The Central Provinces and Berar was a province of British India and later the Dominion of India which existed from 1903 to 1950. It was formed by the merger of the

Central Provinces The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur. ...

with the province of Berar, which was territory leased by the British from the

Hyderabad State Hyderabad State () was a princely state located in the south-central Deccan region of India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and t ...

. Through an agreement signed on 5 November 1902, 6th Nizam

Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI Asaf Jah VI, also known as, Sir Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Siddiqi Bayafandi (17 August 1866 – 29 August 1911) was the 6th Nizam of Hyderabad. He ruled Hyderabad state, one of the Princely states in India between 1869 and 1911. Early life Mahbo ...

leased Berar permanently to the British for an annual payment of 25 lakhs rupees. Lord Curzon decided to merge Berar with the Central Provinces, and this was proclaimed on 17 September 1903. The

was formed in 1861 by the merger of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories and Nagpur Province. Administration of the Berar region of the Hyderabad

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

was assigned to the Chief Commissioner of the

in 1903, and for administrative purposes, Berar was merged with the Central Provinces to form the Central Provinces and Berar on 24 October 1936. After Indian Independence in 1947, a number of

s were merged into the Central Provinces and Berar, which, when the Constitution of India went into effect in 1950, became the new Indian state of Madhya Bharat, merged with Madhya Pradesh in 1956, also meaning ''Central Province.'' As its name suggests, the province was situated in the center of the Indian peninsula. It comprised large portions of the broad belt of hill and plateau which interposes between the plains of the Ganges and the Deccan plateau. The Central Provinces and Berar were bounded on the north and northeast by the Central India Agency, including the

Bundelkhand Bundelkhand (, ) is a geographical and cultural region and a proposed state and also a mountain range in central & North India. The hilly region is now divided between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with the larger portion lyin ...

and Bagelkhand agencies, and along the northern edge of Sagar District by the United Provinces of Agra & Oudh; on the west by the princely states of Bhopal, Indore and by the Kandesh District of

Bombay Presidency The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainl ...

; on the south by

, and on the east by Orissa (till 1937, a part of Bengal Presidency) and the Eastern States Agency.

History

British India

The Central Provinces comprised 19th-century British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered much of present-day

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

with portions of Madhya Pradesh, and

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

states. Its capital was Nagpur. After the defeat of the Marathas in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, the territories north of the Satpura Range ceded in 1817 by the Maratha Peshwa (parts of Saugor and Damoh) and in 1818 by

Appa Sahib Mudhoji (Madhoji) II Bhonsale (died 15 July 1840), also known as Appa Sahib, of the Bhonsale dynasty, ruled the Kingdom of Nagpur in central India from 1816 to 1818. His reign coincided with the Third Anglo-Maratha War between the Maratha Empi ...

, were in 1820, formed into the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories under an agent to the

governor-general Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

. In 1835 the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories were included in the newly formed North-Western Provinces (which later became the United Provinces of Agra & Oudh). In 1842, in consequence of an uprising, they were again placed under the jurisdiction of an agent to the governor-general. They were restored to the North-Western Province in 1853. In 1818, the Maratha

Bhonsle The Bhonsle (or Bhonsale, Bhosale, Bhosle) are a prominent group within the Maratha clan system of kunbi origin. They claimed descent from the Sisodia Rajputs but were likely Kunbi tiller-plainsmen. History Earliest members The earliest a ...

Maharajas of Nagpur submitted to British sovereignty. In 1853, on the death of Raghoji III without heirs, Nagpur was annexed by the British under the doctrine of lapse. Until the formation of the Central Provinces in 1861, Nagpur Province, which consisted of the Nagpur Division,

Chhindwara , other_name = Corn city , nickname = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , p ...

and Chhattisgarh, was administered by a commissioner under the central colonial government. The Saugor and Nerbudda Territories were joined with the Nagpur province to constitute the new Central Provinces in 1861. on 1 October 1903 Berar was placed under the administration of the commissioner of the Central Provinces. In October 1905 most of Sambalpur and the princely states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi were transferred from the Central Provinces and Berar to Bengal, while the Hindi-speaking Chota Nagpur States of

Chang Bhakar Changbhakar State, also known as Chang Bhakar, was one of the princely states of British Empire in India in the Chhattisgarh States Agency. It included 117 villages and had an area of with a 1941 population of 21,266 people. Bharatpur was the c ...

