Presidencies and provinces of British India

The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:

• Between 1612 and 1757 the
  Calcutta
  , had grown in size.
• During the period of Company rule in India, 1757–1858, the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, now called "Presidencies". However, it also increasingly came under British government oversight, in effect sharing sovereignty with the Crown. At the same time, it gradually lost its mercantile privileges.
• Following the
  Upper Burma. Increasingly, however, the unwieldy presidencies were broken up into "Provinces".^[1] The EIC presidency armies were restructured into the British Indian Army
  .

"British India" did not include the many princely states which continued to be ruled by Indian princes, though by the 19th century under British suzerainty—their defence, foreign relations, and communications relinquished to British authority and their internal rule closely monitored.^[2] At the time of Indian Independence, in 1947, there were officially 565 princely states, a few being very large although most were very small. They comprised a quarter of the population of the British Raj and two fifths of its land area, with the provinces comprising the remainders.^[3] The British India Army formed the Indian Armed Forces which was further divided into the Pakistan Armed Forces following the partition of India.

British India (1600–1947)

In 1608,

The

• 
  The Indian peninsula in 1700, showing the Mughal Empire and the European trading settlements.
• 
  The Indian peninsula in 1760, three years after the Battle of Plassey, showing the Maratha Empire and other prominent political states.
• 
  The presidency town of Madras in a 1908 map. Madras was established as

  Fort St. George

  in 1640.
• 
  The presidency town of Bombay (shown here in a 1908 map) was established in 1684.
• 
  The presidency town of Calcutta (shown here in a 1908 map) was established in 1690 as Fort William.

• Madras Presidency: established 1640.
• Bombay Presidency: East India Company's headquarters moved from Surat to Bombay (Mumbai) in 1687.
• Bengal Presidency: established 1690.

After

Portions of the Kingdom of Mysore were annexed to the Madras Presidency after the Third Anglo-Mysore War ended in 1792. Next, in 1799, after the defeat of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War more of his territory was annexed to the Madras Presidency.^[15] In 1801, Carnatic, which had been under the suzerainty of the company, began to be directly administered by it as a part of the Madras Presidency.^[16]

• 
  Map of India in 1765.
• 
  Map of India in 1795.
• 
  Map of India in 1805.
• 
  Map of India in 1823.
• 
  Map of India in 1837.
• 
  Map of India in 1848.
• 
  Map of India in 1857.
• 
  Expansion of British Bengal and Burma.

The new provinces

By 1851, the East India Company's vast and growing holdings across the sub-continent were still grouped into just four main territories:

• Calcutta
• Bombay
• Madras
• Act of the British Parliament (statute 3 and 4, William IV, cap. 85) promulgated the elevation the Ceded and Conquered Provinces to the new Presidency of Agra, and the appointment of a new governor for the latter, but the plan was never carried out. In 1835 another act of Parliament (statute 5 and 6, William IV, cap. 52) renamed the region the North-Western Provinces, this time to be administered by a lieutenant-governor, the first of whom, Sir Charles Metcalfe, would be appointed in 1836.^[17]

By the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the end of Company rule, the developments could be summarised as follows:

• Anglo-Maratha Wars
  .
• Carnatic Wars and Anglo-Mysore Wars
  .
• Bengal Presidency: expanded after the battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), and after the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars.
• Penang: became a residency within the Bengal Presidency in 1786, the fourth presidency of India in 1805, part of the presidency of the Straits Settlements until 1830, again part of a residency within the Bengal Presidency when the Straits Settlements became so, and finally separated from British India in 1867.
• Presidency of Agra
  under a governor in 1835, but proposal not implemented.
• Sindhia of Gwalior in 1818 at the conclusion of the Third Anglo-Maratha War
  .
• Coorg
  : Annexed in 1834.
• North-Western Provinces: established as a lieutenant-governorship in 1836 from the erstwhile Ceded and Conquered Provinces.
• Sind: annexed to the Bombay Presidency in 1843.
• Second
  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.
• Oudh State annexed in 1856 and governed thereafter until 1905 as a chief commissionership, as a part of North-Western Provinces and Oudh.

• 
  North-Western Provinces, constituted in 1836 from erstwhile Ceded and Conquered Provinces.
• 
  Punjab annexed in 1849.
• 
  Oudh

  annexed in 1856.

