Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: Complete GK

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is the Union Territory with the longest name in India, and it exists in its present form only since 26 January 2020, when the two separate Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and of Daman and Diu were merged into one under the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Act, 2019. The purpose of the merger was administrative efficiency: two very small territories in the same part of the country were sharing officials and schemes anyway. The territory is a favourite of paper setters because it combines a fresh administrative change with a long colonial history and a distinctive tribal culture.

The basic facts

The capital of the merged Union Territory is Daman. It has three districts, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu. It is a Union Territory without a legislature, run by an Administrator appointed by the President, and it sends two members to the Lok Sabha, one from the Dadra and Nagar Haveli seat and one from the Daman and Diu seat, while having no seat in the Rajya Sabha. Judicial appeals from the territory go to the Bombay High Court.

Geography

The three parts of the territory are not contiguous. Dadra and Nagar Haveli is landlocked, enclosed by Gujarat and Maharashtra, and Dadra itself is a small enclave separated from Nagar Haveli; its chief town and headquarters is Silvassa. Daman lies on the Arabian Sea coast in southern Gujarat and is cut by the Daman Ganga river into Nani Daman, the smaller northern part, and Moti Daman, the larger southern part. Diu is an island off the southern coast of the Kathiawar or Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat, joined to the mainland by bridges across a narrow creek. The Daman Ganga, which rises in the Western Ghats and flows west through Dadra and Nagar Haveli before reaching the sea at Daman, is the main river; the Madhuban dam on it supplies water and irrigation. Nagar Haveli is hilly and forested on its eastern side and holds the Dadra and Nagar Haveli Wildlife Sanctuary, while the Fudam bird sanctuary lies in Diu.

The Portuguese centuries

All three parts were Portuguese possessions, and that is why they were not freed in 1947 with the rest of India. The Portuguese acquired Diu in 1535 by a treaty with Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat and built the great Diu Fort there; they took Daman in 1559; and they obtained Nagar Haveli from the Marathas by treaty in the late eighteenth century. The earlier naval Battle of Diu of 1509 had already established Portuguese sea power on this coast.

Freedom came in two steps. Dadra and Nagar Haveli was liberated in 1954 by volunteers rather than by the army, was administered for some years by its own body of local representatives, and was formally made part of India as a Union Territory by the Tenth Constitutional Amendment Act of 1961. Daman and Diu, along with Goa, were taken by the Indian armed forces in Operation Vijay in December 1961, and this territory was added to the Constitution by the Twelfth Constitutional Amendment Act of 1962 as the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu. When Goa became a state on 30 May 1987 under the Fifty-sixth Constitutional Amendment, Daman and Diu were separated as a Union Territory of their own, and it is that territory which merged with Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 2020.

People, culture and economy

Dadra and Nagar Haveli is overwhelmingly tribal: at the Census of 2011 about fifty-two per cent of its people belonged to the Scheduled Tribes, the largest community being the Varli, with the Dhodia, Kokna, Koli, Kathodi and Naika also present. The Warli painting, done in white rice paste on a mud-brown wall with triangles and circles for human figures, is the best known art of these people and is now sold worldwide. The tarpa dance, performed in a circle to a wind instrument of the same name made of bamboo and gourd, and the Bhavada folk performance are the characteristic forms; Diwaso and Nariyal Purnima are widely kept festivals. Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Konkani are all spoken, and Portuguese survives in place names, surnames, food and the architecture of churches and forts. Daman and Diu recorded the lowest sex ratio of any state or Union Territory at the Census of 2011, a consequence of heavy male migration into its industrial and port economy.

The economy rests on three legs. Dadra and Nagar Haveli has become heavily industrial, with large estates around Silvassa holding textile, plastics, engineering and chemical units that grew under the tax concessions once given to the territory. Daman has industry, fishing and a port tradition. Diu lives on fishing, salt, coconut and tourism, drawing visitors to its fort, the Gangeshwar temple where five Shiva lingas stand among the rocks washed by the sea, the Naida caves and its beaches. Silvassa's own attractions include the tribal museum, the Vasona lion safari and the Vanganga lake garden.