Selected State >> MAHARASTRA
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Maharastra is a state on the northern part of India's western coast. Its main centre is Bombay, the commercial capital of India. Maharastra is mainly agricultural with a well developed industrial sector. |
| People & Government | Economy |
| Transportation & Communication | Land |
| Climate | History |
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People:
Maharastra is home to many ethnic groups.
The Bhil, the Gond, the Gowari, the Korku, and the Warli tribal
groups living in the Satpura and Sahyadri ranges in the north are the
aboriginal inhabitants of the region.
The Kunbi Marathas are probably the descendants of immigrants
from the north in the A.D. 100's. Parsees
arrived in the region in the 1000's, having migrated from Persia.
Bombay has the largest concentration of Parsees in the country. About
90 per cent of the population speak Marathi, the regional language.
Other languages include English (particularly in Mumbai),
Gujarati, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, Bengali, and Malayalam.
There is also a large number of dialects, including Konkani on
the west coast, and Gondi in the northern regions. Hinduism
is the most popular religion, with Islam and Buddhism as the main
minority religions. Most
Parsees and Christians live in the cities.
The Parsees are highly influential in the business community.
There are also many Sikhs in the state. Maharastra
has many festivals throughout the year, the majority of them are
Hindu. They include the
Ranga panchami Dassera (the day on which the Marathas usually began
their military campaigns), and Holi (which marks the beginning of
spring). Janmashtami, in
July and August, celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna.
Men and boys form human pyramids to break pots of curds that
have been hung from high places.
On Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai in August and September, massive
figures of the elephant god Ganesh are immersed in the sea.
The Muslim festival Edd is celebrated after Ramzan (Ramadan)
the month of fasting. Baqreed
is a festival of sacrifice and Mohurram commemorates the martyrs of
Islam. Government:
Maharastra has a governor as its head.
The chief minister and council of ministers are elected from
the state legislature and are responsible for shaping and carrying out
policy. The chief
minister is the leader of the largest party in the state parliament.
The legislature has two houses: the Vidhan Parishad
(legislative council) which has 78 members and Vidhan Sabha
(legislative assembly), which has 288 members. There
are 30 districts in the state. A
collector administers each district and is responsible for the
collection of land revenue and of special state taxes, and for
coordinating the work of other departments. At the village level the gram panchayat (village council)
operates. Maharastra has 48 elected members in the Lok Sabha (lower house), and 19 nominated representatives in Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the national parliament in New Delhi. |
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Agriculture:
Agriculture is of major importance in the economy.
About 70 per cent of the population depend on farming for a
living. About 60 per
cent of the total area of Maharastra is under cultivation.
Only one-eighth of that land is irrigated. The main staple
crops are rice, jowar (large millet), bajra (small millet), wheat,
and pulses (beans, peas, lentils).
The state is also a major producer of oil-seeds.
These crops include peanuts and sunflowers. Important cash
crops are cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, turmeric, and a variety of
vegetables. The state
also produces fruit and has a substantial area devoted to bananas,
grapes, sweet limes, mangoes, and oranges. A major problem in Maharastra
is the scarcity of water.
The state government has encouraged a more diversified
agricultural system. The government gives assistance to farmers to improve the
productivity of their farms. They
have promoted higher yielding varieties of rice and wheat. Irrigation dams in areas of low rainfall have encouraged good
sugar cane crops. Of
the total net sown area, about 12 per cent is irrigated.
Effort has also been made to improve the productive potential
of dry lands through the integrated Watershed Development Programme. Forest products
include bamboo, and sandalwood.
Tendu leaves are used for making cheap cigarettes, locally
known as bidi. Manufacturing:
The state accounts for about 11 per cent of India's
industrial units, 17 per cent of its industrial labour force, 16 per
cent of industrial investment, and 23 per cent of the value of
industrial output. The Bombay-Pune
complex is the state's major industrial area.
