Formation of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, 1950-2000

Uttar Pradesh is the one state whose name every candidate knows and whose birth very few can date. The state was not created in 1947 or in 1956: it grew out of a colonial province that changed names three times, took its present name in 1950, and lost its hill districts in 2000 when Uttarakhand was carved out of it. UPPSC, UPSSSC, SSC and Railway papers ask this chapter as dates, names and the constitutional route by which a new state is made, so the sequence is worth learning in order.

From the Ceded and Conquered Provinces to the United Provinces

The territory came to the East India Company in pieces after the treaties with Awadh and the defeat of the Marathas, and the British called it the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1836 it was reorganised as the North-Western Provinces, with Agra as its seat, which is why the older name of the Allahabad High Court refers to the North-Western Provinces at Agra. The kingdom of Awadh, annexed in 1856 on the doctrine of misgovernment, was placed under the same Lieutenant-Governor in 1877.

In 1902 the combined province was renamed the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, shortened in 1937 to the United Provinces. The capital moved from Agra to Allahabad and then to Lucknow. After independence Sarojini Naidu became the Governor of the United Provinces in 1947, the first woman to hold a governorship in India, and Govind Ballabh Pant headed the government.

The renaming of 1950

When the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, the United Provinces was renamed Uttar Pradesh, which conveniently kept the initials UP, and was listed as a Part A state in the First Schedule. Govind Ballabh Pant was its first Chief Minister, later Union Home Minister and a Bharat Ratna. The capital is Lucknow; the High Court sits at Allahabad, now Prayagraj, with a bench at Lucknow, a divided arrangement that is itself a favourite question. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 redrew most of India on language, but left Uttar Pradesh substantially as it was.

How a new state is made

Three Articles carry this chapter in Polity papers. Article 2 lets Parliament admit or establish new states. Article 3 lets Parliament form a new state by separating territory from a state, by uniting states or parts of them, and alter areas, boundaries and names. Two conditions attach to an Article 3 Bill: it can be introduced only on the recommendation of the President, and the President must first refer it to the legislature of the state concerned for its views within a specified period. Those views are not binding on Parliament. Article 4 says that a law made under Article 2 or 3 may amend the First and Fourth Schedules, and is not treated as an amendment of the Constitution under Article 368, so a simple majority is enough.

The separation of Uttarakhand in 2000

The demand for a separate hill state was old, pressed by the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal from 1979 and sharpened by the agitation of 1994, in which the firing at Khatima, Mussoorie and Muzaffarnagar left the movement with its martyrs. Parliament passed the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, and the new state came into existence on 9 November 2000 as Uttaranchal, the twenty-seventh state of the Union. It was renamed Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007 at the request of its own legislature. The year 2000 produced three states in a row, and the order is often asked: Chhattisgarh on 1 November from Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal on 9 November from Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand on 15 November from Bihar.

Uttar Pradesh after 2000

• Uttar Pradesh remains the most populous state of India and the state that sends the largest number of members to the Lok Sabha.
• It has 80 Lok Sabha seats and 31 Rajya Sabha seats; Uttarakhand received 5 Lok Sabha seats.
• It is one of the states with a bicameral legislature: a Vidhan Sabha of 403 elected seats and a Vidhan Parishad of 100 seats, the largest legislative council in the country.
• It borders nine states and union territories, namely Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, and shares an international boundary with Nepal.
• The Allahabad High Court, among the oldest in India, continues to serve the state from Prayagraj with its Lucknow bench.

Revise the chapter as five dates: 1836 for the North-Western Provinces, 1902 for the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, 1950 for the renaming as Uttar Pradesh, 2000 for the Reorganisation Act and 2007 for Uttarakhand's present name. Add the three Articles, and the chapter is complete for any objective paper.