Berar is a former province of British India, located in central India. It is now part of Maharashtra state, and where it is forms part of Vidarbha region. The boundaries of Berar have changed historically, but the British Raj province, also known as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, corresponds to Maharashtra's Amravati Division. The British Raj is an informal term for the period of British rule of most of the Indian subcontinent, or present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (previously known as Ceylon). ... Maharashtra (महाराष्ट्र in Devanagari) is Indias third largest state in terms of area and second largest in terms of population after Uttar Pradesh. ... Vidarbha is the north-eastern region of Maharashtra state, now forming two divisions (Nagpur and Amravati). ... The British Raj was a historical period during which the Indian subcontinent, or present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were under the colonial authority of the British; also included from 1886 was Burma. ... Amravati (also Amrawati or Amraoti) is a city in the state of Maharashtra in India. ...

The origin of the name Berar is not known, but may perhaps be a corruption of Vidarbha, the name of a kingdom in the Deccan of which, in the period of the Mahabharata, Berar probably formed part. The history of Berar belongs generally to that of the Deccan, the country falling in turn under the sway of the various dynasties which successively ruled in southern India, the first authentic records showing it to have been part of the Andhra or Satavahana empire. On the final fall of the Chalukyas in the twelfth century, Berar came under the sway of the Yadavas of Deogiri, and remained in their possession till the Muslim invasions at the end of the thirteenth century. On the establishment of the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan (1348), Berar was constituted one of the five provinces into which their kingdom was divided, being governed by great nobles, with a separate army. The perils of this system becoming apparent, the province was divided (1478 or 1479) into two separate provinces, named after their capitals Gawil and Mahur. The Bahmani dynasty was, however, already tottering to its fall; Vidarbha is the north-eastern region of Maharashtra state, now forming two divisions (Nagpur and Amravati). ... The Mahabharata (Devanagari: महाभारत, phonetically Mahābhārata - see note), sometimes just called Bharata, is one of the two major ancient Sanskrit epics of India, the other being the Ramayana. ... The Deccan Plateau is a vast plateau in India, encompassing most of Central and Southern India. ... Andhra Pradesh (ఆంధర దేశం), a state in South India, lies between 12°41 and 22°N latitude and 77° and 84°40E longitude . ... Approximate extent of the Satavahana Empire, circa 150 CE. The Sātavāhanas, also known as the Andhras, were a dynasty which ruled in Southern and Central India starting from around 230 BCE. Although there is some controversy about when the dynasty came to an end, the most liberal estimates... The Chalukya Dynasty was an Indian royal dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between 550 and 750, and again between 973 and 1190. ... The Yadava Dynasty ruled a kingdom in what is now Maharashtra, India from the 12th century to the 14th century. ... Daulatabad (from Persian دولت‌آباد meaning Built by the Government), also called Deogiri or Devagiri, is a hill-fortress in Maharashtra state, India, in about 40 miles northwest of the city of Aurangabad in Aurangabad district. ... A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم) (sometimes also pronounced Moslem) is an adherent of Islam. ... The Bahmani Sultanate was a Muslim state of the Deccan in southern India. ... Events April 7 - Charles University is founded in Prague. ... Events February 18 - George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London. ... Events January 20 - Ferdinand II ascends the throne of Aragon and rules together with his wife Isabella, queen of Castile over most of the Iberian peninsula. ... Gawilghur is the name of very well fortified stronghold of the Maratha Empire. ... Mahur or Mahurgad is a regious place in Maharashtra, India. ...

In 1490 Imad-ul-Mulk, governor of Gawil, who had formerly held all Berar, proclaimed his independence and proceeded to annex Mahur to his new kingdom and had capital at Ellichpur. Imad-ul-Mulk was by birth a Kanarese Hindu, but had been captured as a boy in one of the expeditions against the Vijayanagara empire and reared as a Muslim. He died in 1504 and his direct descendants held the sultanate of Berar until 1561, when Burhan Imad Shah was deposed by his minister Tufal Khan, who assumed the kingship. This gave a pretext for the intervention of Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, who in 1572 invaded Berar, imprisoned and put to death Tufal Khan, his son Shams-ul-Mulk, and the ex-king Burhan, and annexed Berar to his own dominions. Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... Gawilghur is the name of very well fortified stronghold of the Maratha Empire. ... Ellichpur or Illichpur is a town of India in the Amraoti district of Berar. ... Kannada - aptly described as sirigannada (known to few as Kanarese) is one of the oldest Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 45 million people. ... The Vijayanagara empire was based in the Deccan, in peninsular and southern India, from 1336 onwards. ... Events January 1 - French troops surrender Gaeta to the Spanish under Cordoba. ... Ahmednagar is a city in the state of Maharashtra, India, on the left bank of the river Sna, about 100 km southeast of Pune. ...

In 1595 Shah Murad, son of the Mughal emperor Akbar, besieged Ahmednagar, and was bought off by the formal cession of Berar. Murad, founding the city of Shahpur, fixed his seat at Berar, and after his death in 1598, and the conquest of the Deccan by Akbar, the province was united with Ahmednagar and Kandesh under the emperor's other son, Danyal (d. 1605), as governor. The Mughal Empire (alternative spelling Mogul, which is the origin of the word Mogul) of India was founded by Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans at the First Battle of Panipat. ... This topic is considered to be an essential subject on Wikipedia. ... Kandesh (also Khandesh) is a region of central India, which forms the northwestern portion of Maharashtra state. ...