Nagpur, Aurangabad, Sholapur, Thane and Kolhapur are also
important. Maharastra's
industrial products include chemicals, electrical and non electrical
machinery, machine tools, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, and plastic
goods. The oldest and
largest industry in the state is textile production.
Maharastra also leads the country in the manufacture of
sophisticated electronics equipment.
Santacruz Electronics Export Processing zone is a free trade
zone for the export of electrical goods. Mining:
In the eastern and western districts, mineral deposits are
generally poor. There
are small amounts of bauxite, copper, limestone, silica salt, and
common salt. Bhandara,
Nagpur, and Chandrapur districts in the east have rich deposits of
bituminous black coal which is used by the railways and power
stations. There is
offshore oil at the Bombay High and the nearby Basin North fields. Electricity:
Maharastra produces both hydroelectricity and thermal
electricity. The atomic
power station at Tarapur, India's first nuclear power plant, is 10
kilometres north of Bombay. Film industry.
The centre of India's film industry is Bombay.
The city produces more than 300 films each year. Tourism. There is a large number of sites in Maharastra which attract visitors. Bombay has many places of interest and there are also other attractions in the state. |
Transportation and Communication
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The
transport network radiates from Bombay, which has connections by
air, rail, and road with other parts of the country.
Bombay is one of the major international and internal
airports in the country. There
are domestic airports at Akola, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nanded,
Ratnagiri, and Sholapur. |
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Location:
Maharastra is the third largest state of India, in area as
well as in population. In
shape it is four sided with the western side on the Arabian Sea.
The smallest side is the eastern side which borders Madhya
Pradesh. Madhya
Pradesh and Gujarat are to the north, and Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
and Goa are to the south. Land
Features: Maharastra
is a state with great physical diversity.
In the west, bordering the Arabian Sea, is the Konkan Strip.
This is widest near Bombay and is nowhere wider than 100
kilometres. In this strip are many small hills and streams. Behind
the Konkan Strip are the Western Ghats.
These mountains form the western edge of the Deccan plateau
and run for 640 kilometres through the state from north to south.
The highest peak reaches a height of 1,400 metres.
There are few gaps through which railways and roads run.
The western facing slopes are steep, but the eastern facing
ones are gentle. Along
the eastern slopes the great rivers of the plateau have carved wide
valleys. Between
the Narmada Valley in the north and the Krishna Basin in the south
is the Deccan Trap. This
basin is a series of lava outpourings which reach a depth of 3,000
metres near Bombay. East
of Nagpur the Deccan Trap gives way to gently rolling hills 250 to
350 metres above sea level. The
lava rock of the Deccan Trap breaks down into a black soil that is
heavy but fertile. The
crystalline rocks beneath produce sandy soils that are light in
colour and less productive. |
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The
monsoon dominates the state's climate.
The southwest monsoon breaks on the coast in the first week
of June and finishes in September.
Four-fifths of the annual rainfall is received during this
period. The
Western Ghats influence rainfall distribution.
The coastal Konkan strip is wet.
But the interior upland area behind them is much drier.
Bombay receives 270 centimetres a year on average, 95 per
cent of which is from June to September.
Nagpur on the other hand receives 113 centimetres a year, 87
per cent of which falls during the monsoon. On
the coastal strip of Maharastra, daily maximum temperatures are
fairly uniform throughout the year at an average of 32 °C. The
daily minimum temperature is 16 °C in January and 26 °C in June.
In Aurangabad, the average daily maximum temperature in May
is 40 °C, and 29 °C in January. The minimum is 14 °C in January and 25 °C in May. Plants
and Animals: The
natural vegetation depends largely upon the amount of rainfall an
area receives. On the
coast, there are bamboo, coconut, mango, myrabolan (for dyeing), and
teak. On the plateau,
in areas that receive heavy rain, bamboo, chestnut, and magnolia are
common. Areas with less than 60 centimetres of rain a year have
thorny vegetation. Deer,
hyenas, leopards, monkeys, and tigers live in the forests of the
state, which cover less than 15 per cent of the total area.
