 If India has inherited over 5,000 years of a native culture, she has also gathered on the way many influences from outside and integrated them as her own over the centuries. The mystique of India's perennial river of wisdom was joined by streams of myriad hues. From the 11th century onwards, North India became a battleground of sorts for a few centuries, with several kings engaging themselves constantly in war as a gigantic sport. Babar, a Turku-Mongol descendant of Taimulain and Jengiz Khan, conquered Delhi and established the Mughal Empire in 1526, an empire which held sway over large regions of India for over 300 years. Architecture under Akbar's guidance represented an aesthetic synthesis between Hindu and Islamic features. Classical Hindustani music is a product of the Hindu-Muslim composite culture that has become the hallmark of a vibrant tradition, even as the Taj Mahal was under construction in the year 1600. A group of traders in England formed the East India Company to further the cause of British trading in Indian goods. To protect the rising manufacture of England from the popularity of Indian textiles, an impossibly high import tax was imposed on most Indian goods, while other goods from India were outright prohibited. On the other hand, British goods were allowed free of duty for import and sale in India. Many Indian artisans lost their jobs. Many industries closed down. It is in this context that in 1857, a rebellion of soldiers of the East India Company spread all over India with the active cooperation of some Indian rulers. Citing the maladministration by East India Company as the cause for widespread discontent in India, power was taken over by the British crown. Queen Victoria proclaimed herself the Empress of India. Although the British Raj perpetrated many atrocities in its attempt to perpetuate the economic slavery of India, there was another face also to the coin. The influence of Western thinkers resulted in organizations which had a profound impact on India. The Mahatma's philosophy and convictions had a deep and profound influence on the policies and events of the freedom struggle. The Mahatma despised the economic enslavement of India and adopted the spinning wheel as the symbol of a self-reliant India. Kadi, handspun, hand-woven cloth became a cult with nationalist passion. If Jalyanwala Bagh was one watershed in India's freedom movement, there was another, a decade later, when the apostle of non-violence led his followers in a march to make salt. In the early 1940s, while the freedom movement was operating only underground and its leaders were in prison, a party known as the Muslim League rose in importance by constantly being closed to the colonial government. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, nurtured the idea of a separate Muslim state. The worldwide respect for the moral authority of the Mahatma, the growing restlessness of the Indian forces, demonstrated by a mutiny in the Navy, a change of government in England. All of this cumulatively resulted in the British decision to transfer power. Partition became the inevitable price of freedom. And two nations were born, India and Pakistan. On the 15th of August 1947, India's destiny was placed in her own hands.