Central Provinces

Classification 1909

The Central Provinces (CP) were a province of British India created in 1861, extending approximately between 17 ° 47 'and 24 ° 27' N and 75 ° 57 'and 84 ° 24' E. Of its 292,265 km², 211,800 km² were under direct colonial administration, the rest was made up of princely states . The area is essentially located on three hilly plateaus with an average height of 500 to 700 meters, which are divided by wide valleys, u. a. that of the Narmada , Mahanadi and the Indrawati , which arise at Jabalpur , are interrupted. Towards Chhattisgarh it slopes down to the plain. During the colonial period there were still extensive, inaccessible jungles, which were the refuge of tribes , among whom the Gond people dominated in the east , hence the old name of this region Gondwana . The ethnic and linguistic structure, however, was extremely diverse.

After the annexation of the Berar Province, administered by the British since 1903, in 1936 the province was called Central Provinces and Berar until 1950 . After India's independence in 1947, smaller princely states were attached to the province and the area became a federal state of the newly founded Republic of India in 1950 under the name Madhya Pradesh . During the administrative reorganization and the creation of states along linguistic boundaries in the States Reorganization Act 1956, Madhya Pradesh ceded the Vidarbha region to the state of Bombay and was on the other hand enlarged by adjacent areas in the north and west. In 2001 the eastern part of Madhya Pradesh became an independent state under the name Chhattisgarh .

history

The East India Company acquired parts of the territories after 1795. The most powerful Marathas rulers of the region were the Rajas of Nagpur of the Bhonsla dynasty , who had been expanding since 1740 . The second major power was Peshwa . After the lost Second Marath War, Nagpur had to cede parts of Orissa. After the third marath war they lost the territories of Sagar and Narbada, part of Peshwas had been under British control since 1817. The minor Raghuji III. of Nagpur was under the tutelage of Sir Richard Jenkins from 1818 to 1830 , the land fell to the colonial masters in 1853, as did Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse . The Indian uprising of 1857 only touched the northern part. The so-called Central Provinces were created from the territories in 1861 . A small part of the Central Provinces was added to Godavari ( Madras Presidency ) in 1874 . The Nizam leased Berar permanently , but it was administered separately until October 1, 1903 and was only an integral part of the province since October 24, 1936. It was to become a pure cotton-growing area by decision of the powerful Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which represented the interests of Manchester capitalism.

Starving children cared for by missionaries (Jabalpur, 1897)

The population grew from 9 million in 1866 to 9¼ million in 1872. In the 1881 census, the aborigines were included, so that 11½ million were counted. This number rose to 13 million over the next decade. After the famine years in 1901, a good 11.8 million people lived in the region. Around 80,000 to 120,000 workers had migrated to the tea plantations in Assam . Such recruitment continued. If the administrative reorganization is factored in, 10.8 million people remained for 1905, 85% of whom lived in British-controlled areas. At that time there were 55 places with over 5000 inhabitants, including Nāgpur was the only major city.

In 1921, 13.9 million people lived in the Central Provinces and Berar. The population development in the 10 northern districts was static or declining between 1881 and 1931, which can be attributed to the consequences of the three devastating famines between 1896 and 1908 and the Influeza epidemic of 1918/19. On April 20, 1946, they still received extensive rights of self-determination until the British part came to the Indian Union on Independence Day. The de jure connection of individual princely states took place in the course of 1948.

A little over 63% of the population spoke Hindi dialects or Urdu . Marathi (20%) predominated in Wardha , Nagpur , Chanda , and Bhandara districts . Until 1905, the proportion of speakers in Oriya was around 13½%, after the cession of their districts, their proportion fell to 2 to 3%. Otherwise Telugu , Gondi and various Dravidian dialects were common. Among the indigenous peoples, who together made up one fifth, the Gond were the dominant (1901: approx. 2 million), the other important tribes of the Khond , Kawar , Baigas and Korkus each had 100,000 to 170,000 members.

administration

Under the Cornwallis Code (from 1795) the local magistrate (magistrate) was also an administrative officer. The collector was solely charged with collecting taxes. After the reform in 1835 it came to the division into divisions among commissioners ( Commissioner ). Divisions were in turn divided into four or five districts , the entire administration and police of which was headed by a district officer or deputy commissioner . The chief official of the province was the lieutenant governor , who essentially determined his council with two to four members himself. Limited local administration existed in cities. The districts had their own councils that dealt with water supplies, schools and the like. took care of and financed this through fees and octroi.

