taste of dictatorship.
Aug 1975: On India’s independence day, Mujibur Rehman and most of his family are assassinated. Some accuse him of being an Indian puppet. His daughter Sheikh Hasina survives. She will later become the prime minister of Bangladesh.
1976: Indira Gandhi adds the words “socialist” and “secular” to the preamble of the Indian constitution through the 42nd Amendment Act. Though enacted during the emergency and of doubtful constitutional validity, the amendment remains unchanged.
Mar 1977: Confident of victory, Indira Gandhi announces snap elections. She loses badly. For the first time, a non-INC government is formed through a national coalition of many disparate parties. The RSS-backed Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is part of the new Janata Party coalition that replaces the INC.
Apr 1977: Ziaur Rahman, a popular military general, rises to power in Bangladesh. He rejects Mujibur Rehman’s Bengali nationalism in favor of a new Bangladeshi identity centered on Islam. The general’s constitutional amendments introduce Quranic salutations to the preamble and replace entries on secularism with references to Allah.
Sep 1977: Bhutto wins a landslide victory that some opposition parties boycotted. After the elections, protests break out. The opposition claims the elections were rigged. Claims of Bhutto’s government endangering Islam lead to calls for jihad. General Zia ul-Haq deposes Bhutto and executes him. The Islamization of Pakistani society intensifies.
1979: Monarchy in Iran is overthrown by the Islamic Revolution. Soviet troops invade Afghanistan. In response, Zia ul-Haq begins training mujahideen fighters in Islamic schools called madrassas. The US and Saudi Arabia fund Zia. Many mujahideen fighters later lead the Taliban.
Jan 1980: The anti-INC coalition government in India collapses. Indira Gandhi visits the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, asking for Muslim support. She wins the elections and returns to power with a big majority. Now religion has entered the mainstream Indian elections.
1982: Formerly on the sidelines, the Khalistan movement starts to gather pace in Indian Punjab. The movement seeks to establish a new theocratic Sikh country called Khalistan. Pakistan backs this movement as part of Operation Tupac, a strategy promoting insurgency “to bleed India with a thousand cuts.” Khalistanis unleash a campaign of terror that lasts more than a decade.
1983: Assamese mobs burn 14 villages of Bangladeshi Muslim migrants at Nellie, killing almost 10,000 people in one night. Communal and anti-immigrant tensions now run high in Assam, a border state with Bangladesh, until the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.
Apr 1984: Ahmadiyya, a Muslim sect that supported the creation of Pakistan in the 1940s, is denounced as heretical to Islam in Pakistan. Its members are now subject to numerous discriminatory measures. Ten years earlier, Bhutto had already declared Ahmadiyyas to be non-Muslims. This led Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s only Nobel Laureate and father of its nuclear weapons program, to leave the country in protest. Persecution of Salam’s sect continues to this day.
Jun 1984: Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the leader of the Khalistan movement, converts the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest site, into an armed garrison to challenge the Indian state. Indira Gandhi launches Operation Blue Star, in which troops led by a Sikh general flush out Bhindranwale from the Golden Temple.
Oct 1984: Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards. INC workers avenge the loss of their deified leader by launching anti-Sikh pogroms across Delhi. Almost 10,000 Sikhs are killed within five days. Many wealthy Sikhs emigrate to the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and Germany. The Khalistan movement dies in India, but emigrant Sikhs in Western countries continue to support it to this day with backing from Pakistan.
1986: Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son and the new prime minister, tries to appease both Hindu and Muslim religious leaders. He overturns a judgment by the Supreme Court of India that gives alimony to a Muslim widow. When accused of appeasing Muslims, Gandhi tries to win Hindu support by opening the gates of the Babari Masjid, the mosque supposed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama. These gates had been locked since 1949.
1987: Doordarshan, India’s public television service, broadcasts Ramayan, a teleseries on the epic story of Rama. A year later, they broadcast another teleseries named Mahabharat, based on India’s longest and oldest epic. Both teleseries turn out to be extremely popular throughout the country.
1988: The Eighth Amendment of Bangladesh’s constitution makes Islam the official state religion. Members of other religions and atheists start facing greater discrimination.
Oct 1989: Hindu nationalist groups start a movement to build a temple at Ram Janmabhoomi, the site of the disputed Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. A procession to collect bricks for temple construction at Ayodhya leads to riots in Bhagalpur, Bihar. Around 1,000 people die in communal violence.
Jan–Jun 1990: Hizbul Mujahideen, a jihadi organization that wants Kashmir to merge with Pakistan, presents minority Hindu Pandits with three choices — “ralive, tsaliv ya galive” (“convert to Islam, leave the place or be ready to perish”). Almost 600,000 Kashmiri Pandits are forced to flee. Local Muslim strongmen take over their property and destroy their temples. In 1995, India’s National Human Rights Commission concludes this ethnic cleansing to be “akin to genocide.”
