On India's 77th Independence Day, a quick look at things to be proud of and things that need a bit of improvement in our upwards and onwards journey to India@100.
1. Vedic architecture: Much before the world woke up to ideas of sustainable architecture, we were using non-toxic and natural ingredients in Vedic architecture.
2. Recycling: We never used alliterative slogans, we just waited for the kabadiwallah to take newspapers, used plastic, anything that is not usable any more. We have been recycling just about everything from before the time sustainability became a buzzword. Remember, mothers exchanging sarees for steel bowls and glasses. We know Reuse and Recycle better than most.
3. Mobile penetration and cheap data plans: India has one of the cheapest phone/data plans in the world. Mine is Rs 1,799 for 365 days. That’s Rs 4.92 per day. That’s it. For 1 US dollar, you can get 16 days of unlimited calling/data. The ubiquitousness of mobile phones and cheap data in India is the basis for many more developments, including India's bankable digital payments infrastructure.
4. Power series in maths: Founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama in Tirur, Malappuram, the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics talked of calculus nearly two centuries before it was invented in Europe.
5. India's IT industry: Though Indian engineers and businesspeople had starting building India's IT industry decades earlier, it hit an inflection point in the year 2000 - there's been no looking back since.
6. File Transfer Protocol: FTP, a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network, was invented by Abhay Bhushan, an IIT-Kanpur alum.
7. Jugaad: We are like that only. We’ll fix anything. We’ll resolve everything. We are naturally jugaado. It is in our DNA. Do not attempt to translate it. There is no word for jugaad in any other language because no one else does jugaad better than us.
8. Diamonds: Diamonds were first mined in India. Until the 18th century, India was the only diamond mining country. Now, India is taking the global lead in producing carbon vapour deposition or CVD lab-grown diamonds.
9. Calico: Think 11th century. Calico was born in Calicut (now Kozhikode) – by 15th century, calico was traded with Africans and had already reached Egypt. Of course, by the 17th century, it had gained popularity in Europe.
10. World’s first dock: India was the first nation to have a dock that dated back to 2400 BC - people belonging to the Harappa Civilization were the first to build a dock in Lothal.
11. Charkha: Mahatma Gandhi is the poster boy for the charkha (spinning wheel). Nearly 1,000 years before he started spinning, India had invented the charkha.
12. Palampore: You might have seen Victorian prints with a central tree laden with birds and fruits. The British did not draw that first. We did it in the late 17th century. And that’s the Palampore - a type of dyed cloth that borrows its name from palangposh, the Hindi term for bedcover and usually has the motif of a central tree laden with birds and fruits.
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13. Carding device: Heard of kaman and dhunaki? The bow instrument (carding device) used in textile technology that could loosen the texture of the fibre by means of a vibrating string – it was invented in India.
14. Pashmina: As early as 3rd century, Indians were making cashmere shawls – the cashmere fibre called pashm or pashmina is produced from the undercoat of the Kashmir goat. And if you haven’t noticed yet, the name cashmere comes from Kashmir.
15. Indian Masi ink: We burnt bones, tar, pitch, and other substances to create a carbon black ink in the 3rd century. The practice of writing with ink and a sharp pointed needle was common in ancient South India, and ancient Jain sutras were written in Masi ink.
16. Papadum: The origin of the papadum (poppadom) was in India and it has made way across other South Asian countries.
17. Indigo: The scientific name is quite a tongue-twister - Indigofera tinctoria - but we all love indigo, that blue pigment and dye that was first domesticated in India. It made its way to the Greeks and the Romans via various trade routes and was valued as a luxury product.
19. Meditation: We have been meditating for thousands of years; the earliest written records of meditation come from the Hindu Vedas around 1500 BCE.
20. Cotton Cultivation: The Indus Valley civilization started cultivating cotton by 3000 BCE but the latest archaeological discovery in Mehrgarh puts the dating of early cotton cultivation and the use of cotton to 5000 BCE.
21. Juggernaut: You must have heard the Westerners rolling their r to pronounce juggernaut. Well, that word stems from the Sanskrit/Odia Jagannātha (lord of the world).
