Uttar Pradesh
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Uttar Pradesh [pronunciation] (Hindi: , Urdu: اتر پردیش, IPA: / ʊt̪t̪ər prəd̪eːʃ /), also popularly known by its abbreviation U.P., is the most populous and fifth largest state in the Union of India. It is the most populous subnational entity (statoid) in the world, with a population of 166,052,859.
Uttar Pradesh covers a large part of the densely populated Gangetic plain. It shares an international border with Nepal and is bounded by the Indian states of Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. The administrative and legislative capital of Uttar Pradesh is Lucknow; its high court is based at Allahabad. Other notable cities in Uttar Pradesh include NOIDA, Agra, Mathura, Aligarh, Varanasi (Banaras), Gorakhpur, Kanpur and Meerut.
Creation
In the beginning of the 19th century, a series of battles gave the British East India Company (HEIC) mastery over the Doaba and the adjoining region (incluidng the Delhi and Ajmer merwara regions) which they won from the last Mughal emperor -- Shah Alam. The HEIC established an administration controlled by its senior officer in the region, the “Resident” of Delhi. The seat of administration was moved to Agra in 1834 and a “president” was appointed to govern the area. In 1836, a new province was formed which was named the north western province (of Agra). After the mutiny of 1857 the Delhi and Ajmer-merwara region were truncated from the province and its capital was shifted to Allahabad. Meanwhile, in 1877, the HEIC annexed Avadh (Oudh), Rohilkhand and Benares from the Nawab of oudh and this area was merged with the existing Province of Agra to create the North western Provinces of Agra and Oudh, which was later changed to United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and later just United Provinces or U.P. The capital of the new combined state was moved to Lucknow.After India attained independence in 1947, the province was renamed "Uttar Pradesh", Hindi for "North Province". "Uttar" means "north" and "Pradesh" means "region" or "state". This name was proposed by Govind Ballabh Pant, noted freedom fighter and first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
In 2000, the Himalayan region of Uttar Pradesh, viz., Garhwal and Kumaon, was constituted into a separate state named Uttaranchal.
Population
With over 166 million inhabitants, Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India and is also the most populous subnational entity in the world. Only five countries (the People's Republic of China, India itself, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil) have a higher population (see List of countries by population). On virtually every index of social development, whether literacy, infant mortality or unemployment, Uttar Pradesh ranks among the lowest in India; the situation is compounded by the fact that figures for females are much lower than for males on essentially every parameter.History
Uttar Pradesh plays an extremely important role in the history and growth of Hinduism, and in the history of ancient India. Indeed, the region has been vital to the power and stability of all of India's empires and kingdoms, of Hindus, Muslims and Europeans.
The ancient Hindu kingdom of Kosala in Ayodhya, where Lord Rama of the Ramayana reigned is believed to have been located in the modern day state.
Lord Krishna, revered as the eighth Avatara of Vishnu, is believed to have been born in the city of Mathura.
Agra and Fatehpur Sikri were also important as the capital city of Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor of India. The city of Lucknow was founded in the 18th century by the Muslim rulers of the province.
The U.P. was especially important in modern Indian history as a hotbed of the Indian Independence Movement, and the city of Allahabad was home to prominent nationalists such as Motilal Nehru, Purushottam Das Tandon, and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Allahabad was also home to a record five Prime Ministers of India: Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Rajiv Gandhi.
Uttar Pradesh covers the area of the former princely state of Awadh (Oudh) and the British Province of Agra. The Province of Agra was originally the western-most British possession, after they expanded from Bengal, and thus was known as the North-West Province. The North-West Province was renamed the Province of Agra, and merged in 1858 with the Province of Oudh to form the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, known after 1902 as the United Provinces. Two princely states, Rampur and Tehri, were under the authority of the provincial governor. With the advent of Indian independence, the United Provinces was renamed "Uttar Pradesh," or "northern province", by Govind Ballabh Pant, the first chief minister. This preserved the commonly used abbreviation U.P.
Pant, who was welll known to Jawaharlal Nehru, was popular in the local party and left his mark in Lucknow before December 27, 1954, when Nehru called him to Delhi to make him Home Minister. He was succeeded by Dr. Sampoornanand, a university professor and classicist. A Sanskrit scholar, he was in office till 1957 before becoming governor of Rajasthan
Sucheta Kripalani was sworn in in October 1963, and became India's first woman chief minister, until a two-month long strike by state employees in March 1967 caused her to step down. The confusion and chaos ended only with the defection of Charan Singh from the Congress with a small set of legislators. He set up a party called the Jana Congress which formed the first non-Congress government in U.P. and ruled for over a year.
