1.
Jawaharlal Nehru
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Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. He is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state, a sovereign, socialist, secular and he was also known as Pandit Nehru due to his roots with the Kashmiri Pandit community while many Indian children knew him as Chacha Nehru. The son of Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and nationalist statesman and Swaroop Rani, Nehru was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple, where he trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Allahabad High Court, and took an interest in national politics, a committed nationalist since his teenage years, he became a rising figure in Indian politics during the upheavals of the 1910s. He became the prominent leader of the factions of the Indian National Congress during the 1920s. As Congress President in 1929, Nehru called for independence from the British Raj. Nehru and the Congress dominated Indian politics during the 1930s as the country moved towards independence, but these achievements were seriously compromised in the aftermath of the Quit India Movement in 1942, which saw the British effectively crush the Congress as a political organisation. The Muslim League under his old Congress colleague and now bête noire, negotiations between Nehru and Jinnah for power sharing failed and gave way to the independence and bloody partition of India in 1947. As Prime Minister, he set out to realise his vision of India, the Constitution of India was enacted in 1950, after which he embarked on an ambitious program of economic, social and political reforms. Chiefly, he oversaw Indias transition from a colony to a republic, while nurturing a plural, in foreign policy, he took a leading role in Non-Alignment while projecting India as a regional hegemon in South Asia. Under Nehrus leadership, the Congress emerged as a party, dominating national and state-level politics and winning consecutive elections in 1951,1957. He remained popular with the people of India in spite of troubles in his final years. In India, his birthday is celebrated as Childrens Day, Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India. His father, Motilal Nehru, a barrister who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community. His mother, Swaruprani Thussu, who came from a well-known Kashmiri Brahmin family settled in Lahore, was Motilals second wife, Jawaharlal was the eldest of three children, two of whom were girls. The elder sister, Vijaya Lakshmi, later became the first female president of the United Nations General Assembly, the youngest sister, Krishna Hutheesing, became a noted writer and authored several books on her brother. Nehru described his childhood as a sheltered and uneventful one and he grew up in an atmosphere of privilege at wealthy homes including a palatial estate called the Anand Bhawan. His father had him educated at home by governesses and tutors
2.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
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Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistans creation on 14 August 1947 and he is revered in Pakistan as Qayid-i-Azam and Baba-i-Qaum. His birthday is observed as a national holiday, born in Karachi and trained as a barrister at Lincolns Inn in London, Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. Jinnah became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League, in 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from, the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy. By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that Indian Muslims should have their own state, in that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were imprisoned, Jinnah died at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom. He left a deep and respected legacy in Pakistan, according to his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, he remains Pakistans greatest leader. Jinnahs family was from a Gujarati background, with sources differing over their purported Iranian or Rajput ancestry and they had moved to Karachi in 1875, having married before their departure. Karachi was then enjoying a boom, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 meant it was 200 nautical miles closer to Europe for shipping than Bombay. Jinnah was the child, he had three brothers and three sisters, including his younger sister Fatima Jinnah. The parents were native Gujarati speakers, and the children came to speak Kutchi. Except for Fatima, little is known of his siblings, where they settled or if they met with their brother as he advanced in his legal and political careers. As a boy, Jinnah lived for a time in Bombay with an aunt and may have attended the Gokal Das Tej Primary School there, later on studying at the Cathedral, in Karachi, he attended the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam and the Christian Missionary Society High School. He gained his matriculation from Bombay University at the high school, in 1892, Sir Frederick Leigh Croft, a business associate of Jinnahbhai Poonja, offered young Jinnah a London apprenticeship with his firm, Grahams Shipping and Trading Company. Jinnahs mother and first wife died during his absence in England. In 1893, the Jinnahbhai family moved to Bombay, soon after his arrival in London, Jinnah gave up the apprenticeship in order to study law, enraging his father, who had, before his departure, given him enough money to live for three years. Jinnahs legal education followed the system, which had been in force there for centuries. To gain knowledge of the law, he followed an established barrister and learned from what he did, during this period, he shortened his name to Muhammad Ali Jinnah
3.