22. Ganja (cannabis): Sure, we have been smoking pot but have also used it for medicinal purposes. Ganja is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana in the English language, its usage dating to before 1689.
23. Catuskoti (Tetralemma): This might seem esoteric for those who don't love philosophy, but we developed catuskoti which was later adapted by Greek philosophers. Catuskoti probably dates back to the time of Buddha; over 2,500 years ago.
24. Leprosy cure: It is believed that the first mention of leprosy was in the Indian medical treatise Sushruta Samhita (6th century BCE). However, The Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine holds that the mention of leprosy, as well as ritualistic cures for it, were described in the Atharva Veda. (1500–1200 BCE).
25. Bhabha scattering: In 1935, nuclear physicist Homi J. Bhabha performed the first calculation to determine the cross-section of electron-positron scattering.
Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Jehangir Bhabha, architects of India's space program (Photos via Wikimedia Commons)
26. Raman effect: Known as the Raman Effect, the change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules was named after Sir Chandrashekhara Venkat Raman who discovered it in 1928.
27. Crucible steel: By 200 BC (a conservative estimate) South India was producing high-quality steel, using a method Europeans would later call the crucible technique. Wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed together and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon, forming high-grade steel.
28. Punch: It is considered to be the world’s earliest cocktail and seems to have originated in India. Some accounts suggest that the name Punch is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘paanch’ since the cocktail typically comprises five elements – a balance of alcohol, citrus, sugar, water and spice (mainly nutmeg).
29. Arthashastra: Centuries before Italian Niccolo Machiavelli wrote his best known political treatise The Prince, (1513), Kautilya had written Arthashastra.
30. Thug: Thug has long been part of the hip-hop lexicon. The late Tupac Shakur called himself a thug and even had the phrase ‘thug life’ tattooed. We ave the world the thug. The word, I mean, that comes from Hindi ṭhag ‘swindler, thief’, based on Sanskrit sthagati ‘he covers or conceals’.
31. Langar in the Golden Temple: No one ever goes hungry from the Golden Temple, Eat as much. No questions asked. If this is not sewa, what is?
32. Pundit: Political pundit. Economic pundits. There are pundits. And more pundits. All stemming from the Sanskrit pandita, Hindi pandit, which means a learned man.
33. Gin & Tonic: Tonic water originated in India in 1825, when British Army officers stationed in India began blending quinine with sugar, water, and gin to create the malaria-fighting, accidentally delicious sundowner.
34. Bungalow: We have all heard of the elegant colonial bungalows. The late 17th century word bungalow comes Hindi baṅglā ‘belonging to Bengal’, from a type of cottage built for early European settlers in Bengal.
35. Non-violence: In a violent world, we gave the world the idea of non-violence. Of course, many after Mahatma Gandhi embraced non-violence to protest.
36. Earth's orbit: Surya Siddhanta, written between 700 BC to 600 AD, gives the time it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun at 365.2563627 days. This is just a minuscule 1.4 seconds longer than the modern value of 365.256363004 days, and was the most accurate estimate in the world for over a thousand years.
37. Darjeeling Tea: Mornings got better when the first tea saplings were planted in Darjeeling in early 1800s. The Darjeeling Tea has been a favourite worldwide with tea connoisseurs. About 10 million kilograms are grown every year. Darjeeling word and logo were the first Geographical Indications to be registered in India in the name of the Tea Board
38. World’s largest sun dial: Big Ben can sulk a bit. We have the world’s largest sun dial. Built by King Sawai Jai Singh II in 1734, Jantar Mantar, Jaipur, is an astronomical observatory, which features the world’s largest stone sundial.
39. Highest motorable road: It is higher than the Siachen Glacier and feels like, almost, driving amidst the clouds. The world’s highest motorable road is at Umling La Pass in Ladakh at an altitude of 19,024 feet.
Umling La Pass in Ladakh (Photo by SamuraiGreg via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)
40. Chutney: Borrowing from the Sanskrit word chaatni (to lick), chutney originated in India and was subsequently adopted by the Romans and British thanks to their encounters and contacts with the Indian subcontinent.