1990: BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani goes on a nationwide tour to rally Hindus for building a temple at Ram Janmabhoomi. He starts from Somnath, a temple smashed by medieval Muslims and reconstructed after independence. Volunteers flock to build the temple in Ayodhya and the police fires on them. The BJP withdraws support from the coalition government in New Delhi. It falls.
Feb 1991: Ziaur Rahman’s widow Khaleda Zia becomes Bangladesh’s first democratically elected prime minister in 12 years. She forms a coalition with Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 genocide. Her rival, Mujibur Rahman’s daughter Sheikh Hasina, later adopts a more Islamist hue in response. The two ladies become the dominant political actors in the country.
Dec 1992: After the BJP’s electoral successes, Advani leads a Hindu nationalist rally of 150,000 people in Ayodhya to build the temple. Thousands gather and tear down the mosque. Hindu–Muslim riots erupt across India, killing around 2,000 people. Hindus face retaliatory violence in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Mar 1993: As 13 bombs go off in Bombay (now called Mumbai), 257 people die and 1,400 are injured. Dawood Ibrahim, an influential Muslim mobster with close links to Bollywood, masterminds the attack. He acts to retaliate against the sacking of the mosque and the killing of Muslims in 1992. Bomb blasts become frequent across Indian cities. Intelligence agencies from many countries conclude that Pakistan shelters and backs Ibrahim.
1994: The Taliban emerges from the madrassas in Pakistan. Their goal is to defeat Soviet-era warlords and create a fundamentalist Islamic state of Afghanistan. Seeking strategic depth against India, Pakistan strives to create a client state on its western border. Therefore, it hosts, trains and supports 100,000 Taliban fighters over the next five years.
May 1996: The BJP emerges as the single largest party in Indian elections. Veteran leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee becomes prime minister. He fails to build a majority coalition, thus resigning on his 13th day in office. Although a coalition assembles to keep the BJP out of power, the party emerges as the national alternative to the INC.
Sep 1996: The Taliban takes over Kabul and establishes a totalitarian Islamic state in Afghanistan. Its scorched earth tactics and extreme sharia laws draw almost universal condemnation. Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates recognize the Taliban regime. Ironically, their strongest supporters are the Deobandis, members of an Islamic revivalist movement that once supported Gandhi during the Non-Cooperation Movement.
May-Jul 1999: Sensing political instability in India, the Pakistani army infiltrates key positions along the Indian border at Kargil. The Indian army wages high-altitude warfare in harsh conditions to recover lost ground. The deadlock between the two nuclear states deescalates after American diplomatic intervention.
Oct 1999: Post-Kargil nationalism gives the BJP its first full five-year term, the first non-INC government to achieve the feat. In contrast, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is deposed by General Pervez Musharraf, who engineered the Kargil infiltration, in a military coup.
Dec 1999: Five Islamist militants connected to Pakistan-based jihadist group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen hijack the Indian Airlines Flight 814 en route from Kathmandu to Delhi. After forcing the plane to land in Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai, they touch down in Kandahar. After a tense week, the Indian government secures the release of all 176 passengers by complete capitulation. India frees violent terrorists Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. The Taliban, then ruling Afghanistan, drives them to the Pakistan border.
Dec 2001: The Taliban retreats as the US invades Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks. A new Islamic republic is established in Kabul with US backing. While Pakistan supports the war against the Taliban as a US ally, their deep state relations with the Taliban prompts India to back the new republic with strong support.
Feb-Mar 2002: Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya are killed in a train attack at Godhra in Gujarat. Hindutva groups blame Islamist groups for this attack. Hindu–Muslim communal riots break out across Gujarat. Almost 2,000 people are killed. Most of them are Muslim. Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s new chief minister who began his career as a volunteer in the RSS, is accused of abetting the violence. The BJP sticks with Modi and wins the next two reelections.
May 2004: The BJP loses elections unexpectedly and the INC returns to power in New Delhi. It is hostile to Hindu nationalist groups and enjoys support from some Christian and Islamist groups.
Jul 2006: Mumbai suffers another terrorist attack. As seven bombs go off, 209 people die and 714 are injured. In addition to Pakistan-backed groups, a homegrown outfit Indian mujahideen is involved. Similar attacks soon occur in numerous Indian cities. The ruling INC government tries framing Hindu leaders for some of these attacks.
Dec 2007: Benazir Bhutto, a prominent Pakistani political leader, is killed. The daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she was elected prime minister after Zia ul-Haq’s death. Bhutto’s supporters blame Musharraf for this attack. After intense rioting and protests, Musharraf steps down. Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s husband, wins power in elections the next year.
Nov 2008: Mumbai suffers the biggest terrorist attack in its history. No fewer than ten terrorists set sail from Karachi to Mumbai. They come with large stocks of weapons, explosives and communication equipment. Over four days, they kill 174 people and injure hundreds across some of India’s most expensive neighborhoods. The sole surviving attacker, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, reveals his military-level training in Pakistan. India–Pakistan relations nosedive. Even sports and entertainment interactions are canceled.