Snakes are common and there are many birds, particularly
ducks and peacocks. Rivers and Lakes: A number of large and important rivers rise in the Western Ghats. The Girna flows northeast to join the Tapti, which drains into the Arabian Sea. The Godavari and the Krishna both flow across the Deccan plateau from west to east and enter the Bay of Bengal. |
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Early
Dynasties: The
origin of the name Maharastra is unclear.
It may come from the word rathi (chariot) whose drivers
formed an army (maharathis). They
probably migrated south and settled in the upland area in the 600's. There they mingled with aboriginal tribes. The
territories making up present-day Maharastra formed part of several
Indian empires. The
earliest empire to control the region was the Mauryan.
Its most famous ruler was the emperor Asoka, who lived during
the 200's B.C. Between
the 700's and the 1300's there were a number of Hindu kingdoms.
These included the Satavahana, the Kalacuri, the Rastrakuta,
the Chalukya, and the Yadavas.
The first Muslim dynasty was founded in 1307 and was followed
by a string of others. The
Muslims used Persian as the language of the court and this had a
marked influence on the development of the Marathi language. Rise
of the Marathas: In
the 1400's and 1500's, the Maharastra region went through a
religious revival influenced by the "Sants" of bhakti a
devotional Hindu religion. By
the middle of the 1500's, Maharastra consisted of several small
kingdoms ruled by Maratha chieftains who spent much of their time
fighting each other. In
a reign that lasted from 1627 to 1680, the Marathan prince Shivaji
welded these various Marathan kingdoms into a powerful state.
The power of the new Marathan state was based on a strong,
well-organized army. It
threatened the Mughal empire in the north, weakened it through
constant military campaigns, and contributed to its downfall. The
last Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, spent nearly the whole of the second
half of his reign fighting the Marathas in the Deccan Plateau.
Aurangabad is named after him.
The
Mughal Empire could not withstand this sustained onslaught and
gradually withdrew. During
the 1700's, nearly all western and central India and large portions
of northern and eastern India came under the control of a Marathan
confederacy. The
imperial ambitions of the Marathas were shattered by the Afghans,
who defeated them in the third Battle of Panipat in 1761, and later
by the British, who fought them in three wars and eventually
overcame them in 1817. The
British administration annexed a large portion of Maratha territory
to form a colonial administrative unit called the Bombay Presidency. British
Rule: Under the
British, the Bombay Presidency administered western India.
Bombay developed from seven small islands inhabited by Koli
fishermen and their families. The East India Company had leased all of the islands from the
British government, which in its turn had received them from
Portugal in the late 1600's. To
begin with, Bombay's fortunes rested on shipbuilding, which used the
local Malabar teak. Later,
the city took over from Surat in Gujarat as the company's main
centre on the western coast of India.
From this time onward it grew rapidly.
The land between the islands was reclaimed, new streets were
laid out, and impressive buildings were erected.
Much of this progress was due to the energy and business
acumen of the town's Parsees. Soon
Bombay became the commercial capital of India and the place where
the majority of Europeans arrived in India. Independence:
Indian opposition to British colonial rule found considerable
support in Maharastra. Several
prominent nationalist and revolutionary leaders who were born in the
region became actively involved in the struggle for independence. They included Dadabhoy Nauoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and
Bal Gangadhar Tilak. When
India gained independence in 1947, the Bombay Presidency became
Bombay state. In the
following year, the government merged the former princely state of
Baroda and some others with Bombay.
With further reorganization in 1956, large areas of the
former Hyderabad princely state and Madhya Pradesh became part of
the large state. It had
a Gujarati-speaking population in the north and a Marathi-speaking
population in the south. As
a result of demands from these two groups for separate states, the
Indian government divided Bombay along linguistic lines into
present-day Gujarat and Maharastra, in 1960. Recent
Developments: In
1993, an earthquake devastated 50 villages in southern Maharastra.
The quake measured 6.5 on the Richter scale.
Final estimates put the death toll at 11,000. In 1996, Bombay's name was officially changed to Mumbai. |