British Raj : Provinces

List of Provinces

• Ajmer-Merwana-Kekri
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Assam
• Baluchistan
• Bengal
• Bihar
• Bombay Province
• Central Province and Berrar
• Delhi Province
• Madras Province
• Orissa
• Punjab
• Sidh

Connection to Passage to India

• Chandrapore is a fictional town that was supposedly loosely based on Bankipur, a suburb of Patna which is in the state of Bihar
• Patna was an industrial trade center for silk, cotton and saltpeter
• Southbank of the Ganges River
• Marabar Caves are based on the Barabar Caves - house Ashoka’s pillars
• immense diversity is overwhelming even to the Indians

British Raj : Provinces

Works Cited

• "Bengal Presidency, British India." Bengal Presidency, British India. Jupiter Infomedia, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <http://www.indianetzone.com/34/bengal_presidency_british_india.htm>.
• "Bombay Presidency." Bombay Presidency. Jupiter Infomedia, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <http://www.indianetzone.com/6/bombay_presidency.htm>.
• "British Raj." New World Encyclopedia. New World Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newworldencyclopedia.org%2Fentry%2FBritish_Raj&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGDHpzKJ3pw6I8qJU7Qix4zaIezKQ>.
• Carr, Robert. "British Empire: The Map Room: Asia: India." British Empire: The Map Room: Asia: India. Stephen Luscombe, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/india.htm>.
• "Madras Presidency , India." Madras Presidency , India. Jupiter Infomedia, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <http://www.indianetzone.com/21/madras_presidency_india.htm>.
• "Rajputana (historical Region, India)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/490168/Rajputana>.

Punjab

Bengal

• important towns - Delhi, Jullunder, Lahore,Multan and Rawalpindi
• population consisted of Punjabis and Muslims
• previously a prominent part of the Mughal Empire
• religiously housed the Sikhs
• also housed the Punjabi and Sikh sepoy [sic] regiments where the Sepoy mutiny took place in 1857
• key location for Indian Nationalist Movement
• Amritsar Massacre

• Initially consisted of East and West Bengal - Later became West Pakistan then became Bangladesh
• important towns - Calcutta, Dacca, Chittagong
• Calcutta harbors the Bay of Bengal (important connection to Burma)
• in its heyday (before partition of 1905) ultimately incorporated all British territories of Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh) including the Ganges and Brahmaputra River to the Himalayas and Punjab
• Lord Curzon and his “Divide and Rule policy”
• culturally inhabited by Bengalis (Rabindranath Tagore)

Rajputana

• Also called Rajwar, was the largest princely state that is now a Rajasthan “state”
• part of the Great Indian (Thar desert)
• culturally feudal Rajput order
• (from Sanskrit raja-putra meaning “son of a king”) who were the landowning gentry organized in patrilineal clans
• regarded themselves as warrior class - Kshatriya
• Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, and Udaipur
• The British operated through Rajputana Agency - Governer in General of India
• agrarian economy - lagaans and taxes

Overview

• "Imperial British Raj ran from a period of 1858 to 1947 with Queen Victoria as the first empress of India after the Sepoy [sic] Revolts of 1857
• prior to that the East India Company worked as a "regent" of the Mughal Empire
• The British divided India into provinces
• but there were also princely states (ruled by Rajas and Maharajas) who were granted a degree of autonomy in exchange for the English having a right to "influence" state decisions
• ex- Rajputana, Hyderabad, Punjab states
• From 1905 onwards, British adopted the policy of "divide and rule" because they believed that diversity would cause problems
• Railroad and other communication programs
• English education system
• Ironically this worked to unify the Indians as intellectuals learned to use "the white man against the white man.

Bombay Province

• Bombay presidency was arguably the most important province (economic terms) and population
• important towns - Bombay (Mumbai), Nagpur, Pune, Ahmadabad
• trading post for the East India Company, harbors the Arabic Sea
• profit was based on manufacturing cotton and textiles
• Ahmadabad and Bombay also manufactured silk
• so lucrative that Gandhi encouraged Indians to abandon all British made textiles in protest
• had the most educational institutions
• culturally inhabited by the Marathas

MAdras

• Southern India that is current day Tamil Nadu
• important towns - Madras (Chennai), Mansulipattam,
• harbored the Indian ocean that was a hotspot for trade
• culturally inhabited by the Dravidians - Tamils, Telugus, Malayalis, and Tuli