| Central Provinces | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province ofBritish India | |||||||||||
| 1861–1903 | |||||||||||
 Flag .jpg) Coat of arms | |||||||||||
 Central Provinces and Berar in 1903, before the 1905 changes to the eastern boundary | |||||||||||
| Capital | Nagpur (primary capital) Pachmarhi,Hoshangabad district (summer capital) | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Merger of theSaugor and Nerbudda Territories andNagpur Province | 1861 | ||||||||||
• Nimar added to Central Provinces | 1864 | ||||||||||
• Creation of theCentral Provinces and Berar | 1903 | ||||||||||
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 This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Central Provinces and Berar".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 681–3. | |||||||||||
TheCentral Provinces was aprovince ofBritish India. It comprised British conquests from theMughals andMarathas in central India, and covered parts of present-dayMadhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh andMaharashtra states.Nagpur was the primary winter capital whilePachmarhi served as the regular summer retreat. It became theCentral Provinces and Berar in 1903.
The Central Provinces was formed in 1861 by the merger of theSaugor and Nerbudda Territories andNagpur Province. The district ofNimar which was administered by theCentral India Agency was added in 1864.[1] It was almost an island encircled by a sea of "native States" such asBhopal State andRewa State to the north, theChota Nagpur States andKalahandi State to the east, and theNizam's territories ofHyderabad to the south andBerar to the west.[2]
The Central Provinces waslandlocked, occupying the mountain ranges, plateaus, and river valleys in the centre of theIndian subcontinent.
The northernmost portion of the state extended onto theBundelkhand upland, whose northward-flowing rivers are tributaries of theYamuna andGanges. TheVindhya Range runs east and west, forming the watershed between the Ganges-Yamuna basin and theNarmada River basin, which occupies the center and west of the province, and flows westward to empty into theArabian Sea. The upper Narmada valley forms the center of theMahakoshal region.Jabalpur (formerly Jubbulpore) lay on the upper Narmada, and was an important railway junction.
TheSatpura Range divides the Narmada valley from theDeccan Plateau to the south. The Central Provinces included the northeastern portion of the Deccan, drained by tributaries of theGodavari River including theWainganga,Wardha, andIndravati. These flow east towards theBay of Bengal. A portion of Berar lay in the upper basin of theTapti River, which drains westward into the Arabian Sea. The portion of the Central Provinces on the Deccan Plateau formed theVidarbha region, which includesNagpur, the capital of the province.
The eastern portion of the state lay in the upperMahanadi River basin, which forms fertile rice-growing region ofChhattisgarh. TheMaikal Range separates the basins of the Narmada and the Mahanadi. TheChota Nagpur Plateau extended into the northeast corner of the province.
| Year | Pop. | ±% p.a. |
|---|---|---|
| 1866 | 9,000,000 | — |
| 1872 | 9,250,000 | +0.46% |
| 1881 | 11,500,000 | +2.45% |
| 1891 | 13,000,000 | +1.23% |
| 1901 | 11,873,029 | −0.90% |
General censuses were held in 1866, 1872, 1881, 1891 and 1901. The population in 1866 was over 9 million, and in 1872 over 9.25 million. 1869 was a famine year. There were epidemics of smallpox and cholera in 1872, 1878, and 1879. By 1881 the population had risen to 11.5 million, and by 1891 to nearly 13 million. The population in 1901 was 11,873,029, a reduction of 800,000 from 1891. The lack ofsummer monsoon rains in 1897 and 1900 led to widespread crop failures and huge famines in those years, and there were partial crop failures in four other years in the decade, with epidemics of cholera in seven of the ten years. A portion of the decrease (between one-eighth and one-quarter) was from emigration toAssam and other provinces of India.[3]
The central Provinces contained two distinct linguistic regions:Mahakoshal, consisting mainly ofHindi-speaking districts, andVidarbha, chiefly, but not exclusively, aMarathi-speaking area. The linguistic regions could not be fully integrated as a unit.[4]
In the 1901 census, 6,111,000 (63% percent) of the population spoke variants of Hindi, chieflyChhattisgarhi (27%),Bundeli (15%),Bagheli (10%) andMalvi or Rajasthani (5%). 2,107,000 (20%) spoke Marathi, the majority language ofWardha,Nagpur,Chanda, andBhandara districts, and the southern portions of Nimar, Betul, Chhindwara, and Balaghat districts.Oriya speakers numbered 1,600,000, or 13.5%, but the transfer ofSambalpur District to Bengal in 1905 reduced the number of Oriya speakers to 292,000. There were 94,000Telugu speakers, mostly in Chanda District. Of the 730,000 who spoke otherDravidian languages, the majority spokeGondi, and 60,000 spokeKorku. 74,000 spokeMunda languages.[5]
The Central Provinces were administered from 1861 to 1920 by a chief commissioner.
Administratively, the Central Provinces consisted of four divisions (Nerbudda,Jubbulpore,Nagpur, andChhattisgarh), which were further divided into 18 districts - five districts in each division except Chhattisgarh, which had three districts. Berar was under the administrative authority of the Chief Commissioner for the Central Provinces, but administered separately. The Central Provinces also contained 15 princely states, which accounted for 31,188 square miles and a population in 1901 of 1,631,140, approximately 15% of the total population. The largest wasBastar, with an area of 13,062 miles, and the smallest was Satki, with an area of 138 square miles. The princely states were in Chhattisgarh Division, except forMakrai, which was inHoshangabad District.[6]
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