British Rule, the Freedom Struggle, Hyderabad Liberation & Samyukta Maharashtra — MPSC GS Paper I and Prelims Paper I

Weightage: GS Paper I asks for the freedom struggle and "post-independence consolidation and reorganisation", and Prelims asks for the Indian National Movement with Maharashtra's part in it. This chapter covers Maharashtra from 1818 to its formation in 1960. The national narrative comes from the UPSC CSE chapters aliased into this hub.

1. The Bombay Presidency after 1818

After the fall of the Peshwai in 1818, most of present-day western Maharashtra was joined to the Bombay Presidency. Mountstuart Elphinstone, first as Commissioner of the Deccan and then as Governor of Bombay (1819-27), kept Maratha forms of administration at first. Marathwada remained with the Nizam's Hyderabad State, and much of Vidarbha passed to the British through Nagpur's annexation in 1853-54 and the Berar arrangements with the Nizam.

The land settlement was ryotwari. Revenue surveys of the 1830s, beginning at Indapur, fixed assessments directly on the cultivator. Fixed cash demands pushed peasants into debt to moneylenders.

The tension broke out in the Deccan Riots of 1875, beginning at Supe in Pune district, when peasants seized and burned moneylenders' bonds. The government responded with the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act, 1879.

Bombay became a modern economy. India's first passenger train ran from Bori Bunder to Thane on 16 April 1853. The first cotton mill opened in 1854, and the cotton boom of the American Civil War (1861-65) enriched the city before the crash. The University of Bombay was founded in 1857.

2. Early resistance and 1857

Tribal and peasant risings preceded 1857. The Ramoshi leader Umaji Naik fought the Company in the Pune hills until he was hanged in 1832, and the Bhils of Khandesh and the Kolis of the Sahyadri rose repeatedly.

In 1857 Maharashtra saw plots and mutinies rather than a general rising. Rango Bapuji organised resistance around Satara, and there was a regimental mutiny at Kolhapur. Bhil leaders fought in Khandesh. Tatya Tope, born at Yeola in Nashik district, fought in north India, and Nana Saheb was the adopted son of the last Peshwa.

Vasudev Balwant Phadke (1845-1883) raised an armed band of Ramoshis and others in 1879 to fight British rule. He was captured, transported to Aden and died there in 1883. He is often called the father of armed revolution in India.

3. Moderates and the founding of the Congress

The Indian National Congress held its first session at Bombay on 28 December 1885, at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, with 72 delegates under W. C. Bonnerjee. Bombay's political leaders, including Pherozeshah Mehta, K. T. Telang and Badruddin Tyabji of the Bombay Presidency Association, and Pune's Ranade and Gokhale, were central to the moderate phase.

4. Tilak and the extremists

Bal Gangadhar Tilak made nationalism a mass cause in Maharashtra.

The plague of 1896-97 was handled with harsh searches. On 22 June 1897 the Chapekar brothers shot the plague commissioner W. C. Rand in Pune.

Revolutionaries organised at Nashik. V. D. Savarkar founded the Mitra Mela (1899), which became Abhinav Bharat (1904). On 21 December 1909 Anant Kanhere shot A. M. T. Jackson, the Collector of Nashik, which led to the Nashik conspiracy case and Savarkar's transportation to the Andamans.

5. The Gandhian phase

Maharashtra's part in the Gandhian movement is asked through local episodes:

• Mulshi Satyagraha (1921-24): led by Senapati Bapat against the displacement of farmers by a hydroelectric dam near Pune, one of India's early anti-displacement movements.
• Civil Disobedience (1930): salt satyagraha at Shiroda on the Konkan coast and at Wadala in Bombay, and forest (jungle) satyagraha in the forests of Vidarbha and the Sahyadri, where salt was not available.
• Solapur (1930): the town briefly passed out of British control and martial law followed. Four men were hanged in January 1931: Mallappa Dhanshetti, Kurban Hussain, Jagannath Shinde and Shrikisan Sarda.
• Faizpur (1936): in Jalgaon district, the first Congress session held in a village, under Nehru.
• Sevagram (1936): Gandhi's ashram near Wardha, which became a centre of the national movement.

6. Quit India and the last phase

The Quit India resolution was adopted by the All India Congress Committee at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay, on 8 August 1942, now August Kranti Maidan. Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag there the next morning, and Usha Mehta ran the underground Congress Radio from Bombay.

• Ashti and Chimur (August 1942): uprisings in Vidarbha, followed by severe repression.
• The Satara Prati Sarkar (1943-46): a parallel government under Krantisinh Nana Patil that ran its own courts and punished moneylenders and informers.
• The Royal Indian Navy mutiny (18 February 1946): began on HMIS Talwar in Bombay and spread to other ships and ports.

