Madhya Pradesh: 1857 and the freedom movement

The official sources trace how the British took control of the Madhya Pradesh region between 1775 and 1818, how the 1857 War of Independence played out at Gwalior, Mandla and Bhopal, and which people from the state the state portal lists among freedom fighters and public figures.

British expansion and paramountcy

• After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Marathas took control of most of Madhya Pradesh between 1720-1760: the Holkars at Indore, the Scindias at Gwalior and the Bhonsales at Nagpur.
• The British, expanding from Bengal, Bombay and Madras, defeated the Marathas between 1775-1818, entered into treaties with their states and established paramountcy over them.
• The Holkars of Indore fought the British in 1803 and were finally beaten in the Third Anglo Maratha war of 1817-1818, giving up a large part of their territory.
• Bhopal stayed friendly to the British: a treaty of dependence was signed in 1817, and the Anglo-Bhopal treaty of February-March 1818 made Bhopal a princely state of British India within the Central India Agency.
• In 1818 the Peshwa Baji Rao II ceded most of the Sagar district to the British; other parts came to them between 1818 and 1860.
• In 1853 the British annexed the state of Nagpur; it was combined with the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories to form the Central Provinces in 1861. The princely states of northern Madhya Pradesh were governed by the Central India Agency.
• The Bundela rising of 1842 in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories needed direct attention by the Governor-General; order was restored the next year.

The 1857 War of Independence

• Rani Lakshmi Bai, Queen of Jhansi, fought the crucial and final battle against the British at Gwalior during the 1857 War of Independence, and died fighting at the foot of the Gwalior Fort.
• In Mandla, the British, with the help of the Rewa king, killed the queen of Ramgarh and suppressed the 1857 uprising; the Sohagpur area of Ramgarh was then handed to the Rewa king.
• In Sagar district, the Shahgarh pargana was confiscated in 1857 because of its chief's rebellion.
• Sikander Begum of Bhopal (reign 1844-1868) sided with the British in 1857 and crushed those who revolted against them.
• After 1857, Tantiya Bhil of West Nimar symbolised the fight for independence from the British.

Princely rulers to 1947

• Qudsia Begum (Gohar Begum) took charge in 1819, aged 18, after her husband's assassination, becoming the first female ruler of Bhopal. She built the Jama Masjid and Gohar Mahal and ruled till 1837.
• Sikander Begum built roads, rebuilt the fort, and built the Moti Masjid and Moti Mahal.
• Shah Jahan Begum built the mini-city Shahjahanabad and a palace named Taj Mahal.
• Sultan Kaikhusrau Jahan Begum ruled from 1901 until she abdicated for her son in 1926. She set up a modern municipality in 1903, advanced the emancipation of women, and was the first president of the All India Conference on Education and first chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.
• Nawab Hamidullah Khan came to the throne in 1926.
• Indore state came under the dominion of India in 1947, as the Indore district history notes.

Freedom fighters and public figures

• Chandra Shekhar Azad: born at Jhabua; involved in practically every revolutionary activity against the British Government between 1926 and 1931.
• Pt. Makhanlal Chaturvedi: one of the prominent freedom fighters and a national poet, from Khandwa.
• Bal Krishna Sharma 'Navin': freedom fighter, editor and poet from Shajapur.
• Bhavani Prasad Mishra: national poet and Gandhian philosopher from Hoshangabad.
• Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla: first Chief Minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh.
• Shankar Dayal Sharma: Ninth President of India, a scholar and educationist.
• Vijaya Raje Scindia: of the Scindia family of Gwalior, a political leader and social worker.
• Kushabhau Thakre: described as a social reformist among the political leaders of Madhya Pradesh.