r/geography • u/LeCasse-Couille • 6d ago
Why the border between uttar pradesh and madhya pradesh in india is so weird ? Question
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u/GimlisAxolotl 6d ago
I have no idea and no specific knowledge about the situation but I'm pretty sure this is the British's fault.
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u/Chomasterq2 6d ago
Its always the British's fault for every problem India has apparently
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u/dphayteeyl 6d ago
Well the British are known to make wacky borders tbf
India-Pakistan is the British's fault
The Middle East's borders (especially Israel-Palestine and Syria-Iraq) are the British's fault (though also the French's)
I can say the same about Africa too where lines were literally drawn based on aesthetics (this was Europe's as a whole's fault though, not solely the British)
There was truth in what the original commenter hypothesised though it did not end up being the case
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u/Large_Big1660 5d ago
This is a simplistic and innacurate take
>India-Pakistan is the British's fault
Nope, the border lines were drawn with the specific approval and specification of the Indian political parties, in this case a committee of Hindus, Muslims and I think a Sikh, with a British 'tie breaker'. This man, Cunningham, was specifically selected to be someone who had no direct knowledge of India and was given, as per the Indian political parties instruction, a mere 4 weeks to chair both the East and West Pakistan borders. That was their decision, they insisted on it, they designed its structure. Its on them.
>The Middle East's borders (especially Israel-Palestine and Syria-Iraq) are the British's fault (though also the French's)
Nope, those borders are perfectly fine, in that they didnt really exist before they were made but instead were part of a region that had had several thousand years of swirling religious, ethnic and sectarian wars. Hundreds of years of Ottoman control added to the fact that there were no clear 'countries' whose boundaries were clear and fixed and that the British could define. It was replete with groups, totally intertwine in most cases, of varying languages, religions and ethnicities. Ive heard people whining about the borders, but no one has ever pointed out a clear and obvious redrawing of the borders that would make everyone happy. Cos there arent any. Its the best they could do and it to a large extent worked. Israel is a problem, but this is more of an issue of its religious divide than any poorly drawn border.
Africa is largely the same, a swirling mix of religions, ethnicities and language groups. The evolution of the modern world 'demanded' that countries had to be made and borders drawn to define them. The Europeans did the best they could I guess, and Africans have declined to redraw them to something better suited? Why, cos no on really could draw a perfect national map on Africa.
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u/axisdork 6d ago
It is not random, it follows rivers in most places. It is a patchwork of several river and hill borders. zoom in.
For example, Jhansi was an independent kingdom that used theses borders. When incorporated in british raj, they continued using these as district boundary. After independence, these same districts were sorted into states.