Provinces of India

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Provinces of India were those portions of India ruled directly by officials of the British East India Company and, from 1858 to Indian Independence in 1947, by the British Crown. During the years 1947-1950 Independent India was divided into provinces, which were replaced with states and union territories in 1950, when the Indian Constitution went into effect.

The first British trading post (called a factory) was established in Surat in 1612. British control of India spread from three coastal settlements, established in the 17th century: Bombay (present-day Mumbai), Madras (present-day Chennai) and Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in Bengal. Each of these cities was the administrative center of a presidency, or province, of the East India Company. Presidencies were administered by a governor. The governor of Bengal Presidency later became the Governor-General of India. The provinces were enlarged by wars of conquest, and during the mid-19th century by the doctrine of lapse, under which the Governor-General seized states from native rulers who died without a direct male heir.

By the mid-19th century, the provinces comprised over half of the area of India and 60 percent of the Indian population. They were headed by Governors, Lieutenant-governors, High Commissioners, Commissioners, or Administrators appointed by the Governor-general of India. The rest of India was made up of princely states, under the control of native rulers who recognized British suzerainty in return for local autonomy.

[edit] Provinces of British India

[edit] Provinces at independence, 1947

At Independence in 1947, British India had seventeen provinces:

At independence eleven provinces (Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces, Madras, North-West Frontiet, Orissa, Punjab, and Sindh) were headed by a Governor. The remaining six provinces (Ajmer-Merwara, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Baluchistan, Coorg, Delhi and Panth-Piploda) were headed by Chief Commissioners.

Upon the independence of India and Pakistan on August 15, 1947, 12 provinces (Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces and Berar, Coorg, Delhi, Madras, Panth-Piploda, Orissa, and the United Provinces) became part of India, three (Baluchistan, North-West Frontier, and Sindh) became parts of Pakistan, and two (Bengal and Punjab) were partitioned between India and Pakistan.

In 1950, the Indian Constitution went into effect, and the provinces were replaced with states and union territories. Pakistan retained its five provinces, which became four with the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.