Bahawalpur (princely state)

Bahawalpur (Urdu, ) was a princely state in subsidiary alliance with British Raj, and later Dominion of Pakistan, that was a part of the Punjab States Agency. The state covered an area of and had a population of 1,341,209 in 1941. The capital of the state was the town of Bahawalpur. The state was founded in 1748 by Nawab Bahawal Khan Abbasi. On 22 February 1833, Abbasi III entered into a subsidiary alliance with the British, by which Bahawalpur was admitted as a princely state. When British rule ended in 1947 and British Raj was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Bahawalpur joined the Dominion of Pakistan. Bahawalpur remained an autonomous entity until 14 October 1955, when it was merged with the province of West Pakistan. The Kingdom of Bahawalpur was established by Bahawal Khan who migrated from Shikarpur, Sindh in 1748. The Nawabs of Bahawalpur belonged to the Daudpotra tribe. By the 18th century, Nawab of Bahawalpur had consolidated power by settling his Daudpotra kinsmen on new canal lands along Sutlej. As part of the 1809 Treaty of Amritsar, Ranjit Singh was confined to the right bank of the Sutlej. The first treaty with Bahawalpur was negotiated in 1833, the year after the treaty with Ranjit Singh for regulating traffic on the Indus. It secured the independence of the Nawab within his own territories and opened up the traffic on the Indus and Sutlej. The political relations of Bahawalpur with the British Raj were regulated by a treaty made in October 1838, when arrangements were in progress for the restoration of Shah Shuja to the Kabul throne. During the First Anglo-Afghan War, the Nawab assisted the British with supplies and allowing passage and in 1847-8 he co-operated actively with Sir Herbert Edwardes in the expedition against Multan. For these services, he was rewarded by the grant of the districts of Sabzalkot and Bhung, together with a life-pension of a lakh. On his death, a dispute arose regarding succession. He was succeeded by his third son, whom he had nominated in place of his eldest son.