Indian National Congress
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The Indian National Congress is one of two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress was founded in 1885 during the British Raj, its founders include Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, there have been seven Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru, and the most recent Manmohan Singh. The partys social liberal platform is considered to be on the centre-left of Indian politics. From 2004 to 2014, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, a coalition of regional parties. As of March 2017, the party is in power in five states, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya, in Bihar, it is a part of the ruling coalition. The Congress has previously directly ruled Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, in the 2014 general election, the Congress had its poorest post-independence general election performance, winning only 44 seats of the 543-member house. The party primarily endorses social liberalism—seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, the Congress was founded in 1885 by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, including Scotsman Allan Octavian Hume. It has been suggested that the idea was conceived in a meeting of 17 men after a Theosophical Convention held in Madras in December 1884. Hume took the initiative, and in March 1885 the first notice convening the first Indian National Union to meet in Poona the following December was issued. Its objective was to obtain a share in government for educated Indians and to create a platform for civic. The first meeting was scheduled to be held in Poona, Hume organised the first meeting in Bombay with the approval of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first president of the Congress, the first session was held from 28–31 December 1885, representing each province of India, the Partys delegates comprised 54 Hindus and 2 Muslims, the rest were of Parsi and Jain backgrounds. It also included Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mohammed Ali Jinnah—later leader of the Muslim League and instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. The Congress was transformed into a movement by Surendranath Banerjea and Sir Henry Cotton during the partition of Bengal in 1905. Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915, in 1923 following the deaths of policemen at Chauri Chaura, Gandhi suspended the agitation. In protest, a number of leaders, Chittaranjan Das, Annie Besant, the Khilafat movement collapsed and the Congress was split. Although its members were predominantly Hindu, it had members from other religions, economic classes, at the Congress 1929 Lahore session under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, Purna Swaraj was declared as the partys goal, declaring 26 January 1930 as Purna Swaraj Diwas, Independence Day. The same year, Srinivas Iyenger was expelled from the party for demanding full independence, the British government allowed provincial elections in India in the winter of 1936–37 under the Government of India Act 1935
4.
All-India Muslim League
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The All-India Muslim League was a political party established during the early years of the 20th century in the British Indian Empire. Its strong advocacy for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, the party arose out of a literary movement begun at The Aligarh Muslim University in which Syed Ahmad Khan was a central figure. Sir Syed had founded, in 1886, the Muhammadan Educational Conference, at its December 1906 conference in Dhaka, attended by 3,000 delegates, the conference removed the ban and adopted a resolution to form an All Indian Muslim League political party. Its original political goal was to define and advance the Indian Muslims civil rights and to provide protection to the upper, after the partition and subsequent establishment of Pakistan, the Muslim League continued as a minor party in India where it was often part of the government. In Bangladesh, the Muslim League was revived in 1976 but it was reduced, furthermore, it was the only party to have received votes from both East and West Pakistan during the elections held in 1970. During the successive periods of Pakistan, the Muslim League continued to be a party in the different periods of Pakistan. Since 1985, the Pakistan Muslim League split into various factions, however, the PML-N remains to be influential faction than others, and has been in power during the elections held in 1990 and in the 1997. As of current of 2013 elections, the PML-N remains to be a party of Pakistan. The All-India Muslim League was formed with the help from the reformist Syed Ahmad Khan and his strong advocacy for British education and political activism had inspired upper class Muslims to support the cause for the AIML. Originally hosting the All-India Muhammadan Educational Conference in 1886 in a vision to uplift the cause for the British education especially science and literature, in turn this new awareness of Muslim needs helped stimulate a political consciousness among Muslim elites that went on to form the AIML. The formation of a Muslim political party on national level was seen as essential by 1901, the first stage of its formation was the meeting held at Lucknow in September 1906, with participation of representatives from all over India. The decision for re-consideration to form the all Indian Muslim political party was taken, meanwhile, Nawab Salimullah Khan published a detailed scheme through which he suggested the party to be named All-India Muslim Confederacy. That was headed by both Nawab Waqar-ul-Mulk and Nawab Muhasan-ul-Mulk, in which he explained its objectives and stressed the unity of the Muslims under the banner of an association, the political party was established at the end of the conference. The name All-India Muslim League was proposed by Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, Sir Agha Khan III was appointed its first president. Fifty eight delegates from all over the Subcontinent were the members of League. The Leagues constitution was framed in 1907 in Karachi, in 1910, Nawaab Syed Shamsul Huda selected as the president of the party. Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah was appointed the first Honorary President of the Muslim League, the headquarters were established at Lucknow. There were also six vice-presidents, a secretary and two joint secretaries initially appointed for a term, proportionately from different provinces
5.
