Bombay Presidency
The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India and later the Dominion of India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainland territory was acquired in the Konkan region with the Treaty of Bassein. Poona was the summer capital.[1]
Presidency of Bombay
1662–1935
Province of Bombay
1935–1950
1662–1935
Province of Bombay
1935–1950
Governor's rule
1662
1773
1858
1861
1862
1932
1936
1947
1950
The Bombay province has its beginnings in the city of Bombay that was leased in fee tail to the East India Company, via the Royal Charter of 27 March 1668 by King Charles II of England, who had in turn acquired Bombay on 11 May 1661, through the royal dowry of Catherine Braganza by way of his marriage treaty with the Portuguese princess, daughter of John IV of Portugal. The English East India Company transferred its Western India headquarters from Surat in the Gulf of Cambay after it was sacked, to the relatively safe Bombay Harbour in 1687. The province was brought under Direct rule along with other parts of British India through Pitt's India Act, after the nationalisation of the East India Company. Major territorial acquisitions were made by the company after Anglo-Maratha Wars when the whole of the Peshwa's dominions and much of the Gaekwad's sphere of influence were annexed to the Bombay Presidency in stages up until 1818. Aden including Socotra were placed under Bombay in 1839, Sind was annexed by the company in 1843 after defeating the Talpur dynasty in the Battle of Hyderabad.
At its greatest extent, the Bombay Province comprised the present-day state of Gujarat, the western two-thirds of Maharashtra state, including the divisions of Konkan, Desh & Kandesh, and also northwestern Carnataca; it also included Pakistan's Sindh Province (1847–1935) and Aden of present-day Yemen (1839–1932).[2] The districts and provinces of the presidency were directly under British rule, while the internal administration of the native or princely states was in the hands of local rulers. The presidency, however, managed the defence of princely states and British relations with them through political agencies. The Bombay Presidency along with the Bengal Presidency and Madras Presidency were the three major centres of British power in South Asia.[3]
Military[edit]
The East India Company had raised armies in each of the Presidencies, Bombay, Bengal and Madras. The Bombay Army consisted of a number of infantry regiments, sapper and miner units and irregular cavalry. A number of these continue to exist today in the Indian Army; examples being the Mahar Regiment, Maratha Light Infantry and the Grenadiers, amongst others, in the case of infantry, the Bombay Sappers as engineers and the Poona Horse amongst the cavalry.
Under Lord Kitchener's re-arrangement of the Indian army in 1904 the old Bombay command was abolished and its place was taken by the Western army corps under a lieutenant-general. The army corps was divided into three divisions under major-generals. The 4th (Quetta) Division, with headquarters at Quetta, comprised the troops in the Quetta and Sind districts. The 5th division, with headquarters at Mhow, consisted of three brigades, located at Nasirabad, Jabalpur and Jhansi, and included the previous Mhow, Deesa, Nagpur, Narmada and Bundelkhand districts, with the Bombay district north of the Tapti. The 6th division, with headquarters at Pune, consisted of three brigades, located at Bombay, Ahmednagar and Aden. It comprised the previous Poona district, Bombay district south of the Tapti, Belgaum district north of the Tungabhadra, and Dharwar and Aurangabad districts.
Agriculture[edit]
The overwhelming majority of the population of the Bombay Presidency was rural and engaged in agriculture. The staple crops were Sorghum (jowar), and Pearl millet (bajra) in the Deccan and Khandesh. Rice was the chief product of the Konkan. Wheat, generally grown in the northern part of the Presidency, but specially in Sind and Gujarat, was exported to Europe in large quantities from Karachi, and on a smaller scale from Bombay. Barley was principally grown in the northern parts of the presidency. Finger millet (Nachani) and kodra furnished food to the Kolis, Bhils, Waralis, and other hill tribes. Of the pulses the most important are the chickpea or Bengal gram (Cicer arietinum), pigeon pea or tur (Cajanus cajan), catjang or kulti (Vigna unguiculata cylindrica), and urad bean (Vigna mungo). Principal oilseeds were sesame or til (Sesamum indicum), mustard, castor bean, safflower and linseed. Of fibres the most important were cotton, Deccan hemp (Hibiscus cannabinus), and sunn or tag (Crotalaria juncea). Much was done to improve the cotton of the presidency. American varieties were introduced with much advantage in the Dharwad collectorate and other parts of the southern Maratha country. In Khandesh the indigenous plant from which one of the lowest classes of cotton in the Bombay market takes its name has been almost entirely superseded by the superior Hinganghat variety. Miscellaneous crops: sugarcane, requiring a rich soil and a perennial water-supply, and only grown in favoured localities, chile peppers, potatoes, turmeric and tobacco.
