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Uttar Pradesh pronunciation (Template:Lang-hi, Urdu: اتر پردیش, IPA: / ʊt̪t̪ər prəd̪eːʃ /), also popularly known by its abbreviation U.P., means the 'northern province'. It is the most populous and fifth largest state in the Union of India.
Uttar Pradesh covers a large part of the highly fertile and densely populated upper 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.
History
Ancient
Uttar Pradesh has an important place in the history of Hinduism, as well as the history of ancient India. Control over the region was vital to the power and stability of all of India's empires and kingdoms - of Hindus, Muslims and Europeans.
The known history of Uttar Pradesh goes back to 4000 years ago, when the Aryans first made it their home in 2000 BC. This heralded the Vedic age of the Indian civilisation and Uttar Pradesh was its home. The Aryans first inhabited the Doab region and the Ghagra plains and called it the Madhya Desha (midland) or Aryavarta (the Aryan land) or Bharatvarsha (the kingdom of Bharat, an important Aryan king). In the ages to come, Aryans moved to other parts of the Indian subcontinent, reaching as far as to Kerala and Sri Lanka in the south.
The ancient Hindu kingdom of Kosala in Ayodhya, where Lord Rama of the Ramayana reigned was located here and Lord Krishna, revered as the eighth Avatara of Vishnu, was born in the city of Mathura.
The Mahabharat war and the aftermath took part in the area between Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. It was ruled under King Yudhishtira after the Mahabharat.
After that, this area was sometimes divided between petty kingdoms or formed important parts of larger empires from the east or the west, including the Mauryan, Gupta and Kushan empires.
The Kannauj Empire originated from the heart of the Ganga Yamuna Doab and covered areas from Afghanistan to Kashmir, Bengal and the Vindhyas. This empire was at its zenith during the reign of Harshavardhana.
Even today many communities in various parts of India --- from Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Bihar and Bengal boast of being descendants of migrants from Kannauj --- reflecting its glory in the past.
Medieval
Causing the fall of the Rajput came the Muslims invaders and what we call UP today once again became the catalyst for things to come. Much of the state formed part of the various Muslim Sultanates who ruled from Delhi.
U.P. became the heart land of the Moghul empire who called the place 'Hindustan' which became the second name of U.P. (after Aryavarta/ Madhyadesh). Even today UP-ites call themselves 'Hindustani' rather than Uttar Pradeshi. Hindustani is also used as a synonym for India ------ which is a pointer that U.P. is the essence of India.
Agra and Fatehpur Sikri were important as the capital city of Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor of India. The city of Lucknow was established by the Muslim nawabs of Oudh in the 18th century.
The Mughals ruled almost the entire Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan and Afghanistan from Delhi, Agra and Allahabad (at different times). Even when the Mughal Empire disintegrated, Hindustan remained their last territory --- which now was confined to the Doab region including Delhi.
Other areas of Hindustan (U.P.) were ruled by different rulers. Oudh was ruled by the Nawabs of Oudh, Rohilkhand by Afghans, Bundelkhand by the Marathas and Benaras by its own king, while Nepal controlled Kumaon-Garhwal.
Starting from the latter half of the 18th century, a series of battles finally gave British accession to the last Mughal territory --- the Doab, as also Bundelkhand, Kumaon and Banaras divisions. Delhi, Ajmer and Jaipur were also included in this territory. They called it the North western provinces (of Agra). Its capital shifted twice between Agra and Allahabad. The area may seem big compared to today's mini states the size of earlier divisions, but at the time it was one of the smallest British province.
After the mutiny of 1857, when things settled, the British made a major revamp and truncated the Delhi region and gave it to Punjab, and the Ajmer-Merwar region to Rajputana
Modern
At the same time it included Oudh into the state. The new state was called the North Western provinces of Agra and Oudh, which in 1902 was renamed as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. It was commonly referred to as the United provinces or its acronym UP. In 1920, the capital of the province was shifted from Allahabad to Lucknow.
The high court continued to be at Allahabad but a bench was established at Lucknow. Allahabad continues to be an administrative base of today's Uttar Pradesh and has several administrative headquarters.
Uttar Pradesh continued to be central to Indian culture and politics and was especially important in modern Indian history as a hotbed of both the Indian Independence Movement, and the Pakistan Movement. 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.
After independence the state was renamed Uttar Pradesh (northern province) by its first chief minister Govind Ballabh Pant.
Pant, who was well 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 Himalyan portion of the state --- the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions --- were formed into a new state called Uttaranchal (meaning the northern part of the state).
Geography
Main article: Geography of Uttar PradeshUttar 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.
The climate is generally tropical monsoon, but variations exist due to difference in altitudes.
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 and 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.
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).
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: List of political parties in the state
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.
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 educational attainment (the completion of primary or secondary education), 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 levels of illiteracy in the younger age group. Within that age group, 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. While privately run schools (including those run by Christian missionaries) are functional, they are beyond the reach of ordinary people. The State government has taken steps to make the population totally literate. There are special programmes like the 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, Allahabad University, Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University, Agra University , Ch Charan Singh University (Meerut), Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU), Madan Mohan Malaviya Engineering College, prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur), Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Indian Institute of Information Technology (Allahabad), National Institute of Technology (Allahabad) 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 | 155,540 Template:Fn |
| 1985 | 277,480 Template:Fn |
| 1990 | 555,060 Template:Fn |
| 1995 | 1,062,490 |
| 2000 | 1,730,680 |
Template:Fnb 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
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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.
See also: List of conglomerates in Uttar PradeshTourism
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. Dayal Bagh is a temple built in modern times that many visit. It is still under construction, and would take an estimated one century for completion. The life-like carving in marble is not seen anywhere else in India.
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
- 2
- Official Website of the government of Uttar Pradesh
- Railway Map
- a upgovnic site giving complete history
- Homepage created by Dilip Awasthi, one of the senior most journalists of Uttar Pradesh
- Homepage of the Freedom From Poverty Foundation who's wission is to improve the quality of life for the impoverished people of Uttar Pradesh
