Timeline 1750–2026
Read it like a stepwell: descend the flight of years from the peak of the old order, down through the colonial break and the long excavation, to the policy debates of the present.
Battle of Arcot; Europeans begin their decisive rise. Maratha power at its peak.
The Bengal famine — a third of the population dead — the hinge of colonial extraction.
British direct and indirect dominance over most of India; village institutions still funded at 25–40% of produce.
Indigenous smallpox inoculation banned in Bengal.
Health & the Body →Munro's Madras school survey and William Adam's Bengal reports (1822–1838) record India's indigenous school universe.
Education →Gandhi's Hind Swaraj frames India and Europe as a clash of civilisations.
Dharampal excavates the archives (1966–1983) → Indian Science & Technology (1971), The Beautiful Tree (1983).
Dharampal →Rajiv Dixit, drawing on Dharampal, turns the archive into mass Hindi oratory; Azadi Bachao Andolan goes national.
Rajiv Dixit →Bharat ka Svadharma published.
The Book →Dharampal chairs the National Commission on Cattle.
Dharampal dies at Sevagram.
Bharat Swabhiman merges Dixit's swadeshi economics with Ramdev's yoga-Ayurveda reach (2009–10). Dixit dies, 30 Nov 2010.
Make in India launched; Ministry of AYUSH created.
NEP 2020's Indian Knowledge Systems thrust; Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Education →The Panch Pran framing — "freedom from the colonial mindset."
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita family replaces the IPC (1860), CrPC and Evidence Act (1872).
Tariff-war swadeshi push ("vocal for local" boards in shops); Patanjali contempt case closed.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 are notified (13 Nov), starting phased rollout of the 2023 Act and the Data Protection Board.
A bilateral India–US framework (2 Feb) cuts the reciprocal tariff from 50% to ~18%, tied to curbs on Russian-oil imports and market-access concessions.
India edges past Japan to the 4th-largest economy by nominal GDP (~$4.3 trillion) on IMF numbers, while sitting near ~140th on GDP per capita — the size-vs-income gap.
AYUSH budget up ~20%; three new All India Institutes of Ayurveda; scientists again protest cow-science funding as pseudoscience.
Health & the Body →