Industry[edit]
The chief industries of Bombay Presidency involved the milling of cotton. In the late 19th century steam mills sprang up in Bombay, Ahmedabad and Khandesh. In 1905 there were 432 factories in the presidency, of which by far the greater number were engaged in the preparation and manufacture of cotton. The industry is centred in Bombay, which contains nearly two-thirds of the mills. During the decade 1891–1901 the mill industry passed through a period of depression due to widespread plague and famine, but on the whole there was a marked expansion of the trade as well as a great improvement in the class of goods produced. In addition to the mills there were (1901) 178,000 hand-loom weavers in the province, who still have a position of their own in the manipulation of designs woven into the cloth. Silk goods were manufactured in Ahmedabad, Surat, Yeola, Nasik, Thana and Bombay, the material decorated with printed or woven designs; competition from European goods caused the silk industry to decline in the early 20th century. The custom of investing savings in gold and silver ornaments gave employment to many goldsmiths: the metal was usually supplied by the customer, and the goldsmith charged for his labour. Ahmedabad and Surat are famous for their carved woodwork. Many of the houses in Ahmedabad are covered with elaborate wood-carving, and excellent examples exist in Broach, Baroda, Surat, Nasik and Yeola. Salt was made in large quantities in the government works at Kharaghoda and Udu in Ahmedabad, and was exported by rail to Gujarat and central India. There was one brewery at Dapuri near Pune.
Film industry[edit]
The film production era is said to have commenced in Bombay from 1913 when the first film, Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke made in 1912, was first shown publicly on 3 May 1913 at Mumbai's Coronation Cinema,[20] effectively marking the beginning of the Indian film industry. Around one year before, Ramchandra Gopal (known as Dadasaheb Torne) had filmed a stage drama called Pundalik and shown it in the same theatre. However, the credit for making the first Indian feature film is attributed to Dadasaheb Phalke.[21]
Other producers at Bombay during the presidency era were Sohrab Modi, Himanshu Rai, V. Shantaram, Shashadhar Mukherjee, and Ardeshir Irani.[22] Ever since production of films took place, there started the trend of film making that established and further progressed, resulting in formation of the film industry and new film production companies as well as studios.
Residencies[edit]
Outside the Presidency, numerous small states princely states such as those of Kathiawar and Mahikantha came under British suzerainty in a system of subsidiary alliances between 1807 and 1820.
The native states eventually comprised some 353 separate units, administered internally by their own princes, with the British responsible for their external affairs. Relations between British India and the states were managed by British agents placed at the principal native capitals; their exact status varied in the different states according to the relations in which the principalities stood with the paramount power.
The principal groups of states were North Gujarat, comprising Kutch, Kathiawar Agency, Palanpur Agency, Mahi Kantha Agency, Ambliara Rewa Kantha Agency and Cambay; South Gujarat, comprising Dharampur, Bansda and Sachin; North Konkan, Nasik and Khandesh, of the Khandesh Agency, Surgana and Jawhar; South Konkan and Dharwar, comprising Janjira, Sawantwadi and Savanur, as well as the territories under the Deccan States Agency, including the Deccan Satara Jagirs, Ichalkaranji, Sangli Akkalkot, Bhor, Aundh, Phaltan, Jath and Daphalapur, the southern Maratha states, comprising Kolhapur, among other states, and Khairpur in Sindh. The native states under the "supervision" of the government of Bombay were divided, historically and geographically, into two main groups. The northern or Gujarat group includes the territories of the Gaekwad of Baroda, with the smaller states which form the administrative divisions of Kutch, Palanpur, Rewa Kantha, and Mahi Kantha. These territories, with the exception of Kutch, have a historical connection, as being the allies or tributaries of the Gaekwad until 1805, when final engagements were included between that prince and the British government. The southern or Maratha group includes Kolhapur, Akalkot, Sawantwari, and the Satara and southern Mahratta Jagirs, and has a historical bond of union in the friendship they showed to the British in their final struggle with the power of the peshwa until 1818. The remaining territories may conveniently be divided into a small cluster of independent zamindaris, situated in the wild and hilly tracts at the northern extremity of the Sahyadri range, and certain. principalities which, from their history or geographical position, are to some extent isolated from the rest of the presidency.
Baroda State (Vadodara), one of the residencies of British India, was combined in the 1930s with the residencies of the princely states (agencies) of the northern Bombay Presidency to form the Baroda and Gujarat States Agency and subsequently expanded in Baroda, Western India and Gujarat States Agency in 1944.