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Modern era

The modern history period of South Asia, that is the 16th century onwards, witnessed the establishment of the Mughal Empire, with Sunni Islam theology. The first ruler was Babur had Turco-Mongol roots and his realm included the northwestern and Indo-Gangetic Plain regions of South Asia. Several regions of South Asia were largely under Hindu kings such as those of the Vijayanagara Empire and the Kingdom of Mewar. Parts of modern Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were under local Muslim rulers, namely those of the Deccan sultanates.

The Mughal Empire continued its wars of expansion after Babur's death. With the fall of the Rajput kingdoms and Vijayanagara, its boundaries encompassed almost the entirety of the Indian subcontinent. The Mughal Empire was marked by a period of artistic exchanges and a Central Asian and South Asian architecture synthesis, with remarkable buildings such as the Taj Mahal.

However, this time also marked an extended period of religious persecution. Two of the religious leaders of Sikhism, Guru Arjan, and Guru Tegh Bahadur were arrested under orders of the Mughal emperors after their revolts and were executed when they refused to convert to Islam. Religious taxes on non-Muslims called jizya were imposed. Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh temples were desecrated. However, not all Muslim rulers persecuted non-Muslims. Akbar, a Mughal ruler for example, sought religious tolerance and abolished jizya.

After the death of Aurangzeb and the collapse of the Mughal Empire, which marks the beginning of modern India, in the early 18th century, it provided opportunities for the Marathas, Sikhs, Mysoreans, and Nawabs of Bengal to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent. By the mid-18th century, India was a major proto-industrializing region.

Maritime trading between South Asia and European merchants began after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama returned to Europe. British, French, and Portuguese colonial interests struck treaties with these rulers and established their trading ports. In northwestern South Asia, a large region was consolidated into the Sikh Empire by Ranjit Singh. After the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal and Tipu Sultan and his French allies, British traders went on to dominate much of South Asia through divide-and-rule tactics by the early 19th century. The region experienced significant de-industrialisation in its first few decades of British rule. Control over the subcontinent was then transferred to the British government after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, with the British cracking down to some extent afterwards.

An increase of famines and extreme poverty characterised the colonial period, though railways built with British technology eventually provided crucial famine relief by increasing food distribution throughout India. Millions of South Asians began to migrate throughout the world, impelled by the economic/ labour needs and opportunities presented by the British Empire. The introduction of Western political thought inspired a growing Indian intellectual movement, and so by the 20th century, British rule began to be challenged by the Indian National Congress, which sought full independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

Britain, under pressure from Indian freedom fighters, increasingly gave self-rule to British India. By the 1940s, two rival camps emerged among independence activists: those who favored a separate nation for Indian Muslims, and those who wanted a united India. As World War II raged, over 2 million Indians fought for Britain; by the end of the war, Britain was greatly weakened, and thus decided to grant independence to the vast majority of South Asians in 1947, though this coincided with the Partition of India into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, which resulted in significant displacement and violence and harder religious divides in the region.