Mar 2009: The Sri Lankan Cricket Team is ambushed by 12 gunmen of a Deobandi militant group in Lahore and seven star cricketers are injured. Pakistan is barred from hosting international sports. The 2011 Cricket World Cup is now hosted in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but not Pakistan.
May 2013: Nawaz Sharif is reelected as Pakistan’s prime minister. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s iconic 1992 Cricket World Cup hero, enters the National Assembly with the third-largest party. Despite a colorful past as a high society playboy and international sex symbol, Khan receives strong support from hardline Islamists.
Sep 2013: The BJP announces Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for the upcoming elections. He campaigns against INC’s excessive corruption and rampant nepotism, promising clean government and rapid development. The BJP campaigns with all guns blazing, relying heavily on social media and using new techniques. Over the next nine months, India’s national election becomes the world’s most expensive election outside the US.
May 2014: The BJP wins 282 out of 543 seats, forming India’s first single-party majority since 1984. The INC’s hegemony in Indian politics is shattered. The BJP starts dominating state elections, winning absolute majorities with record voter turnouts.
Aug 2016: China starts sinicization of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Over a million eventually are put in reeducation camps. The US calls this a genocide, but Pakistan stays silent on this issue despite claims of being champions of Islam, especially in Kashmir. Pakistan’s Xinjiang policy reflects its growing economic and political dependence on China.
Nov 2016: Myanmar (formerly Burma) starts extensive military operations against the Rohingyas after the biggest Buddhist–Muslim local clashes in almost 40 years. Over 25,000 people are killed and 1.1 million people flee to Bangladesh over the next two years. Many find their way to cities across India even as the Indian government tries to deport them with little success.
Mar 2017: Radical reforms and military strikes against Pakistan help the BJP in state elections. It wins over 77% seats in Uttar Pradesh, a state with over 200 million people. Yogi Adityanath, the head priest of an ancient Hindu monastic order, becomes the chief minister of the state. His rise in the former Mughal heartland signals the arrival of a new generation of hardline Hindutva politicians.
Jul 2018: Imran Khan is elected as the prime minister of Pakistan, breaking the electoral dominance of Sharif and Bhutto families. Pakistan’s military starts regaining political clout under his regime. Many accuse the military of propping up Khan.
May 2019: The BJP wins reelection and returns to power with a stronger majority. It wins 303 out of 543 seats with a record voter turnout. Many veteran opposition politicians lose in their strongholds. For the first time, the female voter turnout almost equals the male one.
Aug 2019: The Indian parliament revokes Article 370 of its constitution. This gave special autonomy to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, allowing the state government to frame rules for residency, property ownership and voter registration contrary to the rest of the country. The region is now a union territory, under direct rule from New Delhi. The Buddhist-majority region of Ladakh is also separated from the erstwhile state as a new union territory. Following this, BJP promises to resettle Kashmiri Hindus in the Kashmir Valley.
Nov 2019: The Supreme Court of India orders the formation of a trust to construct a temple at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. It also declares the demolition of Babri Masjid illegal, allotting five acres of land at another location for the construction of a new mosque. Hindu groups rejoice while Muslim groups cry foul.
Dec 2019: The Indian parliament passes the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, easing citizenship rules for non-Muslim refugees from neighboring countries. Large-scale protests and counter-protests erupt across India. In Delhi, 53 people die. International media covers the four-month sit-in at Shaheen Bag in New Delhi until it is disrupted by Covid-19.
Aug 2020: Narendra Modi lays the foundation stone for the construction of a new temple at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. In contrast to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1949 who ordered the removal of Hindu idols, Modi champions the reclaiming of a sacred Hindu site.
Mar 2021: The BJP wins reelection in the state of Assam. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the new chief minister, vows to implement a statewide National Registry of Citizens, which caused much controversy in 2019, to remove illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
Aug 2021: After the US decides to leave Afghanistan by September 11, the Taliban dramatically regains control of Kabul. It reestablishes totalitarian sharia rule, causing economic and social collapse. The last remaining Hindus and Sikhs are airlifted to India but they do not have an expedited path to citizenship. The controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act only offers this path to refugees who entered India before December 13, 2014. Later, India sends urgent humanitarian assistance to prevent an impending famine.
Mar 2022: Yogi Adityanath leads the BJP to reelection in Uttar Pradesh with a big majority. For the first time in over 30 years, a government wins a second term in India’s most populous state. Some see this fiery monk as a future prime minister.
Credits
Researched by Ayan
Rakshit
Edited by Atul Singh
Inspired by Ishtiaq
Ahmed
Produced by Lokendra
Singh
Proofread by Lee
Thompson-Kolar
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Creative Commons