Presidencies and provinces of British India
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Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India and still earlier, Presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in the subcontinent. Collectively, they were called British India, in one form or other they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods. During 1612–1757, the East India Company set up factories in several locations, mostly in coastal India and its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. By the mid-18th century, three Presidency towns, Madras, Bombay, and 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 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 Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Companys remaining powers were transferred to the Crown. In the new British Raj, sovereignty extended to a few new regions, increasingly, however, unwieldy presidencies were broken up into Provinces. In 1608, the English East India Company established a settlement at Surat, and it was followed in 1611 by a permanent factory at Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and in 1612 the company joined other already established European trading companies in Bengal. Company rule in Bengal, however, ended with the Government of India Act 1858 following the events of the Bengal Rebellion of 1857 and these rulers were allowed a measure of internal autonomy in exchange for British suzerainty. British India constituted a significant portion of India both in area and population, in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area, in addition, there were Portuguese and French exclaves in India. Independence from British rule was achieved in 1947 with the formation of two nations, the Dominions of India and Pakistan, the latter also including East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh. The term British India also applied to Burma for a time period, starting in 1824, a small part of Burma. This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma commenced being administered as a separate British colony, British India did not apply to other countries in the region, such as Sri Lanka, which was a British Crown colony, or the Maldive Islands, which were a British protectorate. It also included the Colony of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula, the original seat of government was at Allahabad, then at Agra from 1834 to 1868. Bombay Presidency, East India Companys headquarters moved from Surat to Bombay in 1687, the East India Company, which was incorporated on 31 December 1600, established trade relations with Indian rulers in Masulipatam on the east coast in 1611 and Surat on the west coast in 1612. The company rented a trading outpost in Madras in 1639, meanwhile, in eastern India, after obtaining permission from the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to trade with Bengal, the Company established its first factory at Hoogly in 1640. Almost a half-century later, after Emperor Aurengzeb forced the Company out of Hooghly, by the mid-18th century the three principal trading settlements, now called the Madras Presidency, the Bombay Presidency, and the Bengal Presidency were each administered by a Governor. After Robert Clives victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in 1772, the Company also obtained the Nizāmat of Bengal and thereby full sovereignty of the expanded Bengal Presidency
6.
Madras Presidency
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The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India. The city of Madras was the capital of the Presidency and Ootacamund or Ooty. The island of Ceylon was a part of Madras Presidency from 1793 to 1798 when it was created a Crown colony, the agency was upgraded to a Presidency in 1652 before once more reverting to its previous status in 1655. In 1684, it was re-elevated to a Presidency and Elihu Yale was appointed as president, in 1785, under the provisions of Pitts India Act, Madras became one of three provinces established by the East India Company. Thereafter, the head of the area was styled Governor rather than President and became subordinate to the Governor-General in Calcutta, a title that would persist until 1947. Judicial, legislative and executive powers rested with the Governor who was assisted by a Council whose constitution was modified by reforms enacted in 1861,1909,1919 and 1935, regular elections were conducted in Madras up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Following the Montague-Chelmsford reforms of 1919, Madras was the first province of British India to implement a system of dyarchy, in the early decades of the 20th century, many significant contributors to the Indian independence movement came from Madras. With the advent of Indian independence on 15 August 1947, the Presidency became the Madras Province. Madras was later admitted as Madras State, a state of the Indian Union at the inauguration of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950, the discovery of dolmens from this portion of the subcontinent shows inhabitation as early as the Stone Age. The first prominent rulers of the part of the future Presidency were the Tamil pandya dynasty. Following the decline of the pandyas of Tamil Nadu and the Cholas in Tamil Nadu, the country recovered under the subsequent Pallava dynasty and its civilisation attained a peak under the later where the telugu period when telugu kings started accquiring vast places in Tamil Nadu. Following the conquest of Madurai by Malik Kafur in 1311, there was a brief lull when both culture and civilisation began to deteriorate, the Tamil and Telugu territories recovered under the Vijayanagar Empire, founded in 1336. Following the empires demise, the country was split amongst numerous sultans, polygars, between 1685 and 1947, a number of kings ruled the areas that became part of the Madras Presidency. On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted a group of English merchants a charter to establish a company which became known as the East India Company. The first of these were built at Surat on the west coast, Masulipatam is thus the oldest English trading post on Indias east coast, dating back to 1611. In 1625, another factory was established at Armagon, a few miles to the south, the English authorities decided to relocate these factories farther south, due to a shortage of cotton cloth, the main trade item of the east coast at the time. The problem was compounded when the Sultan of Golconda started harassing the local officers, an agency was created to govern the new settlement, and the factor Andrew Cogan of Masulipatnam was appointed as its first Agent. All the agencies along Indias east coast were subordinated to the East India Company presidency of Bantam in Java, by 1641, Fort St George became the Companys headquarters on the Coromandel Coast
7.
