Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu
Three Portuguese colonial remnants merged in 2020 combining beach tourism with industrial manufacturing
India's most Frankenstein administrative unit exists because the Portuguese refused to leave and because bureaucrats in Delhi decided three fragments made more sense as one. Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, officially merged in January 2020, stitches together two coastal enclaves on the Arabian Sea with a landlocked interior 20 kilometers away that shares neither geography nor history with its coastal siblings.
The Portuguese acquired Daman in 1531 and the island fortress of Diu in 1535, both seized for their strategic value controlling Gujarat's maritime trade routes. The interior territories came later through different means: the Marathas ceded Nagar Haveli in 1783 as compensation for destroying a Portuguese vessel, and Dadra followed in 1785. For four centuries, these pockets operated as extractive outposts for Portuguese India.
Liberation came in two waves. In July-August 1954, nationalist volunteers seized Dadra and Nagar Haveli without military resistance, creating the bizarre Free Dadra and Nagar Haveli that operated as a de facto independent state for seven years with its own prime minister. Coastal Daman and Diu held out until December 1961, when Operation Vijay overwhelmed Portuguese garrisons in 36 hours. Portugal refused to recognize Indian sovereignty until the Carnation Revolution in 1974.
Post-liberation, Silvassa transformed into an industrial zone exploiting tax advantages and proximity to Gujarat. Today, this territory of 586,000 people punches absurdly above its weight: 28% of India's plastic production, 80% of texturising yarn manufacturing, and $4.6 billion in annual exports. The Varli and Kokna tribal communities in the interior forests coexist uneasily with industrial workers who now constitute 62% of the urban population.
By 2026, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor passing 18 kilometers from the border will intensify pressure on remaining tribal lands, while the administrative merger remains more cartographic convenience than functional integration.