From 1861 onwards, land taxation was often based on the Ryotwari system. With the semi-feudal tax tenants of the Mahraten period ( jagirdar or talukdar ) , 20 to 30 year old settlements were met from 1863 in the areas under British administration , they became simple malzugar. 15 of the feudal zamindars were upgraded to separate states after 1863. The general land survey was completed in 1876 and had to be repeated from 1885 onwards due to inaccuracies. In Berar, the rules of the Ryotwari system of the Bombay presidency applied .

A modern justice system was established with the Indian Penal Code (1860) and uniform criminal procedure law until 1882. The judicial and executive branches were separated in 1907.

The Indian Army had barracks in Jabalpur, Kamptee, Saugor, Sitabaldi and Pachmarhi. There was a 1,300-strong militia, the Nagpur Volunteer Rifles. A modern police force was established in 1861 from the existing Nagpur Irregular Force . The separate city police were integrated in 1882. In 1903 there were 8,843 police officers, 95 of them mounted and 111 military police, led by 26 European officers. A security guard ( kotwar ) was financed by the villages through a special tax. He acted more as an informant but also as a registrar. In each of the 18 district capitals and Sironcha there was a prison, the largest of which were considered to be Central Jail suitable for heavy forced labor.

Irrigation systems were first started to be built by the state in 1907, although there were already numerous reservoirs in Nagpur before that. In 1903 there were 2,500 primary schools in the British territories, with 267,000 pupils and 11% girls, about three times as many as in 1881. There were also 27 secondary schools, 22 of them private. In Jabalpur and Nagpur there were three colleges with less than 100 students each. There were 17 separate schools for the British and mixed race children, almost all of them run by missionaries. As in other parts of India, the establishment of a state health administration and a general (paid) higher education system did not take place until after the First World War. In Raipur, the Rajkumar College formed the sons of princes.

After 1919

According to the provisions of the Government of India Act of 1919 (in force since April 1, 1921), the Central Provinces were subordinate to a governor who was now responsible for Parliament in London and who was appointed for five years. He was given a council with two to four appointed members, which received greater fiscal freedom. If Indians were allowed to decide certain questions (devolved subjects) , they asked two to three specialist ministers. The province had a legislative council that was elected every three years by the possessing classes. With regard to the princely states and divisions, nothing changed.

The Indian National Congress candidates won an absolute majority in the 1937 election and formed the provincial government. Like everyone else, this resigned on October 30, 1939, as the party refused to support the British declaration of war on Germany.

Districts

Administrative structure after the reorganization in 1905, with population in 1901:

Jabalpur Division, 48891 km² (= Jubbulpore)

District	Area (km²)	Population (thousand)
Saugor	10222	469
Dumah	7265	285
Jabalpur	10093	680
Mandla	13039	318
Seoni	8271	328

Nerbudda Division, 42475 km²

District	Area (km²)	Population (thousand)
Narsinghpur	5098	316
Hoshangabad	9484	447
Nimar	11024	330
Betul	9871	283
Chhindwara	11948	408

Nagpur Division

District	Area (km²)	Population (thousand)
Wardha	6264	385
Nagpur	9907	752
Chanda	26202	581
Bhanadara	10230	664
Balaghat	8081	325

Chhattisgarh Division, 54,799 km²

District	Area (km²)	Population (thousand)
Drug (Durg)	10054	629
Raipur	25362	1097
Bilaspur	19613	917

Princely states

details

Main articles of individual states.

