INDIA : Its Evolution

India, is a parliamentary federal republic consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. It is the seventh largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world.

IndusValley Civilization The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the world's first great urban civilizations. It flourished in the vast river plains and adjacent regions in what are now Pakistan and western India. It was only in the 1920's that the buried cities and villages of the Indus valley were recognized.The use of standardized weights, writing and seals became unnecessary as their social and political control gradually disappeared.
History
Stone Age rock shelters with paintings at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh are the earliest known traces of human life in India. The first known permanent settlements appeared over 9,000 years ago and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back to 3300 BCE in western India. It was followed by the Vedic period, which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society, and ended in the 500s BC. TheGupta dynasty oversaw the period referred to as ancient "India's Golden Age.".
Following invasions from Central Asia between the tenth and twelfth centuries, much of North India came under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate, and later theMughal Empire. Mughal emperors gradually expanded their empires to cover large parts of the subcontinent. From the sixteenth century, several Europeancountries, including Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom, started arriving as traders and later took advantage of the fractious nature of relations between the kingdoms to establish colonies in the country. By 1856, most of India was under the control of the British East India Company.
came into effect.

Maurya Dynasty
Chandragupta Maurya (c.321-c.297)

Chandragupta, who belonged to the caste of warriors (kshatriya), was a pupil of a famous Brahman teacher, Kautilya. His coup was more than just the take-over of a kingdom, it was a religious counterrevolution.Once Chandragupta had conquered the Nanda throne, he invaded the Punjab. When the situation in Alexander's former kingdom had stabilized, one of his successors, Seleucus, tried to reconquer the eastern territories, but the war was inconclusive, and the Macedonian and Chandragupta signed a peace treaty. The latter recognized the Seleucid Empire and gave his new friend 500 elephants; Seleucus recognized the Mauryan empire and gave up the eastern territories, including Gandara and Arachosia (i.e., the country northeast of modern Qandahar). Chandragupta had now united the Indus and Ganges valley - a formidable empire. There was a secret service, there were inspectors, there was a large army, and the capital atPatna became a beautiful city. His adviser Kautilya wrote a guide to statecraft which is known as Arthasastra. A Greek visitor, Megasthenes, gives a very strange description of the caste system (accepting seven instead of the usual four classes of people).. According to the ancient scriptures of the Jainists, the king abdicated at the end of his life (in 297?) in favor of Bindusara, and converted to the Jaina faith; he died as an ascetic, having fasted to death.
Bindusara Maurya (c.297-c.272)

Bindusara was the son of Chandragupta. His reign lasted a quarter of a century, until 272, but of the three great Mauryan emperors, he is the least known.
Ashoka Maurya (c.272-c.232)
Texts from southern India mention the Mauryan chariots invading the country "thundering across the land, with white pennants brilliant like sunshine". Indeed, Ashoka, who succeeded his father Bindusara in 272, was a great conqueror, and the first to unite the Indian subcontinent, except for the extreme south. However, the emperor came to hate war after he had seen the bloodshed of the conquest of Kalinga in eastern India, and he converted to Buddhism. He wanted to establish dhamma, 'the law of justice', everywhere in India and Arachosia. After the death of Ashoka, the Mauryan empire declined.

Religion

Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation state in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread nonviolent resistance.
The evolution is up to the beginning of moghul period.