, British Korea, Surguja, Udaipur and Jashpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces & Berar. In 1903, the Marathi-speaking Berar region of the Hyderabad

was placed under the administration of the Governor of the Central Provinces, although it officially remained part of Hyderabad, leased in perpetuity by the Government of India. In 1905, most of Sambalpur district and the

s of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna, and Kalahandi were transferred to Bengal Province and the princely states of Changbhakar, Korea, Surguja, Udaipur, and Jashpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces. The

Government of India Act 1912 The Government of India Act 1912 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which made changes to the governance of British India. It received royal assent on 25 June 1912. The act addressed several problems related to the reorganizatio ...

permitted the creation of legislative councils for provinces under a chief commissioner, and on 8 November 1913 the Central Provinces Legislative Council was formed. The Government of India Act 1919 changed the administrator of the province from a chief commissioner to a governor, and enlarged the legislative council and expanded the voting franchise. The first elections for the Legislative Council under the 1919 Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms were in November and December 1920. The Council consisted of 71 members - 53 elected members, 2 ex-officio members (members of Executive Council), and 16 official and non-official nominated members (Zamindar owners declared as backward, Depressed Classes, Europeans and Anglo-Indians). Out of the 53 elected members, 40 came from general constituencies (30 rural and 10 urban), 7 communal constituencies and 6 special constituencies (Central Provinces & Berar Mining Association, Central Provinces & Berar Commerce & Industry Association, Berar Commerce & Industry, and Central Provinces & Berar Landholders). The Indian National Congress had decided at its Calcutta Conference to boycott the elections as part of the Non-cooperation Movement, and many prominent nationalist leaders, including Ravishankar Shukla,

E. Raghavendra Rao E is the fifth letter of the Latin alphabet. E or e may also refer to: Commerce and transportation * €, the symbol for the euro, the European Union's standard currency unit * ℮, the estimated sign, an EU symbol indicating that the wei ...

B. S. Moonje Balakrishna Shivram Moonje (B.S.Moonje, also B.S. Munje, 12 December 1872 – 3 March 1948) was a leader of the Hindu Mahasabha in India. Career Moonje was born into a Deshastha Rigvedi Brahmin (DRB) family in 1872 at Bilaspur in Centr ...

, Daulat Singh,

Makhan Lal Chaturvedi Pandit Makhanlal Chaturvedi (4 April 1889 – 30 January 1968), also called Pandit ji, was an Indian poet, writer, essayist, playwright and a journalist who is particularly remembered for his participation in India's national struggle for indep ...

, and Vishnudutta Shukla, either decided not to run, or withdrew their candidacies. The legislative seats went mostly to Liberals and loyalists. Gangadhar Rao Chitnavis was nominated as the President of the Council. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms also introduced the principle of dyarchy, whereby certain responsibilities such as agriculture, health, education, and local government, were transferred to elected ministers but some responsibilities such as home, finance and revenue were reserved with the Members of the Executive Council of the Governor. Some of the Indians who served as members of the Governor's Executive Council were Moropant Vishvanath Joshi (Home) and E. Raghavendra Rao. By 1923, the nationalists had decided to participate in the legislative elections, and in the November and December 1923 election, and the

Swaraj Party The Swaraj Party, established as the ''Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party'', was a political party formed in India on 1 January 1923 after the Gaya annual conference in December 1922 of the National Congress, that sought greater self-government and ...

, which advocated Indian independence, won 41 of the 54 elected seats. 4 seats went to independents who generally allied with the Swarajists, four to the Liberals, and five to independents allied with the Liberals. The Swarajists were led by B. S. Moonje from Vidarbha, E. Raghavendra Rao from Mahakoshal, and S. B. Tambe and B. G. Khaparde of Berar. S. M. Chitnavis was leader of the Liberals. Despite winning a majority of seats, the Swarajists, consistent with the party's policy of obstruction and non-acceptance of office, refused to form a government, and Governor Frank Sly selected Chitnavis and Syed Hifazat Ali, a Muslim independent, as ministers. In the 1926 election, the Swarajists split, with one faction continuing with the policies of obstruction and non-acceptance of office, while the

Responsive Cooperation Party The Responsive Cooperation Party was a political party operating in the Indian independence movement and was established by M. R. Jayakar, B. S. Moonje, N. C. Kelkar and others. The party was a splinter from the Motilal Nehru-led Swaraj Party, whic ...

which chose to participate in government. After the election B. S. Moonje formed a ministry by uniting Responsive Cooperation, Independent Congress, Liberal, and independent legislators into a National Party, with 33 members. The ministry collapsed in 1933 due to infighting among the ministers and a new ministry was formed under Raghavendra Rao with Muhammad Yusuf Shareef and V. B. Choubal as ministers. This ministry collapsed in 1934 and a new ministry was formed with B. G. Khaparde as Chief Minister and K. S. Naidu as the other minister. This ministry remained in office till 1937. In 1933 the princely states in Chhattisgarh Division were transferred to the Eastern States Agency, and Makrai to the Central India Agency. On 24 October 1936, the Central Provinces became the Central Provinces and Berar when it was fully merged with Berar Division, although it remained under the nominal sovereignty of Hyderabad.Olson, James S. and Robert Shadle, eds. ''Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, Vol. 1.'' Greenwood Publishing Group, UK 1996. P. 227. In 1935 the Government of India Act was passed by the British Parliament. This act provided for the election of a provincial assembly, with an electorate made up of men with a minimum of financial resources, and excluding women and the poor. Supervisory powers over the enclaved and attached Princely States were reserved to the Governor and removed from the authority of the popular provincial governments. Elections were held in 1937, and the Indian National Congress took a majority of the seats but declined to form the government. A minority provisional government was formed under E. Raghavendra Rao. The Congress reversed its decision and resolved to accept office in July 1937. Therefore, the Governor invited

