Dewas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dewas is a city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative center of the Dewas District, and was formerly the seat of two princely states during the British Raj. Today, Dewas is an industrial town, with companies like Ranbaxy and Tata International being prominent players.
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[edit] Geography
Dewas lies northeast of Indore, southeast of Ujjain, and southwest of Shajapur. The town is located on the level plains of the Malwa plateau; to the south, the land rises gently to the Vindhya Range, which is the source of the Chambal and Kali Sindh rivers that flow north through the district on their way to the Ganges. Dewas lies at the foot of the conical Chamunda Hill, on the summit of which is the Devi Vindhyavasini temple. Nagara, which is home to Jain and Hindu temple ruins, lies just south of the city of Dewas.
[edit] Princely history
Dewas was formerly the capital of not one but two princely states of British India. The original state was founded in the first half of the 18th century by the brothers Tukaji Rao (senior) and Jivaji Rao (junior), from the Pawar clan of Marathas, who advanced into Malwa with the Maratha Peshwa, Baji Rao, in 1728. The brothers divided the territory among themselves; their descendants ruled as the senior and junior branches of the family. After 1841, each branch ruled his own portion as a separate state, though the lands belonging to each were so intimately entangled, that even in Dewas, the capital town, the two sides of the main street were under different administrations and had different arrangements for water supply and lighting. The senior branch had an area of 446 sq. mi. and a population of in 62,312 in 1901, while the area of the junior branch was 440 sq. mi. and had a population of 54,904 in 1901. Both Dewas states was in the Malwa Agency of the Central India Agency. After India's independence in 1947, the Rajas of Dewas acceded to India, and their states were integrated into Madhya Bharat, which became a state of India in 1950. In 1956, Madhya Bharat was merged into Madhya Pradesh state.
[edit] The E.M. Forster connection
A lovely and highly informative account of life in Dewas at the eve of Independence is provided by E. M. Forster in his book, The Hill of Devi. The title of the book itself refers to the hill on which the temple to Chamunda is located. E. M. Forster was private secretary to the raja of Dewas Senior, and is perhaps best known for his far more famous work, A Passage to India, which was made into an Oscar winning movie by Sir David Lean, starring Victor Bannerjee and Sir Alec Guinness.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Government website on Dewas district
- Genealogy of the rulers of Dewas Senior
- Genealogy of the rulers of Dewas Junior
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