Administration under the Crown (1858–1947)

Historical background

The British Raj began with the idea of the presidencies as the centres of government. Until 1834, when a General Legislative Council was formed, each presidency under its governor and council was empowered to enact a code of so-called 'regulations' for its government. Therefore, any territory or province that was added by conquest or treaty to a presidency came under the existing regulations of the corresponding presidency. However, in the case of provinces that were acquired but were not annexed to any of the three presidencies, their official staff could be provided as the governor-general pleased, and was not governed by the existing regulations of the Bengal, Madras, or Bombay presidencies. Such provinces became known as 'non-regulation provinces' and up to 1833 no provision for a legislative power existed in such places.^[18] The same two kinds of management applied for districts. Thus Ganjam and Vizagapatam were non-regulation districts.^[19] Non-regulation provinces included:

• Ajmer Province (Ajmer-Merwara)
• Cis-Sutlej states
• Saugor and Nerbudda Territories
• North-East Frontier
  (Assam)
• Cooch Behar
• South-West Frontier
  (Chota Nagpur)
• Jhansi State
• Kumaon Province

• 
  British India in 1880: This map incorporates the provinces of British India, the Princely States and the legally non-Indian Crown Colony of Ceylon.
• 
  The Indian Empire in 1893 after the annexation of

  Upper Burma and incorporation of Baluchistan

  .
• 
  The Indian Empire in 1907 during the partition of Bengal (1905–1912).
• 
  The Indian Empire in 1915 after the reunification of Bengal, the creation of the new province of Bihar and Orissa, and the re-establishment of Assam.

Regulation provinces

• Central Provinces: Created in 1861 from Nagpur Province and the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories. Berar was added to the province in 1903, and was renamed the Central Provinces and Berar in 1936.
• Upper Burma incorporated in 1886. Separated from British India in 1937 to become administered independently by the newly established British Government Burma Office
  .
• North-East Frontier non-regulation province. Incorporated into the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam
  in 1905. Re-established as a province in 1912.
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands: established as a province in 1875.
• Baluchistan: Organised into a province in 1887.

• 
  Madras Presidency shown in an 1880 map.
• 
  Bombay Presidency in an 1880 map.
• 
  Bengal Presidency in 1880.
• 
  An 1880 map of Central Provinces. The province had been constituted in 1861.
• 
  1908 map of Central Provinces and Berar. Berar was included in 1903.
• 
  Beluchistan, shown as an independent kingdom along with Afghanistan and Turkestan, in an 1880 map.
• 
  Baluchistan in 1908: the Districts and Agencies of British Baluchistan are shown alongside the States, mostly: Kalat.

• North-West Frontier Province: created in 1901 from the north-western districts of Punjab Province.
• Eastern Bengal and Assam: created in 1905 upon the partition of Bengal, together with the former province of Assam. Re-merged with Bengal in 1912, with north-eastern part re-established as the province of Assam.
• Bihar and Orissa: separated from Bengal in 1912. Renamed Bihar in 1936 when Orissa became a separate province.
• Delhi: Separated from Punjab in 1912, when it became the capital of British India.
• Orissa: Separate province by carving out certain portions from the Bihar-Orissa Province and the Madras Province in 1936.
• Sind: Separated from Bombay in 1936.
• Panth-Piploda: made a province in 1942, from territories ceded by a native ruler.

Major provinces

At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a governor or a lieutenant-governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does not include those of the dependent native states):[20] During the partition of Bengal (1905–1912), a new lieutenant-governor's province of Eastern Bengal and Assam existed. In 1912, the partition was partially reversed, with the eastern and western halves of Bengal re-united and the province of Assam re-established; a new lieutenant-governor's province of Bihar and Orissa was also created.

Minor provinces

In addition, there were a few provinces that were administered by a chief commissioner:^[21]

Aden

• As the Settlement of Aden, a dependency of the Bombay Presidency from 1839 to 1932; became a chief commissioner's province in 1932; separated from India and made the Crown Colony of Aden in 1937.

Partition and independence (1947)

At the time of independence in 1947, British India had 17 provinces:

Upon the

In 1950, after the new Indian constitution was adopted, the provinces in India were replaced by redrawn states and union territories. Pakistan, however, retained its five provinces, one of which, East Bengal, was renamed East Pakistan in 1956 and became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971.

See also

Citations