41. Curry Leaves: Originating from the Tamil word Kari which means 'spiced sauce’, the history of curry leaves date back to early 1st to 4th century AD as mentioned in Tamil and Kannada literature.
42.Garam masala: The blend is thought to have originated in Northern India and some have traced its first use to the Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
43. Pani Puri: Gol Gappe, Phuchka, Pani ka Bataasha or Patasha, Gup Chup, Phulki, Pakodi. There are many names to the dish invented in Delhi. Some say, Draupadi was the first one to make pani-puri after her mother-in-law gave her some dough and leftover potatoes and asked her to create a dish for her five husbands!
44. Tandoor: The tandoor may have originated in Rajasthan where archeologists have found tandoor remains dating from 2600 B.C. The first tandoors were used to bake flatbread.
45. Ambivalent headshake: Is it a yes? Is it a no? When Indians answer a question by shaking their head, the other does not know whether it is a yes or a no. But we like that head shake, so we do it.
46. Big fat Indian wedding: Forget The Big Fat Greek weddings, our weddings have been fatter than the fattest weddings ever. We love our band, baja and baraat.
47. Nehru jacket: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru lent his name to the hip-length, collarless jacket that is typically made of lightweight fabrics such as cotton, silk, or linen. Then, the world took fancy to it, specially due to the influence of the Beatles, who famously wore Nehru jackets during their early years.
(Photo by Keystone View Company/FPG via Wikimedia Commons)
48. Jodhpuris: The Jodhpur pants or Jodhpurs were first tailored in 1890 after Sir Pratap Singh the Maharaja of Idar and the Regent of Jodhpur, an avid polo player, got unhappy with his breeches. In 1897, Singh travelled to England for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and his breeches created quite a stir. Their use quickly spread throughout the British Empire and even crossed the Atlantic to the USA, where today a variant is called the Kentucky Jodhpur.
49. Saree: You saw Zendaya and Gigi Hadid wrap the 6 yards around their tiny waist. Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Dua Lipa, Oprah Winfrey have all taken to the saree that traces its origin to the Vedic era.
50. Taj Mahal: It is the prettiest monument ever. Chaste white with dainty lace, an ode to love. The Taj Mahal made the modern Seven Wonders of the World list. It has also been a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
51. Kamasutra: If sex manual and erotica had to pick a GOAT, it would be Vatsayana’s Kamasutra, a 2ndcentury Sanskrit text that mentions 8 forms of embrace, 26 forms of kisses, and 64 sexual positions: think the usual doggy, 69, lotus, spoon. And the unusual: the broken flute, blossoming, the spin, the cow… Ah! There’s flirting, adultery, foreplay, too. Mr Christian Grey, hold your beer. Much before you, we had more than your fifty shades.
52. Rani pink: It is not the pink that Barbie wraps around her gravity-defying frame. It is not Valentino pink. Not bubblegum pink. Not powder pink. Not fuchsia. Not even the pink of Elvis Presley’s 1955 Cadillac. It is rani pink that only Indians know. Remember, Dior overdoing that pink during their Mumbai show. That pink!
54. Zero: The world knew the numbers but there was no cipher. Brahmagupta, an astronomer and mathematician, invented the zero in 628 BC. He figured out zero as having a null value, called sunyaand was also the first to show that subtracting a number from itself results in zero. We knew the zero that early. You see, we weren’t ciphers!
55. Yoga: We gave the world Yoga (drop the a, please, it is yog) - a set of specific exercises, called asanas, combined with specific breathing techniques and meditation principles, And listen, do not smirk at Bihar, it has a yoga first. The Bihar School of Yoga in Munger is a first of its kind yoga institute in the world.
56. Turmeric: We have been using turmeric in food, in face masks, as medicine, as part of a wedding ritual much before two Americans tried – and succeeded - to patent dry turmeric for wound healing. But the patent was withdrawn after India cried foul. Patent your things, man, do not steal from us.
57. Basmati: The basmati is ours. For sure. And you’ll laugh if I tell you that RiceTec, a US company, sold basmati grown in the US under the trademark names Texmati and Kasmati (sounds like names of two warring sisters!). When RiceTec patented it, India fought back. Their Basmati is now called Rice lines Bas 867, RT1117 and RT112 (that’s pretty bland christening).