History of Odisha
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The name, Odisha, refers to the current state in India. But in the different era the region and parts of the region were known by different names, the boundaries of the region also has varied over the ages. The human history in Odisha begins in the Lower Paleolithic era, the early history of Odisha is mostly obscure, with few mentions found in ancient texts like the Mahabharata, Maha Govinda Sutta and some Puranas. In 261 BCE, Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty conquered the region in the bloody Kalinga War, the resulting bloodshed and suffering of the war deeply affected Ashoka. He turned into a pacifist and converted to Buddhism and he sent peace emissaries to various neighbouring nations. Thus as a consequence, the event caused the spread of Buddhism in Asia. The region was known to other kingdoms in region of East Indies due to maritime trade relations. The year 1568 CE is considered a point in the regions history. In 1568 CE, the region was conquered by the armies of the Sultanate of Bengal led by the iconoclast general Kalapahad, the region lost its political identity. The following rulers of the region were more tributary lords than actual kings, after 1751, the Marathas gained control of the region for almost half a decade. In 1803, the region was passed onto the British empire, the British divided the region into parts of other provinces. In 1936, the province of Odisha was formed on the basis of populations of Odia-speaking people, the region which comprises the modern-day Odisha was not known by the same name throughout history. It and parts of it were referred by different names in different era, Kalinga, According to some scriptures, a king Bali, the Vairocana, the son of Sutapa, had no sons. So, he requested the sage, Dirghatamas, to him with sons. The sage is said to have five sons through his wife. The princes were named Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Sumha, the princes later founded kingdoms named after themselves. The prince Vanga founded Vanga kingdom, in the current day region of Bangladesh, the prince Kalinga founded the kingdom of Kalinga, in the current day region of coastal Odisha, including the Northern Circars. Ptolemy, Pliny the elder and Claudius Aelianus have also mentioned one Calinga in their texts, Utkala, Utkala was a part of Kalinga in some parts of Mahabharata
8.