Worked example 6.1 (a Prelims-style chronology). "Arrange in order: Faizpur session, Mulshi Satyagraha begins, Quit India resolution, Nashik conspiracy case."

Answer. Nashik conspiracy (1909), Mulshi (1921), Faizpur (1936), Quit India (1942).

7. The liberation of Marathwada

Marathwada was part of the Nizam's Hyderabad State in 1947. The Nizam refused to join India, and the Razakars under Qasim Razvi terrorised the population. The Hyderabad State Congress, led by Swami Ramanand Tirth, organised resistance, with a strong base in Marathwada.

Operation Polo, the Indian Army's action of 13-17 September 1948, ended the Nizam's rule. Maharashtra marks 17 September as Marathwada Mukti Sangram Din. Marathwada joined Bombay State in 1956 and Maharashtra in 1960.

8. The Samyukta Maharashtra movement

The demand was a single Marathi-speaking state with Bombay as its capital. Its path:

The Nagpur Pact promised Vidarbha a share of development spending and of government jobs, a bench of the High Court at Nagpur, and a session of the legislature at Nagpur every year. The winter session at Nagpur continues this promise, and the regional development boards under Article 371(2) are its later form.

The Samiti united leaders across parties, including Keshavrao Jedhe, S. M. Joshi, Acharya P. K. Atre, S. A. Dange, Prabodhankar Thackeray and Senapati Bapat. Atre's newspaper Maratha was its voice. The memorial at Flora Fountain is known as Hutatma Chowk.

Yashwantrao Chavan, Chief Minister of the bilingual state, became the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

The border question with Karnataka over Belagavi (Belgaum), Karwar, Nipani and nearby Marathi-speaking areas remained unresolved. The Mahajan Commission, appointed in 1966, did not satisfy Maharashtra, and the dispute is before the Supreme Court.

Worked example 8.1 (a 15-mark answer, ~250 words). "Trace the Samyukta Maharashtra movement and assess its significance."

Model answer. The movement sought a Marathi-speaking state with Bombay as its capital.

Its roots lay in the linguistic nationalism of the Congress, which had accepted linguistic provinces in principle. In 1947 the Akola Pact and in 1953 the Nagpur Pact won Vidarbha's support by promising it a share of spending and jobs and an annual session at Nagpur.

In 1955 the States Reorganisation Commission recommended a bilingual Bombay State, and the proposal to separate Bombay city provoked mass protest. Police firing at Flora Fountain in 1955-56 left 106 people commemorated as martyrs. The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, formed in February 1956, united leaders across parties, and C. D. Deshmukh resigned from the Union Cabinet.

A larger bilingual Bombay State was formed in November 1956, but the Samiti's strong showing in 1957, with the Mahagujarat movement's parallel demand, made it unworkable. The Bombay Reorganisation Act created Maharashtra and Gujarat on 1 May 1960.

Its significance is threefold. It secured a linguistic state with Bombay as capital, it built regional safeguards into the state's founding, and it left the border question with Karnataka open.

Common traps MPSC sets here

• Placing Marathwada in the Bombay Presidency. It was part of the Nizam's Hyderabad State until 1948.
• Treating 1 May 1960 as the date of Bombay State. Bombay State existed from 1956 as a bilingual state. Maharashtra was formed on 1 May 1960.
• Mixing up the Akola and Nagpur Pacts. Akola came in 1947; Nagpur, with its specific safeguards, in 1953.
• Dating the first Congress session to Pune. It was planned for Pune but moved to Bombay because of cholera.
• Crediting the Home Rule League of Belgaum to Annie Besant. Tilak founded his league at Belgaum in April 1916; Besant founded hers separately.

Memory aids

• "53, 75, 85": first train, Deccan Riots, first Congress session.
• "97 Rand, 09 Jackson": the Chapekars in Pune and Kanhere in Nashik.
• "Akola 47, Nagpur 53, Samiti 56, Maharashtra 60."
• "8 August, 17 September, 1 May": Quit India, Marathwada Mukti Sangram, Maharashtra Din.

Summary

After 1818 western Maharashtra became part of the Bombay Presidency, whose ryotwari settlement and debt produced the Deccan Riots of 1875. Early resistance ran from Umaji Naik and the 1857 plots to Phadke's revolt of 1879.

Bombay hosted the first Congress session in 1885, Tilak made nationalism a mass cause, and Nashik produced revolutionaries. The Gandhian phase ran from Mulshi to Solapur, Faizpur and Quit India at Gowalia Tank, with the Satara Prati Sarkar and the naval mutiny at the end. Marathwada was freed from the Nizam in 1948, and the Samyukta Maharashtra movement created the state on 1 May 1960.

Exam protocol

• Anchor every episode to a place and a year.
• For the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, give the pacts, the SRC, the martyrs, the Samiti and the 1960 Act in order.
• Close answers on the state's formation with the regional safeguards and the border question.