58. Butter chicken: It is a ‘chance culinary mixing’ that has the world licking out of our hands (and the hen’s legs). The famous butter chicken was first made at the Moti Mahal restaurant in the Daryaganj neighbourhood of Old Delhi in the 1950s by brothers Kundan Lal Jaggi and Kundan Lal Gujral, who were both Punjabi Hindu migrants from Peshawar.
59. Voting rights for women: Set the gender debate aside for a minute. Just bask in the fact that women of India could vote as soon as we became independent. The women in US had to wait for 144 years after independence to vote. We women voted much before women in Greece, Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt, Saudi Arabia could vote.
60. Nalanda University: Much before the first bricks were laid for Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton, we had Nalanda University (Bihar), the world’s first residential university and among the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world.
Part of historical Nalanda University Campus in Bihar. (Photo by Tajdaar Aman via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)
61. Shampoo: Shampoo is derived from the Hindi campo (press; perhaps from Sanskrit capayati ‘pounds, kneads’) that later became champi. Shampoo was invented by the master of soaps and potions, Sake Dean Mahomed. Born in Patna (Bihar) in 1759, he was the first surgeon in the British army and in 1810 opened the first Indian restaurant in London. In 1812, he had opened a luxury bathhouse in London and became the first man who introduced 'shampoo baths' in Europe.
62. Largest postal network: With over 1.59 lakh post offices spread across the country, India has the world’s largest postal network. That we do not figure in the Top 10 postal services in the world is stuff of another spiel. You see, size – and numbers – do matter.
63. Largest film industry: It has been more than a century since the first short film was spooled in India in 1899. Hollywood then was not even born - it came 11 years later. The Indian film industry is the largest in the world making nearly 2,000 films every year. Compare it with just about 800 films made in Hollywood.
64. Kumbh Mela: The Kumbh Mela is often called the world’s largest peaceful congregation of humanity in one place. The Mela is so crowded that it can be seen from space.
65. World’s largest democracy: Democracy is government by/for/of the people. We all chanted this in class because India is the world’s largest democracy. Don’t believe me? Check the Guinness Book of World Records that registers: Who: India. Where: India. What: 120,00,00,000 people. When: 2012.
66. Highest recorded rainfall in the world: It not only rains cats and dogs, it rains forever. Mayswaram (Meghalaya) is now the world’s wettest place, it edged out the rainy Cherrapunji off the podium.
67. Decimal number system: From the 3rd century BC, we had the Brahmi numerals, the precursors to the modern, Indian or Hindu-Arabic numeral system that most of the world uses today.
68. Chess: The earliest form of the game that's now called chess can be dated back to India in the 6th century. Like the modern game, this predecessor, called chaturanga (or catur) was played on an 8x8 grid and featured pieces generally similar to those of modern chess.
69. Highest Cricket Ground in the World: Perched at a level of 2,144 meters above sea level in Chail, Himachal Pradesh, we have the world’s highest cricket ground.
70. The world’s highest rail bridge is in Jammu & Kashmir (1,178 feet over the river Chenab).
71. Calculus and Trigonometry: Sophisticated geometry was invented during the origin of the Vedic rituals, “the learned Brahmins of Hindostan are the real inventors of algebra” (Source: H. Hanke) and also developed trigonometry in a systematic manner.
72. Snakes and ladders: We have all rolled the dice, prayed not to be killed by the snake. Snakes and Ladders, the game, was invented in the 13th century by poet saint Gyandev.
A 19th century Jnana Bazi gouache-on-cloth board. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
73. Project Tiger: India is home to 70 percent of the world's Bengal tigers, thanks to a prescient conservation programme green-lighted 50 years ago and nurtured by subsequent administrations.
74. Benaras: The hippies loved it. So did ascetics and monks. Benares, now known as Varanasi, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
75. The Art of Navigation & Navigating: You rely on the shrill Google Map lady to tell you which way to turn but we have been navigating well for eons. Navigation was born in the river Sindh over 6,000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word navgatih and navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word Nou.