Bombay Presidency
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The Bombay Presidency, also known as Bombay and Sind from 1843 to 1936 and the Bombay Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India. The English East India Company transferred its Western India headquarters from Surat, its first colony in that region, the Presidency was brought under British Parliament control along with other parts of British India through Pitts India Act. Aden was annexed in 1839, while Sind was annexed by the Company in 1843 after defeating the Talpur dynasty in the Battle of Hyderabad and it was made a part of the Bombay Presidency. The districts and provinces of the presidency were directly under British rule, while the administration of the native or princely states was in the hands of local rulers. The presidency, however, managed the defence of princely states, the Bombay Presidency along with the Bengal Presidency and Madras Presidency were the three major centres of British power. In 1661 Bombay was ceded to the Kingdom of England as part of the dowry of the infanta Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to King Charles II, as English trade in Bombay increased, Surat began its relative decline. In 1687, Bombay was made the headquarters of all the East India Companys possessions in India, however, in 1753 the governor of Bombay became subordinate to that of Calcutta. During the 18th century, the Hindu Maratha Empire expanded rapidly, claiming Konkan, in western Gujarat, including Kathiawar and Kutch, the loosening of Mughal control allowed numerous local rulers to create virtually independent states. The British annexed Surat in 1800, British territory was enlarged in the Second Anglo-Maratha War which ended in 1803. The East India Company received the districts of Bharuch, Kaira, etc. in 1803 the Bombay Presidency included only Salsette, the islands of the harbour, Surat and Bankot, but between this date and 1827 the framework of the presidency took shape. The Gujarat districts were taken over by the Bombay government in 1805, in 1858, under the terms of Queens Proclamation issued by Queen Victoria, the Bombay Presidency, along with the rest of British India, came under the direct rule of the British crown. Henry Bartle Frere was the first Governor appointed by the Crown, under Sir Bartle Frere agricultural prosperity reached its highest point, as a result of the American Civil War and the consequent enormous demand for Indian cotton in Europe. The money thus poured into the country produced an epidemic of speculation known as the Share Mania, which ended in a commercial crisis, but the peasantry gained on the whole more than they lost, and the trade of Bombay was not permanently injured. However, the important portfolios like finance, police and irrigation were reserved with members of the Governors Executive Council, in 1932, Aden was separated from Bombay and made a separate province, and Sindh became a separate province on 1 April 1936. The Government of India Act 1935 made the Bombay Presidency into a regular province and it enlarged the elected provincial legislature and expanded provincial autonomy vis a vis the central government. In the 1937 elections, the Indian National Congress won the elections in Bombay, the Cooper ministry did not last long and a Congress ministry under B. G. Kher was sworn in. Council of Ministers in Khers Cabinet, In 1939, all of the Congress ministries in British Indian provinces resigned and Bombay was placed under the Governors rule. After the end of World War II, the Indian National Congress re-entered politics, the Bombay Presidency became the Bombay State when India was granted independence on 15 August 1947 and Kher continued as the Chief Minister of the state, serving until 1952
9.
Assam
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Assam (English pronunciation, /əˈsæm/ listen is a state in northeastern India. Located south of the eastern Himalayas, Assam comprises the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, along with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya, is one of the Seven Sister States. Geographically, Assam and these states are connected to the rest of India via a 22 kilometres strip of land in West Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or Chickens Neck. Assam shares a border with Bhutan and Bangladesh, and its culture, people. Assam is known for Assam tea and Assam silk, the first oil well in Asia was drilled here. The state has conserved the one-horned Indian rhinoceros from near extinction, along with the water buffalo, pygmy hog, tiger. It provides one of the last wild habitats for the Asian elephant, the Assamese economy is aided by wildlife tourism, centred around Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park which are World Heritage Sites. Sal tree forests are found in the state which, as a result of abundant rainfall, Assam receives more rainfall compared to most parts of India. This rain feeds the Brahmaputra River, whose tributaries and oxbow lakes provide the region with a hydro-geomorphic and aesthetic environment, the precise etymology of Assam came from Ahom Dynasty. In the classical period and up to the 12th century the region east of the Karatoya river, largely congruent to present-day Assam, was called Kamarupa, in medieval times the Mughals used Asham and Kamrup, and during British colonialism, the English used Assam. Though many authors have associated the name with the 13th century Shan invaders the precise origin of the name is not clear. It was suggested by some that the Sanskrit word Asama was the root, which has been rejected by Kakati, among possible origins are Tai and Bodo. Assam and adjoining regions have evidences of settlements from all the periods of the Stone ages. The hills at the height of 1, 500–2,000 feet were popular habitats probably due to availability of exposed dolerite basalt, useful for tool-making. According to a text, Kalika Purana, the earliest ruler of Assam was Mahiranga Danav of the Danava dynasty. The last of these rulers, also Naraka, was slain by Krishna, narakas son Bhagadatta became the king, who fought for the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra with an army of kiratas, chinas and dwellers of the eastern coast. Samudraguptas 4th century Allahabad pillar inscription mentions Kamarupa and Davaka as frontier kingdoms of the Gupta Empire, ruled by three dynasties Varmanas, Mlechchha dynasty and Kamarupa-Palas, from their capitals in present-day Guwahati, Tezpur and North Gauhati respectively. All three dynasties claimed their descent from Narakasura, an immigrant from Aryavarta, in the reign of the Varman king, Bhaskar Varman, the Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the region and recorded his travels
10.
