Evolution of the State
The area has undergone several name changes and territorial demarcations since the early 19th century, i.e., after the British East India Company had established its supremacy in the Gangetic plains. In 1833 the then Bengal Presidency of the Company was divided into two parts, one of which became Presidency of Agra; in 1836 the Agra area was named North-Western Provinces and placed under a Lieutenant Governor by the Company. In 1877, the two provinces of Agra and Oudh (Oudh was occupied by the Company, in 1858), were placed under one Colonial administrator of the British Crown; he was called Lieutenant Governor of the North-Western Provinces and Chief Commissioner of Oudh. In 1902 the name was changed to United Provinces of Agra and Oudh with Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh as administrator; in 1921 Lieutenant Governorship was elevated to Governorship and the name of the province was changed to United Provinces of British India. In 1935, the name was shortened to United Provinces. On independence from the British colonial rule in 1947, the princely states of Rampur, Banaresand Tehri-Garwal were merged into the United Provinces. In 1950, the name of United Provinces was changed to Uttar Pradesh. In 1999 a separate Himalayan state,Uttaranchal, (now named Uttarakhand), was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.
Prehistory, legends and ancient period
Archeological finds in Uttar Pradesh confirm presence of Stone Age homo sapiens hunter-gatherers in Chhatarpalia, Mahugarh, Parisdhia, Lalitpur, Nihi and Gopipur, between 85±11 and 72±8 kyr (thousand years ago) before present (BP); Middle Paleolithic and later the Upper Paleolithic artifacts dated at 21–31 kyr BP; Mesolithic/Microlithic hunter-gatherer's settlement, near Pratapgarh, around 10550–9550 CE; villages, domesticated cattle, sheep or goats and evidence of plants and agriculture as early as 6000 CE – although, most dates range between c. 4000 and 1500 CE – thus initiating a sequence which extends into the Iron Age, beginning from Indus Valley Civilization and Harappa Culture finds in the Saharanpur division through the Vedic period.
The ancient Mahajanapada era kingdom of Kosala in Ayodhya – where, according to Hindu legend, the divine king Rama of the Ramayana epic reigned – was located here. Krishna – another divine king of Hindu legend, who plays a key role in the Mahabharata epic and is revered as the eighth reincarnation (Avatar) of Hindu god Vishnu – was born in the city of Mathura. The aftermath of Mahabharata war is believed to have taken place in the area between the Doab region of Western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, (in what was Kuru Mahajanapada), during the reign of the Pandava king Yudhishtira. The kingdom of the Kurus corresponds to the Black and Red Ware and Painted Gray Ware culture and the beginning of the Iron Age in Northwestern India, around 1000 BCE. The revered Swaminarayan – mentioned in the Brahma Purana and Vishwaksena Samhita as the manifestation of God – was born in the village of Chhapaiya.
Most of the empire building invasions of North India, from the east as well as the west, passed through the vast swathe of Gangetic plains of what today is Uttar Pradesh. Control over this region was of vital importance to the power and stability of all of India's major empires, including the Mauryan (320–200 BCE), Kushan (100–250 CE) and Gupta (350–600 CE)Rajput (650–1036 CE) empires.
Following the Hun invasions that broke Guptas' empire, the Ganges-Yamuna Doab saw the rise of Kannauj. During the reign of Harshavardhana (590–647 CE), the Kannauj empire was at its zenith; spanning from Punjab and Gujarat to Bengal and Orissa – and parts of central India, north of the Narmada River – it encompassed the entire Indo-Gangetic plain. A patron of Buddhism and the University at Nalanda, Harsha organized theological debates and also patronised art and literature. A noted author on his own merit, he wrote three Sanskrit plays. Many communities in various parts of India boast of being descendants of migrants from Kannauj, reflecting its glory in the past. Soon after Harshavardhana's death, his empire disintegrated into many kingdoms, to be invaded and ruled mostly by Rajputs, who also challenged Bengal's mighty Pala Empire's control of the region.
Medieval
The fall of the post-Harshavardhana Rajput kings of north India came when the Turko-Afghan Muslim rulers moved into present day Uttar Pradesh. Much of the state formed part of the various Indo-Islamic empires (Sultanates) after 1000 CE and was ruled from their capital, Delhi.
Later, in Mughal times, U.P. became the heartland of their vast empire; they called the place Hindustan, which is used to this day as the name for India in several languages. Mughal rulers Babur and Humanyun had their capital in Delhi. In 1540 an Afghan, Sher Shah Suri, took the reigns of U.P. after defeating Humanyun, the Mughal king, who ran away to Kabul. Sher Shah's son, Islam Shah, ruled Uttar Pradesh from their capital at Gwalior. After the death of Islam Shah, his prime minister Hemu became the de facto ruler of U.P., Bihar, MP and western parts of Bengal. Hemu had won in all 22 battles spanning entire North India. He defeated Emperor Akbar's forces at Agra and Delhi and established Hindu Raj (which lasted one month) in U.P. on 7 October 1556. He was bestowed the title ofVikramaditya at his coronation or Rajyabhishake at Purana Quila in Delhi and was titled as Samrat Hem Chandra Vikramaditya. Hemu died in the Second Battle of Panipat, and U.P. came under Emperor Akbar's rule. Agra and Fatehpur Sikri were the capitals of Emperor Akbar. At its zenith, the Mughal Empire covered almost the entire Indian subcontinent (including present day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh), which was ruled at different times from Delhi, Agra and Allahabad.
When the Mughal Empire disintegrated, their last territory remained confined to the Doab region of Hindustan and Delhi. Other areas of Hindustan (U.P.) were now 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 as a part of Greater Nepal. The state's capital city of Lucknow was established by the Muslim Nawabs of Oudh in the 18th century.
Modern-colonial
Starting from Bengal in the later half of the 18th century, a series of battles for North Indian lands finally gave the British East India Company accession over this state's territories – including the territories of Bundelkhand, Kumaon and Benaras rulers – and the last Mughal territories of Doab and Delhi. When the Company included Ajmer and Jaipur kingdoms in this northern territory, they named it the "North-Western Provinces" (of Agra). Today, the area may seem large compared to several of the Republic of India's present 'mini-states' – no more than the size of earlier 'divisions' of the British era – but at the time it was one of the smallest British provinces. Its capital shifted twice between Agra and Allahabad.
Due to dissatisfaction with British rule, a serious rebellion erupted in various parts of North India; Meerut cantonment's sepoy, Mangal Pandey, is widely credited as its starting point. It came to be known as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After the revolt failed the British attempted to divide the most rebellious regions by reorganizing the administrative boundaries of the region, splitting the Delhi region from ‘NWFP of Agra’ and merging it with Punjab, while the Ajmer- Marwar region was merged with Rajputana and Oudh was incorporated 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 important administrative base of today's Uttar Pradesh and has several administrative headquarters.
Uttar Pradesh continued to be central to Indian politics and was especially important in modern Indian history as a hotbed of both the Indian Independence Movement and the Pakistan Movement. Nationally known figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru were among the leaders of the movement in UP. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) was formed at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress on 11 April 1936 with the legendary nationalist Swami Sahajanand Saraswati elected as its first President, in order to address the long standing grievances of the peasantry and mobilise them against the zamindari landlords' attacks on their occupancy rights, thus sparking theFarmers' movement in India.
During the Quit India Movement of 1942, Ballia district overthrew the colonial authority and installed an independent administration under Chittu Pandey. Ballia became known then as Baghi Ballia (Rebel Ballia) for this significant contribution in India's freedom movement.
Post-independence
After independence, the state was renamed Uttar Pradesh ("northern province") by its first chief minister, Govind Ballabh Pant. Pant was well acquainted with and close to Jawaharlal Nehru (the first Prime Minister of free India) and was also popular in the Congress Party. He established such a good reputation in Lucknow that Nehru called him to Delhi, the capital and seat of Central Government of the country, to make him Home Minister of India in 27 December 1954. He was succeeded by Dr. Sampoornanand, a classicist Sanskrit scholar. Following a political crisis in Uttar Pradesh, initiated by Kamlapati Tripathi and C.B.Gupta, Sampurnanand was asked to resign as CM in 1960 and sent to Rajasthan as the Governor of Rajasthan, paving the way for Gupta and Tripathi to become Chief Ministers.
Sucheta Kripalani served as India's first woman chief minister from October 1963 until March 1967, when a two-month long strike by state employees caused her to step down. After her, Chandra Bhanu Gupta assumed the office of Chief Minister with Laxmi Raman Acharya as Finance Minister, but the government lasted for only two years due to the confusion and chaos which 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.
Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna was chief minister for Congress Party government for part of the 1970s. He was dismissed by the Central Government headed by Indira Gandhi, along with several other non-Congress chief ministers, shortly after the imposition of the widely unpopular Emergency, when Narain Dutt Tewari – later chief minister of Uttarakhand – became chief minister. The Congress Party lost heavily in 1977 elections, following the lifting of the Emergency, but romped back to power in 1980, when Mrs. Gandhi handpicked the man who would later become her son's principal opposition, V.P. Singh, to become Chief Minister.
Creation of the state of Uttarakhand
On 9 November 2000, the Himalayan portion of the state, comprising the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions and Haridwar district, was formed into a new state 'Uttaranchal', now called Uttarakhand, meaning the 'Northern Segment' state.
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