N. B. Khare Dr. Narayan Bhaskar Khare (19 March 1884, in Panvel – 1970, in Nagpur) was an Indian politician. He was Chief Minister of Central Province (present day Madhya Pradesh) in 1930s as Congress politician. Later he left Congress and joined Hindu Mah ...

to form the government in August 1937. Khare resigned in 1938, and

Ravi Shankar Shukla Ravishankar Shukla (2 August 1877 — 31 December 1956) was a leader of the Indian National Congress, Indian independence movement activist, the Premier of the Central Provinces and Berar from 27 April 1946 to 25 January 1950, first Chief Minis ...

next became Premier. In 1939, along with Congress leaders from other provinces, Shukla resigned in protest of the Governor-General's declaration of war on Germany without consulting with Indian leaders, and the Central Provinces & Berar came under Governor's Rule. Another round of elections were held in 1946, yielding another Congress majority, and Shukla again became Premier.

After Indian independence

India became independent on 15 August and the Central Provinces & Berar became a province of the Dominion of India. The princely states, which were under the Central Provinces before 1936, were merged into the province, and organized into new districts. When the Constitution of India went into effect in 1950, the Central Provinces & Berar was reorganized with territorial changes as the state of Madhya Pradesh, which name also means ''Central Province.'' On 1 November 1956, Madhya Bharat, together with the states of Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal State, was merged into Madhya Pradesh. In 1956, strong demand due to linguistic similarity from

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

Irredentists, the Berar and Nagpur divisions were transferred to

Bombay State Bombay State was a large Indian state created at the time of India's Independence, with other regions being added to it in the succeeding years. Bombay Presidency (roughly equating to the present-day Indian state of Maharashtra, excluding Sou ...

. In 1960, the Bombay State was partitioned into

& Gujarat. In 2000, the eastern portion of Madhya Pradesh was split off to become the new state of

Demographics

The 1911 census counted a population of 16,033,310 for the Central Provinces and Berar. Droughts in 1917 and 1920 caused famine in several districts, and the Central Provinces were affected by bubonic plague in 1911, 1912, 1915, 1917, and 1918, and by the

1918 influenza pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

. In the 1921 census, the population declined by 0.3% from 1911 to 15,970,660. The 1931 census found a total population of 17,990,937 for the Central Provinces and Berar - 12,065,885 for the British districts, 3,441,838 for Berar, and 2,483,214 in the princely states.

Administration

The 1941 Census of India counted 16,813,584 persons in the province, of which 2,093,767 were urban and 14,719,817 were rural.Census of India 1941, accessed 12 November 2013
/ref>

Districts

The Central provinces and Berar was made up of 22 districts, grouped into five divisions : * Jubbulpore (Jabalpur) Division (18,950 sq. mi.), which included Jubbulpore, Saugor (Sagar), Damoh, Seoni and Mandla districts. * Nerbudda (Narmada) Division (18,382 sq. mi.), which included Narsinghpur, Hoshangabad, Nimar, Betul and

Chhindwara , other_name = Corn city , nickname = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , p ...

districts. * Nagpur Division (23,521 sq. mi.), which included Nagpur, Bhandara, Chanda, Wardha and

Balaghat Balaghat is a city and a municipality in Balaghat district, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Balaghat District. Wainganga River flows beside the town. Geography Balaghat is located at . It has an a ...

districts. * Chhattisgarh Division (21,240 sq. mi.), which included Bilaspur, Raipur and Durg (created 1905) districts. * Berar Division, which included Amraoti ( Amravati), Akola, Ellichpur, Buldhana, Basim and Wun districts.

Princely States

The Central provinces and Berar included also 15 princely states, whose native rulers enjoyed indirect rule under British protection.

Salute state A salute state was a princely state under the British Raj that had been granted a gun salute by the British Crown (as paramount ruler); i.e., the protocolary privilege for its ruler to be greeted—originally by Royal Navy ships, later also ...

s, in order of precendence : * Kalahandi (Karond), title Maharaja, Hereditary salute of 9-guns * Patna, title Maharaja, Hereditary salute of 9-guns * Sonepur, title Maharaja, Hereditary salute of 9-guns Non-salute states, alphabetically : * Bamra, title Raja * Bastar, title (Maha) Raja * Chhuikandan (Kondka), title Mahant * Kanker, title Raja * Kawardha, title Thakur * Khairagarh, title Raja * Makrai, title Raja (from 1899, Raja Hathiya Rai) * (Raj) Nandgaon, title Mahant *

Raigarh Raigarh is a city in Eastern Chhattisgarh. History The tradition preserved by the ruling family of the erstwhile state of Raigarh maintains that the Raj Gond family migrated to this region from Bairagarh/Wariagarh of Chanda district of Mahara ...

, title Raja Bahadur * Rairakhol State, title Raja * Sakti, title Rana * Sarangarh, title Raja

References

* This contains a more-detailed account of the geography and history of the provinces up to the 19th century. {{DEFAULTSORT:Central Provinces And Berar Subdivisions of British India Provinces of British India History of Chhattisgarh 1950 disestablishments in India History of Vidarbha History of Madhya Pradesh States and territories established in 1936 States and territories disestablished in 1950 1936 establishments in India