Most of the princely states were tributary feudatory states, whose rulers were assured of the preservation of their traditional rights in the new letters ( sanad ) that were handed over when they took office . None of the rulers had the right to eleven or more rounds of salutes, so they did not automatically qualify for a seat in the Chamber of Princes created in 1921 .

In the east was Bastar , almost as large as Belgium in terms of area, but politically completely insignificant. In the north it was bordered by Kankar (= Kankur), in the southeast by Jeypore , which had been enemies with Bastar since the British had decided a territorial conflict in its favor in 1865. The area was the scene of several rebellions by tribals who saw their traditional way of life in the forest destroyed by the colonial economic system. The most important were the Tarapur uprising (1842–1854), the Meria rebellion (1842–1863), the Muria uprising (1876) and the Bhumkal (1910). For the first time after the Meria uprising, colonial officials visited the area in 1863. They refuted the claim that cannibalism and human sacrifice took place there, but such things can still be found in serious literature up to the First World War. From around 1927 the administrators, Verrier Elwin in the first place, planned to transform the areas inhabited by the Tribals into reservations in order to preserve their original way of life. In 1941, 0.1% of Bastar's population could read and write. Kanker and Bastar were merged in 1948 to form the Bastar District . The Eastern States became part of the Eastern States Agency under the Chhattisgarh States Agency in 1936 .

When Bengal was partitioned in 1905 , the predominantly Hindi-speaking states of the Chota Nagpur States , namely Chang Bhakar , Jashpur , Korea , Surguja and Udaipur, were assigned to the Central Provinces. For this purpose, the Oriyas-speaking Bamra , Rairakhol , Sonpur , Patna and Kalahandi were given to the Orissa Tributary States and a large part of the Sambalpur district . When the Eastern States Agency was created, subordinate directly to the central government, the Hindi-speaking ones were among the sixteen princely states that were spun off into it. Makrai and Raigarh had already gone to the Bhopal Agency in 1933 .

District	Area (km²)	Population (thousand)	Ruler titles, notes
Makrai	400	1882: 16; 1901: 13	Raja , ethnic genocide, 30% starved to death 1891–1901, in that year 353 residents read and write, controlled by the Deputy Commissioner of the Hoshangabad District.
Bastar	35490	1901: 306, 1941: 634	Raja, the last one was Pravir Chandra Bhanj Deo . Sheltered the agent in Sirodha. See also: main article, Muria uprising , Tarapur uprising , Bhumkal .
Kanker	1891: 1643, 1901: 3686	1891: 63, 1901: 104	Maharaja.
Nandgaon	2247	126	Mahant , since 1893 Raja Bahadur. Originally family priest of the Rajas of Nagpur, who held 400 km². Enhanced by recognizing Zamindar rights. Iron ore mining in the 20th century. Since 2000 Rajnandgaon district .
Khairagarh	2402	1891: 166, 1901: 137.5, 1941: 157	Zamindar, upgraded to Raja, ethnic Gond. Last ruler: Birendra Bahadur Singh (born November 9, 1914) in office December 10, 1935.
Chhuikhadan	397	26th	Mahant, employed by Nagpur in 1750, upgraded to the state in 1865 after its lapse. Last ruler Rituparn Kishore Das (* 1922). Tribute to the British (1941) Rs 30,000.
Kawardha	1891: 2288, 1901: 2059	1891: 66, 1901: 57.4, 1941: 73	Thakur . The masters in colonial times were 1) Rajpal Singh (* 1849, ruled December 11, 1874), 3) Dharmaraj Singh (* August 18, 1910, ruled February 4, 1920). A side line of the sex were the Thakur of Pandaria (Bilaspur).
Sakti	356	1891: 22.8, 1901: 22.3	Raja, residence in Sambalpur, whose Raja had given the rule. Ranjit Singh, born in 1836, whose rights were confirmed by the British in the same year, served from June 19, 1850 for 45 years.
Raigarh	3884	1901: 175, 1941: 277.6	Joined the Bhopal Agency in 1931 . The last Raja was Chakradhar Singh (born August 19, 1905), in office since February 15, 1924, ruled after the age of majority from 1927.
Sarangarh	1392	1901: 79.9, 1941: 129	Raja (Bahadur). 1941 of ø 260000 Rs taxes 4500 tribute to the British. Lords of the colonial era 1) Partab Singh (= Raghubir, * approx. 1865, r. 1870, † 1890); 2) Jawahir Singh (* 1888, in office October 2, 1890, still ruled in 1941); 3) Naresh Chandra Singh (* 1908)
Chang Bhakar	2332	19th	see main article
Korea ,	2408	1901: 35, 1941: approx. 100	Raja Ramanuj Pratap Singh (r. 1925) was a member of the Chamber of Princes and took part in the "round table" in London 1930-2. see main article.
Surguja (= Sirguja)	15708	1901: 351, 1941: 502	Raja, Maharaja from 1933. Main town Bisrampur, renamed Ambikapur . see main article
Udaipur	2714	45.3	see main article
Jashpur	5026	132	see main article

