Chapter 1: Geographical Diversity of India (Geography)

1. The Himalayas

• They act as a wall, blocking the cold winds from Central Asia and keeping northern India warmer in winter.
• They stop the monsoon winds, making them shed rain over India.
• Their glaciers feed great rivers like the Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra, which flow all year.
• They are rich in forests, medicinal plants and wildlife, and have long protected the country.

2. The Indo-Gangetic plains

• Rivers have deposited fertile alluvial soil over a huge, flat area, making it India's food bowl (wheat, rice, sugarcane).
• Flat land and rivers made farming, transport, trade and the growth of towns easy, so these plains are among the most thickly populated regions of the world.

(Other good choices: the long coastline, the Deccan Plateau, the Thar Desert.)

E.g. the Himalayas (block cold winds, bring monsoon rain, feed perennial rivers) and the Indo-Gangetic plains (fertile soil, food bowl, dense population and towns).

Without the Himalayas:

• Freezing winds from Central Asia would sweep into northern India in winter, making it very cold, even desert-like.
• The monsoon winds would not be stopped and would pass over to the north, so much less rain would fall in north India; large areas could become dry.
• There would be no glaciers to feed the Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra, so rivers would be smaller and might dry up in summer; the fertile plains would not have formed.
• India would have no natural northern barrier for protection, and would lack the forests, wildlife, hill stations and holy places of the Himalayas.

India would probably be much drier and colder in the north, with less farming and fewer people living there.

North India would be colder in winter and much drier (the monsoon would not be stopped), the great rivers and fertile plains might not exist, and there would be no natural northern barrier.

India is called a mini-continent because, like a continent, it has almost every kind of landform and climate within one country:

• the snow-covered Himalayas in the north;
• the vast fertile Indo-Gangetic plains;
• the Thar Desert in the west;
• the old rocky Deccan Plateau in the south;
• long coasts on the east and west and island groups (Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep);
• climates from icy cold (Ladakh) to hot and wet (Kerala) and hot and dry (Rajasthan).

It also has a huge variety of plants, animals, peoples, languages and cultures. And it is separated from the rest of Asia by the Himalayas and the seas, like a separate landmass (the Indian Subcontinent).

Because it has nearly every landform and climate (mountains, plains, desert, plateau, coasts, islands), great biodiversity and cultural variety, and is set apart from the rest of Asia by mountains and seas.

The Ganga rises at the Gangotri glacier (Uttarakhand) and flows through Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal to the Bay of Bengal, where it forms the Sundarbans delta.

(Discuss also how we must keep the river clean, e.g. through the Namami Gange programme.)

E.g. the Ganga: pilgrimage, rafting and hydropower in the mountains; irrigation, drinking water, fishing, festivals and industry in the plains; waterways, ports, fishing and delta farming near the sea.

• It is a plateau: a large area of high, fairly flat land made of very old, hard rocks, higher than the plains around it.
• It is peninsular: it is surrounded by water on three sides, the Arabian Sea in the west, the Bay of Bengal in the east and the Indian Ocean in the south.

So the southern part of India is called the Peninsular Plateau (the Deccan Plateau forms most of it), bordered by the Western and Eastern Ghats.

Because it is high, old, fairly flat tableland (a plateau) surrounded by water on three sides (a peninsula).

The Sundarbans (West Bengal, shared with Bangladesh) is the world's largest mangrove forest, in the delta of the Ganga and Brahmaputra. Its trees grow in salty water, with special breathing roots that stick out of the mud. It is the home of the famous Royal Bengal tiger, which swims between islands, as well as crocodiles, dolphins and many birds. The forest also protects the coast from cyclones and floods. What I find most interesting is how the land, water and animals change with the tides twice every day.

(You could also write about the Western Ghats, the Great Himalayan National Park or the Jaisalmer Fort.)

E.g. the Sundarbans: the world's largest mangrove forest, home of swimming Bengal tigers, that changes with the tides and protects the coast.

Example: I live in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It lies in the Ganga plains, on the banks of the Gomti river, a tributary of the Ganga, between the Himalayas to the north and the Peninsular Plateau to the south.

(Describe your own place using the nearest feature: a mountain range, river, plateau, desert or coast. E.g. Pune lies on the Deccan Plateau, east of the Western Ghats; Chennai is on the eastern coastal plain by the Bay of Bengal.)

Describe your place by its nearest physical feature, e.g. Lucknow in the Ganga plains on the Gomti; Pune on the Deccan Plateau; Chennai on the eastern coastal plain.

E.g. sun-drying vegetables and papad in Rajasthan, dried apricots in Ladakh, salted dried fish on the coasts, fermented bamboo shoots and smoked meat in the north-east, and pickles all over India.

• Natural boundaries: the Himalayas in the north and the seas on three sides give India a distinct shape, so people have long seen the land as one (Bhārata).
• Rivers connect regions: rivers like the Ganga, Narmada and Godavari flow across many states; people share them, travel along them and honour them as sacred.
• The monsoon: almost the whole country depends on the same monsoon, so farming festivals like Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Lohri and Bihu are celebrated around the same time.
• Pilgrimage routes: holy places in the mountains (Badrinath, Kedarnath), on the coasts (Puri, Rameswaram, Dwarka) and in the plains (Varanasi) bring people from every corner of India together.
• Exchange: different regions grow different things (tea, spices, wheat, cotton), so trade and travel have linked them for thousands of years.

Natural boundaries make India one land; shared rivers, the common monsoon and its harvest festivals, pilgrimage places in every region and trade between regions have bound people together.