Class 7 Social Science Part 2 Chapter 2: India and Her Neighbours Notes

What is this chapter about?

The chapter opens with a Nelson Mandela thought: what affects one nation affects the rest. It asks what makes a country a neighbour, how geography and history shape India’s ties with her neighbours, and how they are connected today. It visits each land neighbour and then the nearest maritime neighbours, the countries India shares the seas with.

Who is a neighbour?

The traditional answer is a country with a shared land boundary. India’s land boundary runs for over 15,100 km, crossing deserts and plains, forests and mountains, marshes and river valleys. But India is also a maritime nation, with the sea on three sides: the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. So Sri Lanka and the Maldives are our neighbours across the water, and Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to the southeast, with Iran and Oman to the west, form a wider maritime neighbourhood.

With a coastline of about 11,100 km and a peninsula reaching deep into the Indian Ocean, India sits on busy sea routes linking Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa. The Indian Ocean carries half of the world’s container ships and two-thirds of its oil. Working together in the region for peace and progress is called regionalism.

The land neighbours

China, the largest neighbour, is separated from India by the Himalayas. Buddhism reached China from India around the 1st century CE; Chinese monks such as Faxian and Xuanzang studied in India, and Indian monks such as Bodhidharma and Kumārajīva taught in China. Trade continues, though China sells India about eight times more than it buys, and border tensions recur. Pakistan was part of India until the 1947 Partition. Wars and Pakistan-backed terrorism have kept relations tense, yet shared places such as the Katas Raj temple and the Kartarpur Corridor, opened in 2019 for Sikh pilgrims, link the two peoples.

Bangladesh, born in 1971, shares Bangla, the Ganga–Brahmaputra rivers and the Sundarban mangroves with India. Nepal has an open border with India, so people cross without passports or visas. Bhutan, the ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’, shares Buddhism and hydroelectric power, and measures its progress with Gross National Happiness. Myanmar is India’s gateway to Southeast Asia, and Afghanistan, linked to India by the ancient Uttarāpatha route, has received Indian help with its Parliament building and the Zaranj–Delaram highway. Read more in India’s land neighbours.

Buddhism and shared culture

Three schools of Buddhism grew in ancient India. Theravāda spread to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar; Mahāyāna to China, Japan and Korea; and Vajrayāna to Tibet and to Bhutan, where Guru Padmasambhava took it in the 8th century. Epics, festivals, languages, scripts and food also travelled across borders.

The maritime neighbours

Sri Lanka, only about 32 km away across the Palk Strait, received Buddhism from Aśhoka’s children Mahendra and Sanghamitrā. The Maldives, over 1,100 islets about 130 km from Minicoy, shares food, dance and words with south India; India helped it in the 2004 tsunami and the 2014 Malé water crisis. Thailand’s Dvāravatī and Ayutthayā are named after Dvārakā and Ayodhyā, Malaysia once used a Brāhmī-based script, Singapore has Tamil as an official language, and Indonesia shows Garuḍa on its currency. To the west, Iran shares ancient links between the Avesta and the Ṛigveda, and Oman traded copper with the Harappans 5,000 years ago. See India’s maritime neighbours.

Working together

In 1985 India and seven neighbours formed SAARC to cooperate, though tensions have often disrupted it. After the 2004 tsunami, India joined Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and others to build a warning network, with the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre in Hyderabad. Ancient routes such as the Uttarāpatha, the Silk Route and the spice routes once linked the region; new highways, ports and power projects now aim to revive those links. Answers to every question are in the NCERT solutions for Part 2 Chapter 2.