Haryana: History

What the official syllabus says

HCS Preliminary Examination, Paper I: General Studies:

History of India and Indian National Movement.

Haryana-Economy and people. Social, economic and culture institutions and language of Haryana.

The Haryana line of the syllabus speaks of its people and its institutions; their roots lie in the region's history, and the Indian history part of the paper covers events that took place on Haryana's soil. This page brings the two together.

Topics in detail

Prehistory and the Harappan age

• Stone Age tools from the Shivalik foothills and the Aravallis
• Pre-Harappan and Harappan sites in the Ghaggar (Saraswati) basin: Rakhigarhi (Hisar), Bhirrana, Banawali and Kunal (Fatehabad), Mitathal (Bhiwani), Farmana (Rohtak), Siswal (Hisar), Balu (Kaithal)
• What the sites show: town planning, pottery, beads, burials, agriculture

The Vedic and epic age

• The Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers and the land of Brahmavarta in Vedic and later texts
• Kurukshetra: the Kuru kingdom, the Mahabharata war tradition and the Bhagavad Gita; the 48 kos Kurukshetra region and its tirthas
• Theories about the origin of the name "Haryana" and its early mentions

Ancient republics and empires

• The Yaudheya republic: its coins and seals found in the Rohtak region; mention in Samudragupta's Allahabad pillar inscription
• Agroha and the tradition of Maharaja Agrasen; the Agroha excavations (Hisar)
• Mauryan presence: the Ashokan pillar of Topra (Yamunanagar), moved to Delhi by Firoz Shah Tughlaq
• Kushana and Gupta rule over the region

The Pushyabhutis of Thanesar and after

• Sthanvishvara (Thanesar) as capital of the Pushyabhuti (Vardhana) dynasty: Prabhakarvardhana, Rajyavardhana, Harshavardhana
• Harsha's move to Kannauj; Banabhatta's Harshacharita; Hiuen Tsang's visit to Thanesar
• Gurjara-Pratihara rule; the Pehowa inscription
• The Tomaras: founding of Dhillika (Delhi); Surajkund and the Anangpur dam near Faridabad
• The Chauhans; the battles of Tarain (Taraori, Karnal) in 1191 and 1192 between Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad Ghori

The Sultanate and the Mughals

• Hansi, Sirsa and Thanesar as Sultanate strongholds
• Firoz Shah Tughlaq: founding of Hisar (Hisar-i-Firoza) and Fatehabad; the canal from the Yamuna that is the origin of the Western Yamuna Canal
• Timur's invasion (1398) through the region
• First battle of Panipat (1526): Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi
• Hemu (Hemchandra) of Rewari; second battle of Panipat (1556) between Akbar's forces and Hemu
• Mughal administration of the region: the subahs of Delhi and Agra and their sarkars (Hisar-Firoza, Sirhind, Rewari, Narnaul)
• Narnaul in the Mughal age; the Satnami revolt at Narnaul (1672)

The eighteenth century

• Banda Singh Bahadur: his campaign from Khanda (Sonipat), Sadhaura and Lohgarh (Yamunanagar)
• Battle of Karnal (1739): Nadir Shah defeats Muhammad Shah
• Third battle of Panipat (1761): Ahmad Shah Abdali defeats the Marathas
• Sikh chiefs and the Cis-Sutlej states (Jind, Kaithal, Ladwa); Maratha control; George Thomas at Hansi
• Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon (1803): the region passes to the East India Company
• Princely states of the region: Jind, Loharu, Pataudi, Dujana

The Revolt of 1857

• Ambala cantonment, Hansi, Hisar, Rohtak, Sirsa and Panipat in the revolt
• Rao Tula Ram of Rewari and the battle of Nasibpur near Narnaul (November 1857)
• The Nawab of Jhajjar, Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabgarh and the chiefs of Bahadurgarh and Farrukhnagar; the role of the Meos of Mewat
• Results: confiscation of states, and the transfer of the region from the North-Western Provinces to Punjab (1858)

The freedom struggle

• The Arya Samaj in Haryana; gurukuls and social reform
• Lala Lajpat Rai's public life in Hisar
• Pandit Neki Ram Sharma; Pandit Shri Ram Sharma and the press
• Sir Chhotu Ram: the Unionist Party, the Jat Gazette and the agrarian laws of the 1930s
• The region in the Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and Quit India movements; soldiers of the Indian National Army from Haryana
• Praja Mandal movements in the princely states

Towards a separate state

• Partition (1947): migration and refugee resettlement (Panipat, Karnal, Faridabad)
• The Hindi-Punjabi question: the Sachar formula (1949) and the Regional formula (1956)
• The Shah Commission (1966) and the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966; Haryana formed on 1 November 1966
• Pending questions from reorganisation: Chandigarh, river waters and the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal

Battles fought on Haryana's soil

Overlaps

• "Related issues of Haryana" is a line of Mains General Studies I, which also covers modern Indian history and the freedom struggle.
• The state's formation and its administration are on Haryana: Polity and Administration.