The first foreign invasion was of course the Aryans.
Later you had the invasion of Alexander the Great. The muslim invaders mentioned above
were able to integrate themselves over time into Indian culture and like the Aryans
became an integral part of Indian society. India not only has the spices, minerals and
textiles mentioned above, but great fertile river valleys. It's agricultural potential
and riches were also part of the lure to invaders. As India became one of the centers
of human population and civilization from very ancient times, the human resources of the
subcontinent were also exploited by foreign invaders.
The
decline of the Mughal empire coincided with the global expansion of Europeans such as
the Dutch, Portuguese, French and most importantly the British. They represented a
different kind of exploitation along a European colonial model, more interested in
imposing European cultural traditions rather than integrating into Indian society as in
earlier invaders. The Indian sub-continent (Now Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) is a
vast geographic area, which very early became part of the East-West trade routes
(particularly sea routes) and Empires tended to expand along such
routes.
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