Fellow socialist Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna of the Bharatiya Lok Dal was Chief Minister for part of the 1970s, and was dismissed, along with several other non-Congress chied ministers, shortly after the imposition of the Emergency, when Narain Dutt Tewari - later chief minister of Uttaranchal - became chief minister. The Congress Party lost heavily in 1977 following the lifting of the Emergency, but roared back to power in 1980, when Mrs. Gandhi handpicked the man who would become her son's principal opposition, V.P. Singh, to become Chief Minister.
In 2000, the northwestern districts of Uttar Pradesh became the new state of Uttaranchal.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh can be divided into three distinct hypsographical regions :
- The Himalayan region in the north - Highly rugged and varied terrain; transferred to Uttaranchal. Varying topography; elevation ranges from 300 to 5000m; slope ranges from 150 to 600 m/km.
- The Gangetic Plain in the centre - Highly fertile alluvial soils; flat topography broken by numerous ponds, lakes and rivers; slope 2 m/km
- The Vindhya Hills and plateau in the south - Hard rock Strata; varied topography of hills, plains, valleys and plateau; limited water availability.
Constituent regions
The state comprises the Doab region (inluding the upper Doab and the lower doab with the Brij bhumi in its centre), which runs along its western border from north to south, the Rohilkhand in the north, Awadh (Oudh) (the historic country of Koshal) in the centre, the northern parts of Bagelkhand & Bundelkhand in the south, and the south-western part of the Bhojpur country, commonly called Purvanchal ("Eastern Province"), in the east.Divisions and districts
Main article: Districts of Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh state consists of 70 districts, which are grouped into 17 divisions: Agra, Azamgarh, Allahabad, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Devipatan, Faizabad, Bahraich, Bareilly, Basti, Mirzapur, Moradabad, Meerut, Lucknow, Varanasi, Farrukhabad and Saharanpur.
Languages
The languages of the different regions are distinct. The language of the western parts, called (Khadiboli) is the basis for the official Hindi language, imposed during the late 19th century. The most commonly spoken language in urban areas is Urdu/Hindi. Regardless of the script used, the language of Lucknow is called Lucknowie Urdu. It is a pure form of literary Urdu used by most Urdu poets. Urdu is one of the two official languages of the state. Other languages are Awadhi, Koshali, Braj (which is more than two thousand years old), Koeli, Bagheli, Bundeli and Bhojpuri. The Bhojpuri ethnic homeland is divided between Nepal in the north, Bihar state in the east and Uttar Pradesh in the west.Politics
Main article:The current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party). The former Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, represents the constituency of Lucknow. Unfortunately, the state has been marred by a lot of caste based politics, which has been hindering a sound economic development of the state.
The major political parties in the state are: Samajwadi Party, a Socialist party which is supported by backward classes and Muslims; Bharatiya Janata Party, a conservative Hindu nationalist party which is supported by the forward castes; and the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party which was formed to uplift India's untouchable castes, the dalits. It also banks on other backward castes and Muslims. No party has received a majority in the state's Assembly since 1991, and the current administration (since 2003) has been held up by smaller parties and independents. 2
The state has a large number of village councils known as Panchayats just like the other states of India. One of the most developed Panchayats is Shahabad in Maharajganj District of Uttar Pradesh.
Education
-->The State of U.P. has made investments over the years in all sectors of education and has achieved some success.
The female literacy situation in Uttar Pradesh is dismal. Only one out of four in the 7+ age group was able to read and write in 1991. This figure goes down to 19 % for rural areas, 11 % for the scheduled castes, 8 % for scheduled castes in rural areas, and 8 % for the entire rural population in the most educationally backward districts. Possibly Bihar is the only state in India which fares worse than U.P. in education.
