Allahabad: Encyclopedia II - Allahabad - History

Allahabad - History

When the Aryans first settled into what they termed the Aryavarta, or Madhydesha, their territory extended till Prayag. The Vatsa (a branch of the early Indo-Aryans) were rulers of Hastinapur, and they established the town of Kaushambi near present day Allahabad.

In the times of the Ramayana, the site of Allahabad was made up of a few Rishi's huts at the confluence of the three rivers. Lord Rama, the main protagonist in the Ramayana, spent some time here, at the Ashram of Sage Bharadwaj, before proceeding to nearby Chitrakoot.

The city was known earlier as Prayaga - a name that is still commonly used. Akbar realized the strategic importance of the city, built a magnificent fort on the banks of the holy Sangam and re-christened it as Illahabad in 1575.

In 1801 Nawab of Awadh ceded it to East India Company.In 1857,the city was the crucible of activity in India's 1st Independence struggle.The company officially handed over India to British Government in 1858 at Minto Park.Under the British rule, Allahabad was the capital of the United Provinces till the 1920s. It was a well-known centre of education (dating from the time of the Buddha), and in the first few decades of the 20th century, the Allahabad University had earned for itself the epithet of 'Oxford of the East'. It is also a major literary centre for Hindi, with many literateurs being connected to it in some way or the other. It holds the world record for the world's first letter delivered by airmail (from Allahabad to Naini, just a few km. across the river Yamuna) (1911).

Allahabad was the birthplace of Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Nehru family estate, called the Anand Bhavan, is now a museum. It was also the birthplace of his daughter Indira Gandhi, and the home of Lal Bahadur Shastri, both later Prime Ministers of India. In addition Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Chandra Shekhar were also associated with Allahabad. Thus Allahabad has the distinction of being the home of several Prime Ministers in India's post-independence history.

During the movement for independence, Allahabad was at the forefront of all political activities. Alfred Park in Allahabad was the site where, in 1931, the revolutionary Chandrashekhar Azad killed himself when surrounded by the British Police. Anand Bhavan, and an adjacent Nehru family home, Swaraj Bhavan, were the center of the political activities of the Indian National Congress, and a magnet for revolutionaries and student activists.

The first seeds of the idea of Pakistan were also sown in Allahabad. In 1930, Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) in his presidential address to the All-India Muslim League proposed a separate Muslim state for the Muslim majority regions of India.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki