Eastern States Agency | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1933–1948 | |||||||||||||
 Flag | |||||||||||||
 The Eastern States Agency in the Indian Empire in 1940 | |||||||||||||
| Capital | Ranchi | ||||||||||||
| States under AGG for Eastern States | |||||||||||||
| Government | Indirect imperial rule over a group ofhereditary monarchies | ||||||||||||
| Agent to the Governor-General | |||||||||||||
• 1933 (first) | E.C. Gibson,ICS[1] | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | Interwar era • World War II | ||||||||||||
• Merger of former Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Orissa states | 1933 | ||||||||||||
• Cooch Behar andTripura added | 1936 | ||||||||||||
| 1948 | |||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
| 1936 | 154,570 km2 (59,680 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
TheEastern States Agency was an agency or grouping ofprincely states in eastern India, during the latter years of theBritish Raj. It was created in 1933, by the unification of the former Chhattisgarh States Agency and the Orissa States Agency; the agencies remained intact within the grouping. In 1936, the Bengal States Agency was added.
Since the 19th century theprincely states and thetributary states ofOrissa andChhota Nagpur were not part of Bengal, but British relations with them were managed by its government through theBengal Presidency.[2]
The Eastern States Agency was created on 1 April 1933. This agency dealt with 42 princely states in eastern India, located in the present-day Indian states ofChhattisgarh, Jharkhand,Odisha, West Bengal andTripura. Before the creation of the Eastern States Agency in 1933, 23 native states of the formerOrissa Tributary States andChhota Nagpur States were under thesuzerainty of theBritish provinces ofBihar and Orissa and 16 under that of theCentral Provinces.
The Agent reported to theGovernor General of India and two Political Agents under his supervision were posted atSambalpur andRaipur.[3]
Cooch Behar andTripura were transferred fromBengal Province to the Eastern States Agency on 1 November 1936.[citation needed]
On 1 December 1944, the status of this agency was raised to that of a first-classresidency. These states were grouped into three political agencies, under the "Resident" inCalcutta. The headquarters of the Orissa States Agency was atSambalpur, the headquarters of the Chhattisgarh States Agency was atRaipur and the headquarters of the Bengal States Agency was at Calcutta. After the withdrawal of the British from India in 1947, the statesacceded to the newUnion of India and some of the states formed theEastern States Union, an organisation that failed.[4] Later they were integrated into the Indian states ofMadhya Pradesh, Bihar,West Bengal andOrissa.[5] The eastern portion of Madhya Pradesh and the southern portion of Bihar became the states ofChhattisgarh andJharkhand, respectively, in November 2000.
Link to the Map of Eastern States Agency
Salute states, by precedence:
Non-salute states, alphabetically:
Only non-salute states:
Salute states:
the creation of Eastern States Agency, E. C. Gibson in the Political Department was appointed the first Agent to the Governor General to this Agency. As a result of the notifications, the States of Bihar and Orissa and Central ...
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bengal".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
