Lakshadweep is an island group of India. The name of Lakshadweep in Sanskrit and Malayalam means 'one lakh island'. At present, Lakshadweep is a group of 36 small islands. From the point of view of administration, this archipelago is the smallest union territory of India. Lakshadweep has 36 islands and an area of 32 square km. The population here is about 70 thousand. The special thing about Lakshadweep is that the literacy rate here is 91.82%, that is, 91 out of every 100 people are educated.
If we talk about the history of Lakshadweep, the oldest written mention of it is found in the Jataka stories of Buddhism. Apart from this, these islands are also mentioned in detail in Sangam literature and the stories of Arab traveler Ibn-Batuta. In the medieval period, the Lakshadweep islands came under the control of Chola and Chera kings and later under the Kannur kingdom.
Initially, Hinduism and Buddhism were prevalent here, but after the arrival of Ubaidullah in 631 AD, Islam emerged. In the year 1787, Lakshadweep was captured by Tipu Sultan. Lakshadweep came under the control of the Portuguese in the 16th century. These islands came under the Malabar district of Madras Presidency during the British Raj. Later, it was connected to Kozhikode.
It is about those days when the nation became independent and the country was divided. India was divided into two parts – India and Pakistan. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, played an important role in unifying more than 500 princely states. At the same time, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan were engaged in this work from Pakistan's side.
Initially Lakshadweep was not under the jurisdiction of either India or Pakistan because both were first trying to annex the land provinces. At that time no one paid attention to Lakshadweep. After a few months, Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan thought of taking control of Lakshadweep as it was a Muslim dominated area and had not been claimed till then. At the same time, India's Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was also thinking about Lakshadweep.
Meanwhile, Pakistan sent one of its warships to Lakshadweep and India sent its army there. In this race between the two armies, the Indian Army reached Lakshadweep first and the Indian Army hoisted the tricolor there. After some time, Pakistan's warship also reached there but after seeing the Indian flag, the warship returned. Since then Lakshadweep is an integral part of India. It was formed as a union territory in 1956 and was named Lakshadweep in 1973.
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