76. Dum biryani: Ah! That scrumptious rice dish. It was first made in India, originally a money-saving dish that was engineered by the Nawab of Awadh to feed the poor
77. Dolphins: We sure are kind to others. Certainly to dolphins. In India, dolphins are treated as ‘non-human persons’. Maybe Peta should raise a toast.
78. Cheese: Say cheese. And if you are vegetarian, say a vegetarian Indian cheese. India is the world’s number one producer of vegetarian cheese - also known as cottage cheese.
80. Wireless communication: While historians credit Guglielmo Marconi with inventing the wireless radio communication, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was actually the first person who publicly demonstrated the use of radio waves for communication back in 1895, exactly two years before Marconi gave a similar demo in England.
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose
81. Buttons: Nearly 2,000 years before Christ, we had buttons. More ornamental than dress fastening device. The origins of buttons trace back to the Indus Valley Civilisation - buttons made out of seashells and formed into geometric shapes with tiny holes bored into them.
82. Cataract surgery: Sushruta, an Indian physician, developed cataract surgery in the 3rd century CE. He performed this surgery using a curved needle (called Jabamukhi Salaka) that loosened the lens and then pushed the cataract into the back of the eye.
83. Weights & Measures: The Harrapan and the succeeding cultures of that time are credited with inventing many of the common things we use today including the ruler and the weights.
84. Natural fibres: We were among the first to create natural fibres like wool, cotton and plant fibre. There's evidence sto show that people of the Indus Valley used cotton and India pioneered the art of cotton spinning and used it in making fabric.
85. Water on moon: Inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008, Chandrayaan-1 was instrumental in discovering water on the moon, and had a brief tiff with NASA over this.
86. Reconstructive Surgery: Nearly 2,000 years before Christ, physician Shushruta pioneered reconstructive surgery.
87. Rockets: It was in the 1780s that Tipu Sultan, ruler of the south Indian kingdom of Mysore, and his father Hyder Ali, first made use of iron-cased and metal-cylinder rockets against the large British East India Company’s forces during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. So the first invention of rockets can be traced back to India.
88. Prefabricated home and movable structure: It is said that prefabricated and movable structures were invented in India in the 16th century; there is evidence they were in use during Akbar’s rule.
89. Step wells: The earliest clear evidence of the origins of the stepwell is found in the Indus Valley Civilization's archaeological site at Mohenjodaro.
(Representational image by AXP Photography via Pexels)
90. Stupa: The origin of the stupa can be traced to 3rd-century BC India when it was used as a commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics.
91. Blindfold Chess: Buddha had prohibited a variant of ashtapada game played on imaginary boards. Akasam astapadam was an ashtapada variant played with no board, literally "astapadam played in the sky". American Chess Bulletin identifies it as the earliest literary mention of a blindfold chess variant.
92. Carrom: The game of carrom originated in India and became very popular among the masses after World War 1.
93. Kalaripayattu: One of the world's oldest martial arts forms, Kalaripayattu was developed in south-west Kerela, its history spanning over 3,000 years.
94. Ludo: Originally called Pachisi, Indians were playing ludo as early as 6th century – there are depictions of the board on the caves of Ajanta
95. Oil-eating bacteria: Inventor and microbiologist Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty genetically engineered a new variety of pseudomonas bacteria (the oil-eating bacteria) in 1971 and was granted a US patent in 1980.
96. Spray-drying buffalo milk: Harichand Megha Dalaya defied all academic notions that buffalo milk cannot be spray dried due to its high fat content. Dalava invented the world's first buffalo milk spray-dryer, at Amul Dairy in Gujarat.
97. Crescograph: Scientist Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose invented the crescograph, a device for measuring growth in plants.
98. Incense clock: The incense clock, a timekeeping device used to measure minutes, hours, or days, originated in India.
99. Fibonacci numbers: As early as 200 BC, Pingala first described the Fibonacci numbers – the earliest concept being possible patterns of Sanskrit poetry formed from syllables of two lengths.
100. Longest written penal code: The Indian Penal Code of 1860, subdivided into 23 chapters, comprises 511 sections is the largest written penal code. We have the laws, just don’t talk implementation.
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