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The Great Road from Surat to Agra throughMalwa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Ian Raeside
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Jean Deloche in a series of valuable publications hasgiven an overall view of the Indian road network inthe period up to about 1820 when the generalpacification that followed the collapse of theMaratha kingdom gave British engineers the chance totransform the communications of India, first withmilitary roads and later with railways. Thistransformation was nowhere more complete than inCentral India and particularly in Malwa, the Mughalsubha through which led the great road from Delhiand Agra to Burhanpur and the Deccan – a road whichwas followed by many of the European merchants anddiplomats travelling between Surat and Agra and inpart by the Maratha armies in the eighteenth centuryas they first raided and then conquered territoryall the way up to Delhi. The other route from Suratto the north lay through Gujarat and thesemi-deserts of Rajasthan (Deloche, 1980, pp. 55–7)and will not concern us here. Our route follows theTapti valley east to Burhanpur, through the gapguarded by Asirgarh and then, after the unavoidabledifficulties of the Narmada crossing and the climbup the Vindhya escarpment, takes an easy linethrough the flat well-cultivated Malwa plateau fromSironj to Narwar, following the grain of the countrybetween the north-flowing tributaries of theChambal.

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Research Article
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 363 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1991

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