Vindhya Pradesh
Vindhya Pradesh is a former
state of
India. It was created in
1948, shortly after Indian independence, from the territories of the
princely states in the eastern portion of the former
Central India Agency. The eastern part of the state included the large princely state of
Rewa, formerly part of
Bagelkhand agency, and the western part of the state was made up of the numerous states of the former
Bundelkhand agency of Central India. It was named for the
Vindhya Range, which runs through the center of the province. The capital of the state was
Rewa. It lay between
Uttar Pradesh to the north and
Madhya Pradesh to the south, and the enclave of
Datia, which lay a short distance to the west, was surrounded by the state of
Madhya Bharat.
Vindhya Pradesh, together with the states of
Madhya Bharat and
Bhopal, was merged into Madhya Pradesh on November 1, 1956.
In 2000,
Srinivas Tiwari, speaker of the Madhya Pradesh assembly, advocated that nine districts be separated from Madhya Pradesh to create a new state of Vindhya Pradesh.