In terms of more demanding criteria of educational attainment on the completion of primary or secondary education, in Uttar Pradesh, in 1992-1993 only 50 % of literate males and 40 % of literate females could complete the cycle of eight years of schooling involved in the primary and middle stages. One other notable feature of the Uttar Pradesh education system is the persistence of high level of illiteracy in the younger age group. Within that age group, the illiteracy was endemic in the rural areas. In the late 1980s, the incidence of illiteracy in the 10-14 age group was as high as 32 % for rural males and 61 % for rural females, and more than two-thirds of all rural girls in the 12-14 age group never went to school.
The problems of education system are exacting. Due to public apathy the schools are in disarray, privately run schools (including those run by Christian missionaries) are functional, but beyond the reach of ordinary people. The State government has taken programmes to make the population totally literate. There are special programmes like World Bank aided DPEP. Steps are being taken with the help of NGOs and other organizations to raise participation.
As a result, some progress in adult education has been made and the [census] of 2001 indicates a male literacy rate of 70.23 % and a female literacy rate of 42.98 %.
At the level of higher education and technical education Uttar Pradesh has 16 general universities, famous among those are Lucknow University, Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU), Allahabad University, Madan Mohan Malaviya Engineering College, Agra University, [link] Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University, prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur), Indian Institute of Management (Lucknow), Indian Institute of Information Technology (Allahabad), National Institute of Technology (Allahabad) [link] and large number of polytechnics, engineering institutes and industrial training institutes.
Economy
Macro-economic trend
This is a chart of trend of gross state domestic product of Uttar Pradesh at market prices [estimated] by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation with figures in millions of Indian Rupees.| Year | Gross State Domestic Product |
|---|---|
| 1980 | |
| 1985 | |
| 1990 | |
| 1995 | 1,062,490 |
| 2000 | 1,730,680 |
Note 1: includes Uttaranchal
Uttar Pradesh's gross state domestic product for 2004 is estimated at $75 billion in current prices. After partition, the new Uttar Pradesh state produces about 92% of the output of the old Uttar Pradesh state. At the current laggard rate of growth, Uttar Pradesh is expected to be overtaken by the dynamic economies of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu by 2010.
Agriculture
Uttar Pradesh is sometimes credited as a mini-India in honour of its vast diversity. It is home to 78% of national livestock population. This is a chart of output of major commodities of Uttar Pradesh.| Commodity | National Share |
|---|---|
| Potato | 47% |
| Sugarcane | 45% |
| Wheat | 38% |
| Groundnut | 34% |
| Molasses | 34% |
| Sugar | 30% |
| Tobacco | 20% |
Industry
Over 3% of the S&P CNX 500 conglomerates have corporate offices in Uttar Pradesh.Tourism
Uttar Pradesh attracts a large number of both national and international visitors. There are two regions in the state where a majority of the tourists go. These are the city of Agra and the holy cities: the cities of Varanasi, Ayodhya, Mathura, Haridwar and Allahabad, by the sacred rivers - the Ganga and the Yamuna are all located in the state. The state hosts a Kumbha Mela every 12 years, where over 10 million Hindus congregate - the largest gathering of human beings in the world.
A vast number of tourists visit the Taj Mahal in Agra. Another important tourist attraction in Agra is the Agra Fort. Also famous is a 16th century capital city built by the Mughal emperor Akbar known as Fatehpur Sikri near Agra.
Millions of tourists and piligrims visit the cities of Allahabad, Varanasi and Haridwar, as those are considered to be the holiest cities in India. Every year thousands gather at Allahabad to take part in the festival on the banks of the Ganges, the Magh Mela. The same festival is organised in a larger scale every 12th year and attracts millions of people and is called the Kumbha Mela.
Varanasi is widely considered to be the second oldest city in the world after Jerusalem. It is famous for its ghats (steps along the river) which are populated year round with people who want to take a dip in the holy Ganges River.
About 13 km from Varanasi is the historically important town of Sarnath. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath after his enlightenment and hence is an important pilgrimage site for the Buddhists. Also at Sarnath are the Ashoka Pillar and the Lion Capital, both important archeological artifacts with national significance.
Arts and crafts
Uttar Pradesh is famous for its arts and crafts. Specific regions such as Varanasi for its saris and silk, Mirzapur for its carpets, Agra and Kanpur for their leathercraft, Moradabad for its metalware, Lucknow for its clothwork and embroidery, and the entire state for its pottery are not only famous in India but around the world.See also
References
External links
- [Official Website of the government of Uttar Pradesh]
- [Railway Map]
- [a upgovnic site giving complete history]
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