Indus Valley Civilisation
Excavations made at Mohanjadaro in Sind on the banks of the river Rabi revealed that a great civilisation flourished all along the valleys of the river Indus and its tributaries. Everyone was thunder struck at the highly advanced civilisation that existed some thousands of years ago.
From the excavated cities and articles found there, it is evident that the Indus valley people knew the art of writing.
Town planning is noteworthy in this civilisation. The towns were scientifically planned with broad and straight streets. Houses were built of bricks of good quality and they had many storeys. Each house had many rooms, windows and sloping verandahs and court-yards.
The whole city had a very good underground drainage system. Man holes were provided to clean these drains. There was a great swimming pool for the public. Arrangements were made for the supply of fresh drinking water to the citizens.
The people believed in many Gods and Goddesses and worshipped them. The bodies of the dead were placed in large mud pots and buried. At times they took a few bones of the dead and buried them. In course of time, the custom of cremating dead bodies came into practice.
The people lived in big cities though agriculture was their main occupation. They were of the use of metals like gold, silver and copper and had great skill in making started in 1920. In the beginning, the coal was not even sufficient to meet the demands of the railways, but soon there was a spectacular rise of coal output by deeper exploitation of Bengal deposits. Production of machine made paper dates from 1870. But it had to fight against the high cost chemicals, heavy transport charges of coal and severe competition from Europe, United states of America and Japan.
Though there was no dearth of hides and skins in India, the modern tanning industry started late. Thus industrialisation took place in India and its growth and development was very lethargic as the British government was not very helpful in encouraging our industries. The government was more inclined to help British industry and commerce than Indian industry. Britain was more interested in making India a supplier of raw materials than a producer of finished good. Wealth was going out of India.
It was only after independence that industrialiation was given full scope in India. By encouraging private enterprise, adopting nationalisation of industries and levying duties on foreign imports, Free India has been helping the progress of the Indian Industries in all fields and directions.