After Akbar's death (1601), Berar once more became independent under the Ethiopian Malik Ambar (d. 1626), but in the first year of Shah Jahan's reign it was again brought under the sway of the Mughal empire. Towards the close of the seventeenth century the province began to be overrun by the Marathas, and in 1718 the Mughal empire formally recognized their right to levy tribute from the unhappy population. Taj Mahal - the icon of India, was built (1630 - 1653) by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum of his loving wife Mumtaz Mahal Ghiyasuddin Shah Jahan (شاہ جحاں, also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, etc. ... Maratha is an Indo-Aryan, kshatriya (warrior) caste of Marathi language speaking people primarily residing in the plains and hills of Indias western state of Maharashtra. ...

In 1724 the Nizam-al-Mulk Asif Jah established the independent line of the Nizams of Hyderabad, and thenceforth the latter claimed to be de jure sovereigns of Berar, with exception of certain districts (Mehkar, Umarkhed, etc.) ceded to the Maratha Peshwa in 1760 and 1795. The claim was contested by the Maratha Bhonsla rajas of Nagpur, and for more than half a century the miserable country was ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Hyderabad and Berar, 1903 Hyderābād was an autonomous princely state of south-central India from 1724 until 1948, ruled by a hereditary Nizam, and an Indian state from 1948 to 1956. ... The Peshwa were the hereditary rulers of the Maratha empire of central India from 1713 to 1818. ... The Bhonsle were a prominent Maratha clan who served as rulers of several states in India. ... Nāgpur City name is derived from River Nag which flows through manoj mishras city. ...

This condition of things was ended by Wellesley's victories at Assaye and Argaon (1803), which forced the Bhonsla raja to cede his territories west of the Wardha, Gawilgarh and Narnala. By the partition treaty of Hyderabad (1804) these ceded territories in Berar were transferred to the Nizam, together with some tracts about Sindkhed and Jalna which had been held by Sindhia. By a treaty of 1822, which extinguished the Maratha right to levy tribute (chauth), the Wardha River was fixed as the eastern boundary of Berar, the Melghat and adjoining districts in the plains being assigned to the Nizam in exchange for the districts east of the Wardha held by the Peshwa. The Battle of Assaye took place on September 23, 1803, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. ... The Battle of Argaon took place on November 28, 1803, between the British under the command of General Lord Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) and the forces of The Rajah of Berar under Sindhia of Gwalior. ... The Sindhia, also spelled Scindia , Sindia, or Shinde are a prominent Maratha family in India. ...

Though Berar was no longer oppressed by its Maratha taskmasters nor harried by Pindari and Bhil raiders, it remained long a prey to the turbulent elements let loose by the sudden cessation of the wars. From time to time bands of soldiers, whom the government was powerless to control, scoured the country, and rebellion succeeded rebellion till 1859, when the last fight against open rebels took place at Chichamba near Risod. Pindari is a word of uncertain origin, applied to the irregular horsemen who accompanied the Maratha armies in central India during the 18th century when the Mughal Empire was breaking up. ... Bhils are a tribal people of central India. ...

Meanwhile the misery of the country was increased by the reckless raising of loans by the Nizam's government and the pledging of the revenues to a succession of great farmers-general. At last the British government intervened, and in 1853 a new treaty was signed with the Nizam, under which the Hyderabad contingent was to be maintained by the British government, while for the pay of this force and in satisfaction of other claims, certain districts were assigned to the British East India Company. It was these "Hyderabad Assigned Districts" which were popularly supposed to form the province of Berar, though they coincided in extent neither with the Berar of the Nizams nor with the old Mughal province. In 1860, by a new treaty which modified in the Nizam's favor that of 1853, it was agreed that Berar should be held in trust by the British government for the purposes specified in the treaty of 1853. The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as John Company, was a joint-stock company of investors, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. ...

Under British control Berar rapidly recovered its prosperity. Thousands of Marathi farmers who had emigrated across the Wardha to the Peshwas dominions, in order to escape the ruinous fiscal system of the Nizam's government, now returned; the American Civil War gave an immense stimulus to the cotton trade; the laying of a railway line across the province provided yet further employment, and the people rapidly became prosperous and contented. The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-four mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right of secession from the... Picking cotton in Georgia Cotton is a soft fiber that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to the tropical and subtropical regions of both the Old World and the New World. ...

On October 1, 1903, Berar was placed under the administration of the British commissioner general of the Central Provinces, which henceforth became known as the Central Provinces and Berar. After India's independence in 1947, the Central Provinces and Berar became a province of India, and in 1950 became the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In 1956, the Indian states were reorganized along linguistic lines, and Berar and Nagpur became part of Bombay state. In 1960, Bombay state was split along linguistic lines, and the southern, Marathi-speaking portion of the state, including Berar, became the new state of Maharashtra. A British Raj province comprising British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India. ... India is subdivided into twenty-eight states, six union territories and the National Capital Territory. ... Madhya Pradesh (मध्य प्रदेश) is a state in central India. ... Bombay state is a former state of India. ... Maharashtra (महाराष्ट्र in Devanagari) is Indias third largest state in terms of area and second largest in terms of population after Uttar Pradesh. ...

Sultans of Berar from Imad Shahi Dynasty

• Fath-Allah Imad-ul-Mulk 1490 - 1504
• Aladdin Imad Shah 1504 - 1529
• Darya Imad Shah 1529 - 1562
• Burhan Imad Shah 1562 - 1568
• Tufal Khan Dakhni 1568 - 1572

Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... Events January 1 - French troops surrender Gaeta to the Spanish under Cordoba. ... Events January 1 - French troops surrender Gaeta to the Spanish under Cordoba. ... Events April 22 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297. ... Events April 22 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297. ... Events Earliest English slave-trading expedition under John Hawkins. ... Events Earliest English slave-trading expedition under John Hawkins. ... Events March 23 - Peace of Longjumeau ends the Second War of Religion in France. ... Events March 23 - Peace of Longjumeau ends the Second War of Religion in France. ... Events January 16 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. ...

External links

• List of Sultans of Berar

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.