Provinces of India

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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

Madras Presidency: established 1640. Enlarged by the 18th century Carnatic Wars and Anglo-Mysore Wars.
Bombay Presidency: East India Company's headquarters moved from Surat to Bombay in 1687. Enlarged by the Anglo-Maratha Wars.
Bengal Presidency: established 1690. Enlarged after the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), and by the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars.
Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri: ceded by Sindhia of Gwalior in 1818 at the conclusion of the Third Anglo-Maratha War.
Coorg: Annexed in 1834.
North-Western Provinces: established in 1835 from portions of Bengal Presidency; later renamed the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
Punjab: Established in 1849 from territories captured in the Anglo-Sikh Wars.
Nagpur Province: Created in 1853 from the princely state of Nagpur, seized by the doctrine of lapse. Merged into the Central Provinces in 1861.
Central Provinces: Created in 1861 from Nagpur Province and the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories. renamed the Central Provinces and Berar in 1903.
Burma: lower portion annexed 1852, made a province 1862, upper portion added 1886. Separated from British India in 1937 to become a separate Crown Colony.
Assam: separated from Bengal in 1874.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands: established as a province in 1875.
Baluchistan: Organized into a province in 1887.
North-West Frontier Province: created in 1901 from the northwestern districts of Punjab Province.
Bihar and Orissa: separated from Bengal in 1912. Renamed Bihar in 1935.
Delhi: Separated from Punjab in 1912, when it became the capital of British India.
Aden: separated from Bombay Presidency to become province of British India in 1932; separated from British India as Crown Colony of Aden in 1937.
Orissa: Separated from Bihar in 1935.
Sindh: Separated from Bombay in 1935.
Panth-Piploda: made a province in 1942, from territories ceded by a native ruler.

[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.

In 1950, the Indian Constitution went into effect, and the provinces were replaced with states and union territories.