Exploring Society I · Chapter 1 — Geographical Diversity of India

Imagine you are an astronaut looking down at India. In 1984 Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to go into space, was asked by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi how India looked from up there. His famous reply was 'Saare jahan se achchha', better than the whole world. What would you actually see? Snowy mountains, green plains, a yellow desert, a great triangle of land and long coastlines, all inside one country.

Where India is. India is the seventh-largest country in the world and lies in the continent of Asia. Together with its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, it forms the Indian Subcontinent. It is called a subcontinent because it is a large, distinct block of land that is still part of a continent.

Natural boundaries. India is separated from the rest of Asia by strong natural features:

• In the north, the Himalayas stand like a high wall.
• In the west, the Thar Desert and the Arabian Sea mark the limits.
• In the south lies the Indian Ocean.
• In the east lies the Bay of Bengal.

These boundaries kept India somewhat apart from the rest of the continent. Over thousands of years this shaped India's climate, its culture and its history.

Five regions to remember. To study such a large land, geographers often divide it into five broad zones: the great mountain zone of the north, the plains of the Ganga and the Indus, the desert region, the southern peninsula and the islands. In this chapter we take a journey across these zones, from the Himalayas to the islands and then back to the Northeast.

Reading a physical map. A physical map uses colours to show altitude, that is, height above sea level. The legend (key) tells you what each colour means. Usually greens show low land, yellows and browns show higher land, and white or dark brown shows the highest mountains. Keep the physical map at the end of your textbook open while you study this chapter, and find each place as you read about it.

Why it matters. Because India has mountains, plains, deserts, plateaus, coasts and islands, people across the country live very differently. Food, clothes, houses, farming and festivals all change with the land. That is why India is sometimes called a 'mini-continent'.

Push a carpet against a wall and watch it crumple into folds. Something very similar happened to make the Himalayas, only it took millions of years and involved whole pieces of the Earth.

A journey across the ocean. Long ago India was part of a huge landmass called Gondwana, and Africa was its neighbour. India broke away and slowly drifted north. About 50 million years ago it crashed into the landmass of Eurasia. The land between them was squeezed, crumpled and pushed upward. These folds became the Himalayas. You can still see the bent and folded layers of rock in the mountains.

Still growing. India is still pushing into Asia, by about 5 centimetres a year, slower than your hair grows. Because of this, the Himalayas rise by about 5 millimetres a year. That seems tiny, but over a thousand years it adds up to about 5 metres.

The name. 'Himalaya' joins two Sanskrit words: hima (snow) and alaya (home or dwelling). So it means 'the abode of snow'.

Size. The range is about 2,500 km long, like a giant wall. Many peaks are over 8,000 metres high and are called the 'Eight Thousanders'. The highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, is here. The range stretches across six countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Three parallel ranges. Going from north to south:

The Water Tower of Asia. In summer, snow and glaciers melt and feed great rivers such as the Ganga, the Indus and the Brahmaputra. Hundreds of millions of people depend on these rivers for drinking, farming and industry. The Bhagirathi, a main stream of the Ganga, begins at Gaumukh, the snout of the Gangotri Glacier in Uttarakhand.

A sacred landscape. The mountains are holy to many traditions. Temples and monasteries built in them attract pilgrims, monks and seekers from around the world.

When you hear the word desert, you probably think of hot sand and camels. But India also has a desert where winter temperatures drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Homes that suit the mountains. In the western Himalayas, people traditionally build houses in the kath-kuni or dhajji-dewari style. Layers of local stone and wood are used together. The house stays warm in the cold, and the wooden frame helps it survive mild earthquakes, which are common in young mountains.

Rich nature. The Great Himalayan National Park in Himachal Pradesh is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has a great variety of plants and animals, such as the colourful Himalayan monal bird. Its nature is protected both by the government and by the village communities living inside the park. Rhododendron flowers grow on the slopes and are even made into a sherbet. The yak is very important to mountain people: it gives milk, meat, wool and dung (used as fuel), and carries loads.

Ladakh, a cold desert. Ladakh gets very little rain and has bitterly cold winters. Its landscape is rugged, with rocky ground, deep valleys and lakes such as Pangong Tso (tso means lake). Pangong Tso is salty, unlike most lakes, because minerals dissolve into it from the mountains around.

Moonland. Parts of Ladakh look like the surface of the moon, so the area is called 'moonland'. Geologists explain this: when India collided with Eurasia, rocks that once lay under an ocean were folded upward. These rocks are mostly sand and clay, and wind and rain have worn them into strange shapes.

Life and culture. Despite the harsh conditions, wild animals such as the snow leopard, the ibex and the Tibetan antelope live here. Ladakhi people lead simple lives suited to the cold and dry land. Ladakh is known for ancient monasteries and colourful festivals such as Losar and the Hemis Festival.

The lesson. A desert is defined by how little rain it gets, not by heat. Both hot and cold deserts are dry.

Fly south from the Himalayas and the ground suddenly becomes flat and green as far as you can see. These are the Northern Plains, one of the most crowded and productive regions on Earth.

Made by rivers. The Gangetic Plains, also called the Northern Plains, are fed by rivers that begin in the Himalayas: the Ganga, the Indus and the Brahmaputra river systems, with their many tributaries. A tributary is a smaller river that joins a bigger one. These rivers bring down minerals and fine soil, which make the land very fertile.

Farming and food. Because the soil is rich and water is available, the plains are ideal for agriculture. Farmers often grow more than one crop on the same land in a year, called multi-cropping, as in Uttar Pradesh. Paddy (rice) fields are common in states such as West Bengal. Rivers are also used to make electricity.

Many people. A large share of India's population lives in these plains. Big cities such as Delhi, on the river Yamuna, have grown here. At night, satellite pictures show a thick band of lights across the plains, a sign of the many towns and villages.

Easy to travel. Flat land makes it easy to build roads and railways, so people and goods can move over long distances. For thousands of years rivers such as the Ganga and the Brahmaputra have also been used as highways for boats carrying travellers and trade.

Wildlife. The plains and the forests near them are home to animals such as the grey langur, the peacock (our national bird) and the tiger. The tiger was close to dying out, but Project Tiger helped it return to its habitats. The gharial, a long-snouted crocodile 2.5 to 4.5 metres long, is in danger of extinction, and laws protect it from harm and hunting.

A puzzle. Most Indian rivers are named after goddesses, such as Ganga, Yamuna and Kaveri, but Brahmaputra means 'son of Brahma'. It grows bigger in summer instead of drying up. Why? Because summer heat melts the Himalayan snow and glaciers that feed it.

Drive about four and a half hours from Mount Abu in the green Aravalli Hills to Jodhpur, and you enter a different world of sand, heat and wide skies. Two very different landforms sit side by side in northwestern India.

The Thar, or Great Indian Desert. On a physical map it appears as a yellowish area in the west. Most of it lies in India, across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana. It is an arid (very dry) region with very hot days, cold nights and little water. These harsh conditions made it a natural barrier for people and animals.

Sand dunes. Wind keeps moving the sand and piles it into hill-like shapes called dunes. Some rise as high as 150 metres. Because the wind usually blows in a similar way, dunes take on similar shapes, even though they are only loose sand.

Living with little water. People of the Thar have adapted their food, clothing and way of life to the land. Women often walk long distances to fetch water. Utensils are traditionally scrubbed with sand and only lightly rinsed, and the rinse water is reused for plants. Rajasthan is famous for clever water-saving structures called taanka or kund, which collect and store rainwater, often for drinking. Jaisalmer, the 'Golden City', has a fort that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Pushkar Mela at the desert's edge is famous for its camel trading.

The Aravallis: very old hills. East of the Thar run the Aravalli Hills, among the oldest mountains in the world, about 2.5 billion years old. Long wearing down by wind and water has made most of them low, between 300 and 900 metres. The highest peak, Mount Abu, is over 1,700 metres. The range passes through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.

Why the Aravallis matter.

• They act as a natural barrier that stops the Thar Desert from spreading further east.
• They are rich in minerals such as marble, granite, zinc and copper, mined for centuries.
• At the ancient mines of Zawar, evidence shows that more than 800 years ago Indians were the first in the world to master extracting zinc.
• Hill forts such as Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh and Ranthambore used the hills as protection against enemies.

Compare. The Himalayas are young and still rising; the Aravallis are ancient and worn down. Age explains why one is so tall and the other so low.

Look at the shape of southern India: a great triangle pointing into the ocean. This triangle is a raised, mostly flat land, one of the oldest parts of India.

Two key words. A plateau is a landform that rises above the land around it and has a fairly flat top, often with steep sides. A peninsula is land surrounded by water on three sides. Southern India has the Arabian Sea on the west, the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Indian Ocean to the south, so its high land is called the Peninsular Plateau.

The Ghats. Two mountain ranges border the plateau:

Between them lies the Deccan Plateau, a wide area of flat highland.

Which way do rivers flow? The plateau tilts slightly towards the east. So the big rivers Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri and Mahanadi rise in the west and flow east into the Bay of Bengal. Two important rivers, the Narmada and the Tapti, flow west into the Arabian Sea. These rivers supply water for farms and industries and are used for hydroelectric power.

Waterfalls. As rivers cross the uneven, rocky plateau, they form waterfalls, such as Jog Falls in Karnataka. Waterfalls attract tourists and can be used to make hydroelectricity (hydro means water) with turbines.

Riches of the plateau. The plateau has minerals, forests and fertile land. Coal mined here is important for electricity, though burning coal, a fossil fuel, adds to global warming. Dense forests, for example in Chhattisgarh, are home to tribal communities such as the Santhal, Gond, Baiga, Bhil and Korku, each with its own language and traditions closely tied to nature.

Wildlife of the Western Ghats. Rich rainforests here shelter the lion-tailed macaque, the king cobra and even insect-eating plants that catch tiny insects in sticky traps.

Golden beaches, black rocks, coral reefs, thick jungles and even a volcano: India's coasts and islands are full of surprises. The mainland coastline is over 7,500 km long.

The West Coast. It stretches from Gujarat through Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka to Kerala. The hills of the Western Ghats come close to the Arabian Sea, so the coastal strip is narrow. Rivers here are short and fast; most begin in the Western Ghats. Instead of building deltas, many end in estuaries, wide river mouths where fresh water mixes with sea water. The largest are those of the Narmada and the Tapti. The coast also has coves and creeks. Ports and cities such as Mumbai, India's financial centre, have been centres of trade for thousands of years.

The East Coast. It lies between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal, from the Ganga delta to Kanyakumari. Its plains are wide and contain big river deltas: the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri. A delta forms where a river drops its load of sediment into a larger body of water; over time the sediment builds a triangular or fan-shaped area of very fertile land. The east coast also has Chilika Lake and Pulicat Lake. Pulicat is a lagoon, a water body separated from the sea by a natural barrier.

Island groups. India has two main groups of islands:

• Lakshadweep, in the Arabian Sea near the Malabar coast of Kerala, is an archipelago (a group of islands) of 36 coral islands. Not all are inhabited.
• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, are more than 500 large and small islands of volcanic origin, in two groups. They work like outposts that help India watch over the ocean. Barren Island here has India's only active volcano.

Why islands matter. They have coral reefs, unique wildlife and beaches, and some ancient tribes have lived on them for tens of thousands of years. They also give India control over a vast sea area for fishing, resources and protecting the environment. In the Andamans, the Cellular Jail, where many freedom fighters suffered harsh imprisonment, is preserved to remind us of their sacrifice.

Our journey ends in the east: first in a maze of rivers and mangrove forests, then up into some of the rainiest hills on Earth.

The Sundarbans. The Ganga, the Brahmaputra and their tributaries together form a huge delta in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Here river, sea and land mix. About half of the delta is in India and the rest in Bangladesh. Its mangrove forests, trees that grow in salty, muddy water at the edge of the sea, make up the Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home of the Royal Bengal Tiger and many other species.

The hills of the Northeast. The Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills form part of the Meghalaya Plateau. They are lush and green, with breathtaking waterfalls such as the Seven Sisters Falls. This region gets one of the highest rainfalls in the world, so it is rich in forests, unique wildlife and fertile land.

People and nature. The Khasi people celebrate the festival of Shad Suk Mynsiem to give thanks to nature. Tribes here grow living root bridges by guiding and weaving the roots of trees across streams over many years; the bridges get stronger as the tree grows. Mawlynnong village in the East Khasi Hills is famous as the 'cleanest village in Asia', with bamboo dustbins and eco-friendly habits.

Putting the journey together. We have now crossed India's major regions:

Many lands, one country. These different regions create different soils, plants, animals, jobs, foods and festivals. Yet India remains one country. Rivers that link mountains to plains and seas, routes of trade and pilgrimage across regions, and the exchange of goods made in one place and used in another have long tied people together. Geography has shaped how we live, and the variety it creates is a big part of India's rich culture and civilisation.