History of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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The history of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stretches back to Greek exploration in the 500s BCE. It is now a province of Pakistan in the mountainous Hindu Kush region where the South Asian subcontinent meets with Central asia, during the colonial period, the province was the North-West Frontier Province, forming the northwestern frontier of British India. The government of Pakistan changed its name, in ancient times, the region was part the state of Gandhara occupied the Vale of Peshawar and adjoining areas. This kingdom was important because of its location at the eastern end of the Khyber Pass. Gandhara was annexed by the Persian Achaemenian dynasty in the early 6th century BCE, the region then passed successively under Greek, Indian, Indo-Bactrian, Sakan, Parthian, and Kushan rule. At some point after 516 BCE, Darius Hystaspes sent Scylax, Darius Hystaspes subsequently subdued the races dwelling west of the Indus and north of Kabul. Gandhara, the modern District of Peshawar, was incorporated into a Persian satrapy, and the Assakenoi, with the tribes farther north on the Indus, formed a special satrapy, both satrapies sent troops for Xerxes invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. In the spring of 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Indian Caucasus and advanced to Nicaea, Alexander then dispatched part of his force through the valley of the Kabul River, while he himself advanced into Bajaur and Swat with his light troops. Craterus was ordered to fortify and repopulate Arigaion, probably in Bajaur, the people of Bazira fled to the rock Aornos, but Alexander made Embolima his base, and attacked the rock from there, which was captured after a desperate resistance. Meanwhile, Peukelaotis had submitted, and Nicanor, a Macedonian, was appointed satrap of the country west of the Indus, Alexander then crossed that river at Ohind or, according to some writers, lower down near Attock. After Alexanders death in 323 BC Porus obtained possession of the Lower Indus valley, Eudamos then left India and with his departure Macedonian power collapsed, and Sandrocottus, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, made himself master of the province. His grandson Ashoka made Buddhism the dominant religion in Gandhara and in Pakhli, after Ashokas death the Mauryan empire fell to pieces, just as in the west the Seleucid power was waning. The Greek princes of Bactria seized the opportunity for declaring their independence and his absence led to a revolt by Eucratides, who seized on Bactria proper and finally defeated Demetrius in his eastern possessions. Eucratides was, however, murdered, and the country became subject to a number of petty rulers, of whom little is known, the Bactrian dynasty was attacked from the west by the Parthians and from the north by the Sakas, a Central Asian tribe. Local Greek rulers still exercised a feeble and precarious power along the borderland and this race of nomads had driven the Sakas before them from the highlands of Central Asia, and were themselves forced southwards by the nomadic Xiongnu. One section, known as the Kushan, took the lead and his son Kadphises II conquered North-Western India, which he governed through his generals. Their dates are still a matter of dispute, but it is beyond question that they reigned early in the Christian era, to this period may be ascribed the fine statues and bas-reliefs found in Gandhara and Udyana. The subjects of Ki-to-los successors who ruled in the valley of Peshawar are known to the Chinese annalists as the Little Yueh-chi
11.
Bengal Presidency
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The Bengal Presidency was once the largest colonial subdivision of British India, with its seat in Calcutta, the capital of British-held territories in South Asia until 1911. At its territorial peak in the 19th century, the presidency extended from the present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in the west to Burma, Singapore, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Viceroy of India for many years. Most of the territories were eventually incorporated into other British Indian provinces. In 1905, Bengal proper was partitioned, with Eastern Bengal and Assam headquartered in Dacca, British India was reorganised in 1912 and the presidency was reunited into a single Bengali-speaking province. The Bengal Presidency was established in 1765, following the defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, Bengal was the economic, cultural and educational hub of the British Raj. It was the centre of the late 19th and early 20th century Bengali Renaissance, the Partition of British India resulted in Bengals division on religious grounds, between West Bengal and East Bengal. Under Warren Hastings the consolidation of British imperial rule over Bengal was solidified, while the formation of a regularised system of legislation was brought in under John Shore. Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, he ascertained and defined the rights of the landholders over the soil. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and gave over the land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or zamindars and this piece of legislation is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. It was designed to introduce ideas of property rights to India, the former aim misunderstood the nature of landholding in India, and the latter was an abject failure. The Cornwallis Code, while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to give recognition to the rights of the under-tenants. Furthermore, the Permanent Settlement took no account of inflation, meaning that the value of the revenue to Government declined year by year, whilst the heavy burden on the peasantry grew no less. This was compounded in the early 19th century by compulsory schemes for the cultivation of Opium and Indigo, the former by the state, peasants were forced to grow a certain area of these crops, which were then purchased at below market rates for export. This added greatly to rural poverty, so unsuccessful was the Permanent Settlement that it was not introduced in the North-Western Provinces after 1831, in Punjab after its conquest in 1849, or in Oudh which was annexed in 1856. These regions were part of the Bengal Presidency, but remained administratively distinct. Officially Punjab, Agra and Allahabad had Lieutenant-Governors subject to the authority of the Governor of Bengal in Calcutta, the only all-Presidency institutions which remained were the Bengal Army and the Civil Service. The partition of the province of Bengal, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, was carried into execution in October 1905. The princely states of Sikkim and the states of Odisha and Chhota Nagpur were not part of Bengal
12.
Punjab Province (British India)
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Punjab, also spelled Panjab, was a province of British India. Most of the Punjab region was annexed by the East India Company in 1849 and it comprised five administrative divisions — Delhi, Jullunder, Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi — and a number of princely states. The partition of India led to the province being divided into East Punjab and West Punjab, belonging to the newly created Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan respectively. The name of the region is a compound of two Persian words Panj and āb and was introduced to the region by the Turko-Persian conquerors of India, Punjab literally means Five Waters referring to the rivers, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Chenab being the largest, moreover, the province as constituted under British rule also included a large tract outside these boundaries. Along the northern border, Himalayan ranges divided it from Kashmir, on the west it was separated from the North-West Frontier Province by the Indus, until it reached the border of Dera Ghazi Khan District, which was divided from Baluchistan by the Sulaiman Range. To the south lay Sindh and Rajputana, while on the east the rivers Jumna, following the victory, the East India Company annexed Punjab on 2 April 1849 and it was made part of the British Raj, at that time administered by the EIC. Lord Dalhousie constituted the Board of Administration by inducting into it the most experienced and seasoned British officers, the members include Sir Henry Lawrence, who had previously worked as British Resident at the Lahore Durbar. Henceforth the Punjab would provide Sikh and Punjabi sepoy regiments to the EICs armies in India and these soldiers would later help the British to put down the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Delhi was transferred from the North-Western Provinces to Punjab in 1859, the British colonial government took this action partly to punish the city for the important role that the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II, and the city as a whole played in the 1857 Rebellion. Sir John Lawrence, then Chief Commissioner, was appointed the first Lieutenant-Governor on 1 January 1859, the territory under the Lieutenant consisted of 29 Districts, grouped under 5 Divisions, and 43 Princely States. Each District was under a Deputy-Commissioner, who reported to the Commissioner of the Division, each District was subdivided into between three and seven tehsils, each under a tahsildar, assisted by a naib tahsildar. In 1866, the Judicial Commissioner was replaced by a Chief Court, the direct administrative functions of the Government were carried out through the Lieutinent-Governor through the Secretariat, comprising a Chief Secretary, a Secretary and two Under-Secretaries. They were usually members of the Indian Civil Service, by the late 19th century, however, the Indian nationalist movement took hold in the province. One of the most significant events associated with the movement was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919, British colonel Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire on a group of some 10,000 unarmed Indians who had convened to protest new anti-subversion regulations. In 1901 the frontier districts beyond the Indus were separated from Punjab and made into a new province, the first Punjab Legislative Council under the 1919 Act was constituted in 1921, comprising 93 members, seventy per cent to be elected and rest to be nominated. Some of the Indian ministers under the scheme were Sir Sheikh Abdul Qadir, Khan Bahadur Chaudhry Sir Shahab-ud-Din. The Government of India Act 1935 introduced provincial autonomy to Punjab replacing the system of dyarchy and it provided for the constitution of Punjab Legislative Assembly of 175 members presided by a Speaker and an executive government responsible to the Assembly
