The Indian Subcontinent is one of the most culturally diverse places in the world with over 120 living languages and countless variations on customs, religion, art, and cuisine. ELI programs in India are in South India based in and around the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the fourth largest city in India with a population of over 6 million. Chennai is tropical with a wet season from October through December. Once the rainy season ends in January, the temperature starts to rise. In May, the heat hits its peak with average temperatures in the 90s.

Humans have lived in South India since the Stone Age. The Aryan invasion brought Hinduism to the south between the years of 1500 B.C. and 300 B.C. and profoundly affected the entire social the entire social structure of the south. Later religious influences to come from the north included Buddhism and Jainism. Over 2000 years ago, the villages that grew together to form modern Chennai traded spices, gems, and cloth with Chinese, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Babylonian merchants. Sometime around A.D. 52, Thomas the Apostle arrived in what is now Chennai. In A.D. 78, he was speared to death on the hill now called St. Thomas Mount. During the 6^th century A.D., the Cholas began to rise to power in South India and by the 10^th century, the Chola kingdom had grown into a powerful empire with control over the spice trade with Europe. The arts flourished under the Chola Empire. Sculpture, music, literature, and dance left long lastings and distinctly Tamil influences in India and Southeast Asia. Today, the architecture and mythology of Burma, Thailand, Bali, and Cambodia share Chola roots. By the 13^th century, the Pandyas of Madurai rose to power. Marco Polo visited Southern India in 1288 and 1293 and wrote of the achievements of the Pandyas. In the early 14^th century, Muslim invaders from Delhi took over South India but were quickly forced to leave in order to put down rebellions in North India. After the Muslims left, the Vijaynagar Empire began to rise to power. The Vijaynagar Empire became very prosperous by encouraging trade and creating an efficient bureaucracy. The Portuguese arrived in Southern India in the 1500s and established settlements in Goa and introduced Catholicism. In 1522 the Portuguese established a port named São Tomé at the village of Madras Patnam. The Dutch established themselves at Pulicat, north of Madras, in 1612 and focused on establishing trade connections, forming a network stretching from Europe to Japan. In 1638, the British East India Company established a post in Madras. By the beginning of the 19^th century, Great Britain controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent. During the first half of the 19^th century, British soldiers were encouraged to marry local wives which gave rise to the Anglo-Indian community. In 1857, the old Indian aristocracy led a series of uprisings against the British. After the uprisings were put down, the British promoted a doctrine of white superiority and soldiers were no longer allowed to take local wives. By the beginning of the 20th century, an independence movement was brewing. The movement was led by a lawyer named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi led a nonviolent movement to force the British to leave and adopted the life of a mystic, gaining the support of rural Indians as well as the educated classes. He soon became known as Mahama Gandhi. After WWII, the British no longer had the resources to fight the independence movement and were forced to give up India as a colony. Muslims in the north demanded their own Muslim state, and in 1947, India was partitioned into the countries of India and Pakistan. After independence in 1947, Southern India was divided into states along linguistic lines, and Madras became the capital of the new state of Tamil Nadu. In 1996 the city's name was changed to Chennai to reflect what the Indians have always called the town outside the British fort at Madras. Today Chennai is a vibrant center for the arts, trade, adn the IT industry in Southern India.

Quick Facts

Official Country Name: Republic of India

Size: 3,287,590 km², about one third the size of the U.S.

Population: 1,129,866,200

Government: Federal Republic

Currency: Indian Rupee, currently US $1 is about INR40

Official Languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Asssamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit