1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tonk

TONK, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. It consists of six isolated tracts, some of which are under the Central India agency. Total area, 2553 sq. m.; total population (1901), 273,201; estimated revenue £77,000. No tribute is payable. The chief, whose title is nawab, is a Mahommedan of Afghan descent. The founder of the family was Amir Khan, the notorious Pindari leader at the beginning of the 19th century, who received the present territory on submitting to the British in 1817. The nawab Mahommed Ibrahim Ali Khan, G.C.I.E., succeeded in 1867, and was one of the few chiefs who attended both Lord Lytton's Durbar in 1877 and the Delhi Durbar of 5903 as rulers of their states.

The late minister, Sir Sahibzada Obeidullah Khan, was deputed on political duty to Peshawar during the Tirah campaign of 1897. Grain, cotton, opium and hides are the chief exports. Two of the outlying tracts of the state are served by two railways. Distress was caused by drought in 1899-1900. The town of Tonk is situated 1462 ft. above sea-level, 60 m. by road south from Jaipur, near the right bank of the river Banas. Pop. (1901), 38,759. It is surrounded by a wall, with a mud fort. It has a high school, the Walter female hospital under a lady superintendent, and a hospital for males.

There is another town in India called Tonk, or Tank, in Dera Ismail Khan district, North-West Frontier Province; pop. (1901), 4402. It is the residence of a nawab, who formerly exercised semi-independent powers. Here Sir Henry Durand, lieutenant governor of the Punjab, was killed in 1870 when passing on an elephant under a gateway.