literature

• J. Forsyth: Highlands of Central India. 1889
• Charles Grant: Gazetteer of the Central Provinces. Nāgpur 1870
• Imperial Gazetteer Of India. Oxford 1908 ( full text X ; overview in Vol. X, pp. 12–114 with 16 tab.)
• Sir Richard Jenkins: Report on the Territories of the Raja of Nāgpur. 1827, reprint Nāgpur, 1901
• A geography of India: physical, political, and commercial. 1909 ( full text )
• RV Russell: Census of India, 1901. Central Provinces - Provincial Tables. Nāgpur 1902 ( full text )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Statistical information, unless otherwise stated, based on 1901. Fiscal matters based on the financial year 1903/4; according to Imperial Gazetteer Of India; Oxford 1908, Vol X
2. ↑ corresponds roughly to Switzerland and the FRG within the boundaries of 1949–1989 taken together
3. ↑ cf. Craddock, RH; Reports on the Famines of 1896-7 and 1899-1900 ; Nagpur
4. ↑ Arthur Geddes; Half a Century of Population Trends in India: A Regional Study of Net Change and Variability, 1881-1931; Geographical Journal, Vol. 98 (1941), No. 5/6, pp. 228-253
5. ↑ cf. Davis, Mike; Late Victorian holocausts: El Niño famines and the making of the third world; 2001, ISBN 1859847390
6. ^ Analogous to the provisions of the Punjab Act XV of 1857, amended in 1873, 1879, expanded in the Central Provinces Municipal Act, XVI of 1903
7. ↑ Final regulation, with strong ownership rights for the cultivators in Act XVIII of 1881 and Act XII of 1898
8. ^ Central Provinces Civil Courts Act, II of 1904
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} conversion factor 2.58 per mile²; rounded.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e} rounded 1901 census. various volumes of the Imperial Gazetteer; otherwise with the year
11. ↑ not to be confused with the princely state of the same name (= Khalur) in the Shimla Hill States
12. ↑ cf. Jagdish Chander Dua; Illustrated Encyclopædia & Who's Who of Princely States in Indian Sub-Continent; New Delhi 2000; ISBN 81-7479-036-5 (obviously reprint, without reference to the source, of a work published around 1943)
13. ^ The British Crown & The Indian States ...; London 1929, pp. 224-225.
14. ↑ Full texts of the regulations: Aitchison, Sir Charles Umpherston (ed.); A collection of treaties, engagements, and sanads relating to India and neighboring countries. Revised and continued up to June 1st, 1906; Calcutta ⁴ 1909, 13 vols. Therein: Vol I, pt. 4: Treaties, engagements and sanads relating to Central Provinces: i, Nāgpur; ii, Chiefships and zamindaris; iii, Feudatory states; iv, non-feudatory zamindaris; Appendix: Bengal
15. ↑ not to be confused with the peninsula of the same name in eastern Asia, on which z. There are currently two states with this name