a state in India, in the northwestern part of the Hindustan Peninsula. Area, 308,000 sq km. Population, 50.3 million (1971); for the most part Marathas. The city of Bombay is the administrative center.
The territory of Maharashtra includes the northwestern part of the Deccan Plateau, a belt of the Western Ghats, and a narrow lowland along the Arabian Sea (Konkan coast). The climate is monsoonal, hot, and damp on the coasts and more arid in inner regions. Fertile black soils (regurs) are widely found on the traps of the Deccan Plateau.
Maharashtra is India’s most industrially developed state (along with West Bengal). It accounts for almost one-fourth of the net output of India’s manufacturing industry and approximately one-fifth of those employed in this sector. More than 60 percent of the population is employed in agriculture. Maharashtra holds first place in the country in cotton yield (one-fifth of the national crop), which is generally of the short-staple variety and is grown in the inner regions of the Deccan Plateau; it also holds first place in peanut production. Other oil-bearing plants are raised, and sugarcane plantings are being expanded. The main part of the sowing area is under grain crops, including durra (one-third of the national yield), wheat, and rice. Dry-valley farming predominates, with only 6 percent of crop lands being irrigated.
Cotton is the most important branch of industry, with 25 percent of the country’s yarn and 33 percent of its fabrics being produced in Maharashtra. Bombay is the chief center of this traditional branch. Other branches of textile production such as silk (including the manufacture of artificial silk in which the state holds first place in the country) and wool are well developed, as is food industry (sugar, butter, flour). The importance of machine building (machine tools, electrical machinery, automotive vehicles) and the chemical (dyes, artificial fiber, drugs) and petrochemical industries has increased during the years of independence.
New factories and plants are concentrated mainly in the Bombay-Thana-Poona industrial belt, which accounts for more than 85 percent of the net value of output of the state’s manufacturing industry. Nearly half of India’s imports pass through the port of Bombay. The country’s first atomic reactor has been built in the vicinity of Greater Bombay, in Trombay.
The urban agglomeration of Greater Bombay is second in India after the Calcutta agglomeration. Nagpur and Sholapur are other centers of the state’s manufacturing industry.
Mining is well-developed in the eastern section of the state (in the vicinity of Vidarbha); manganese ore (about one-fifth of the national output) and coal are mined. Maharashtra has energy shortages. India’s first atomic power plant, built jointly by Maharashtra and Gujarat, operates in Tarapur. Maharashtra is distinguished by sharp regional disproportions in levels of economic development.
L. I. BONIFAT’EVA and G. V. SDASIUK
Historical survey. First mention of Maharashtra as a territory settled by the Marathas dates to the beginning of the common era. It was first described by Hsiian-tsang (seventh century). The territory of Maharashtra served as a basis or important part of many powerful states, including that of the Satavahanas, Vakatakas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Yadavas, Bahmani, and Ahmadnagar. A Maratha state headed by Sivaji emerged here in the 1660’s and 1670’s. In the 18th century it broke up into the Maratha principalities (Maratha confederacy). In the early 19th century Maharashtra fell under the control of the English colonialists. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the region of Maharashtra was one of the centers of the national liberation movement and of peasant revolts. Most of its territory was part of the province of Bombay until 1950, and later of Bombay State. In 1960 the separate state of Maharashtra was established.