Q1.
Examine the map. What are the main differences with the map of today’s India, in terms both of borders and of names?
Answer
Start with the map’s own key, printed at the bottom left as a reference note, because everything else follows from it:
- Red — British India, that is, territory administered directly by the British.
- Pink — territories permanently administered by the Government of India.
- Yellow — native states and territories, i.e. the princely states the chapter has already described.
- Black lines — the railways.
The map is headed ‘Political Divisions of the Indian Empire’ and comes from the Imperial Gazetteer Atlas of India (Plate 20). Now the two sets of differences.
A. Differences of border
| On the 1909 map | On the map of India today |
|---|---|
| Sind, Baluchistan Agency, Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province and Kashmir are all inside one ‘Indian Empire’ | The western portion of this is Pakistan, a separate country since 1947 |
| Eastern Bengal and Assam form one unit, with Dacca in it | That eastern portion is Bangladesh, and Dacca is Dhaka, its capital |
| Upper Burma, Lower Burma and the Shan States are coloured as part of the Empire, with Rangoon, Mandalay and Moulmein marked | Myanmar — a separate country, no longer joined to India at all |
| A patchwork of yellow princely states inside the red and pink provinces — Kashmir, Rajputana Agency, Central India Agency, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Baroda, Gwalior, Bhopal, Indore, Bastar and hundreds more | No princely states at all. India today has states and union territories with elected governments, and the map is a single continuous colour |
| Huge provinces: Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency, Bengal, United Provinces, Central Provinces and Berar, Punjab | Many smaller states, mostly redrawn on the basis of language — Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and others |
| Goa, Daman and Diu (Portuguese) and Pondicherry, Karikal and other small enclaves (French) are not part of British India | All of these are part of India today — Goa a state, Puducherry and Daman & Diu union territories |
| Ceylon appears separately at the bottom; Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tibet and Afghanistan lie outside the coloured Empire | Ceylon is Sri Lanka; Nepal and Bhutan are independent neighbours; Sikkim is a state of India; Tibet is part of China |
B. Differences of name — the map is full of colonial spellings that have since been restored or Indianised:
| 1909 map | Today | 1909 map | Today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calcutta | Kolkata | Calicut | Kozhikode |
| Bombay | Mumbai | Cochin | Kochi |
| Madras | Chennai | Trivandrum | Thiruvananthapuram |
| Bangalore | Bengaluru | Trichinopoly | Tiruchirappalli |
| Poona | Pune | Negapatam | Nagapattinam |
| Cawnpore | Kanpur | Masulipatam | Machilipatnam |
| Benares | Varanasi | Vizagapatam | Visakhapatnam |
| Jubbulpore | Jabalpur | Baroda | Vadodara |
| Simla | Shimla | Mysore (city) | Mysuru |
| Orissa | Odisha | Laccadive Islands | Lakshadweep |
| Pondicherry | Puducherry | Mangalore | Mangaluru |
What the map tells you that the text cannot: look at the yellow patches scattered inside the red. That is the subsidiary-alliance system drawn as a picture — the British did not need to paint the whole map red, because a ruler tied by a Resident, paying for British troops and forbidden to deal with foreign powers, was already controlled. ‘An empire on the cheap’ is visible at a glance. And look at the black railway lines: they run from the interior to Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Karachi — the ports — exactly as the chapter says, “designed primarily to move raw materials from the interior to ports for export”.
Check it yourself: open an atlas at today’s political map of South Asia and lay the two side by side. Count how many countries occupy the area shown as one Empire in 1909. Then look for one thing that has not changed — the railway network is still largely the one drawn in black on that 1909 map.