Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Anglo-Ind.) a resident of the Madras Presidency, but note cite 1884.

1840		E. Roberts in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register Sept.-Dec. 14: Bengal, too proudly triumphing in her greatness, has now to bear the mortifications to which she delighted to subject Bombay, a place contemptuously designated as ‘a fishing village,’ while its inhabitants, in consequence of their isolated situation, were called ‘the Benighted’.
1849		Allen’s Indian Mail 29 June 406/2: Now came the Madras civilians with a fearful grievance, that all the loaves and fishes of the north are gobbled by the Qui Hies – the troubled waters of the five rivers afford nothing to the benighted. The poor ducks again are once more left to suffer in silence.
1855		J. Braidwood Late Rev. John Anderson 32: Few of the residents of the Benighted (a name for Madras) can say that they did not know him.
1863		Indian Year-book for 1862 173: The ‘Benighted’ display considerable literary activity, so far as English books are concerned.
1884		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 23 June 2/1: Judged by this standard, the North-West Provinces and Oudh must undoubtedly accept the invidious title of ‘the benighted’.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson 65/1: Benighted, The, adj. An epithet applied by the denizens of the other Presidencies, a facetious disparagement to Madras.
1893		G.K. Betham Lolapur Wk 284: Madrasis are called ‘benighted ones’; while people hailing from Bombay rejoice in the appellation of ‘Bombay Ducks’.
1913		H. Hervey European in India III 206: Poor old Calcutta is out of it; young Delhi is still in embryo; Madras, besides being ‘one-horse,’ is the ‘benighted’ .