Everything about States Of India totally explained
India is a
federal republic comprising twenty-eight
states and seven
union territories. The states and territories are themselves further
subdivided.
Pre-1956
The subcontinent of India has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each imposing their own administrative divisions on the region. Modern India's current administrative divisions are fairly recent developments, which began to develop during British colonial rule of India.
British India included all of present-day India,
Pakistan, and
Bangladesh, as well as the associated protectorates of
Afghanistan and
Burma (
Myanmar). During this period, regions of India were either directly ruled by the British or under the control of local
rajas. Independence in 1947 largely preserved these divisions, with the exception of areas like the
Punjab and
Bengal, which were divided between India and Pakistan. One of the first challenges for the new nation was the integration of the multitude of
princely states into the union.
Following independence, however, instability soon arose in India. Many of the states had been arbitrarily created by the British to serve their colonial purposes and as such, didn't reflect either the will of India's citizens or the vast ethnic diversity found throughout the subcontinent. Ethnic tensions spurred the
Indian Parliament to reorganize the country along ethnic and linguistic lines in 1956.
After 1956
The former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Indian Republic as the
union territories of
Puducherry,
Dadra,
Nagar Haveli,
Goa,
Daman, and
Diu in
1962.
Several new states and union territories have been created out of existing states since 1956. Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of
Gujarat and
Maharashtra on
1 May 1960 by the
Bombay Reorganisation Act. The
Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 divided the Punjab along linguistic and religious lines, creating a new Hindu and Hindi-speaking state of
Haryana, transferring the northern districts of Punjab to
Himachal Pradesh, and designating
Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, a union territory. Nagaland was made a state in 1962, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh in 1971, and
Tripura and
Manipur in 1972. Arunachal Pradesh was made a union territory in 1972. The Kingdom of
Sikkim was annexed to India as a state in 1975. Mizoram was made a state in 1986, and Goa and Arunachal Pradesh in 1987, while Goa's northern
exclaves of Daman and Diu became a separate union territory. In 2000 three new states were created;
Jharkhand was created out of the southern districts of Bihar,
Chhattisgarh was created out of eastern Madhya Pradesh, and
Uttaranchal, since renamed
Uttarakhand, was created out of the foothils of northwestern Uttar Pradesh. The Union Territories of
Delhi and
Pondicherry have since been given the right to elect their own legislatures, and hence are on their way to full statehood.
States and Territories
NOTE: Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory
Further Information
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