History of Khagaria

History of Khagaria

Khagaria, as a district, is only twenty Years old. Earlier, it was a part of the district of Munger, as a subdivision. The sub-division of Khagaria was created in the Year 1943-44. It was upgraded as district, with effect from 10th May, 1981, vide Government of Bihar notification no. 7/T-1-207/79 dated 30th April,1981. As a sub-division of the old district of Munger, Khagaria was the youngest, in terms of creation of sundivision, before independence. The other three older subdivision were Munger sadar, Begusarai and Jamui. The Jamui sub-division was created on 22nd July,1864 and Begusarai sub-division on the 14th February 1870.

Khagaria was created as a separate sub-division mainly because of the difficulties arising out of a lack of easy means of communications. Railways were a very old means of communication in this district. As per the Gazetteer of 1960,this Sub-division had three railway lines - the north Eastern Railway, passing west to East had four Stations – Khagaria, Mansi, Maheshkhunt and Pasraha . One branch Line shot off from Khagaria passing through Olapur and Imli, while another branch line shot off from Mansi, which went up to Saharsa. This Mansi- Saharsa branch line, during that period was however disturbed during rains between Katyani Asthan and Koparia, a distance of 6 miles, which had to be covered by boats. Apart from railways, the other means of communication was roads, which were in a very bad shape. The only metalled road at that time was 22 mile long Maheshkhunt- Aguawani ghat road, which was still under construction. During that period Khagaria- Parihara- bakhri Road was also under construction and National Highway linking Moakamaghat to Assam was under contemplation.

Recurrence of floods was an annual affair, as five major rivers – The Ganga, The Gandak, The Bagmati, The Kamala and The Koshi passed through the area of the subdivision of Khagaria. The recurrence of floods along with water logging made communication extremely difficult in the rainy season. Before the construction of South embankment of Baghmati and Gogari- Narayanpur embankment, the vast portion of land between the railway line and three streams, namely, the Bagmati, the Kamla and The Ghaghri ( the main stream of Koshi) and the various streams, as the Maria river and the Maitha river, used to abound in marshes.

It is said that the entire areas, now included in the district of khagaria, was "Dahnal", affected by floods of the Ganga, the Gandak, the Kamla, the Bagmati and the Koshi and that because of its physical situation, any site of importance must have been washed away. That is why, it does not possess any historical site of importance. According to the history, commonly known in this part, it is said that during the time of Emperor Akbar, Raja Todarmal had been entrusted with the duty of making a survey of the entire area, but as he failed to do it, he advise that this area should be excluded, in other words, he adopted the policy of "Farak Kiya" and that is why the area is Known as "Pharkiya Pargana".

Ancient History of Khagaria

The teritony, included in the old district of Munger, formed part of the Madhya- desa or "Midland" of the first Aryan settlers. It has been identified with Modagiri, a place mentined in the Mahabharata, which was the capital of a kingdom in Eastern India near Vanga and Tamralipta. At the dawn of history, the territory apparently comprised within the Kingdom of Anga, the capital of which was at Champa near Bhagalpur. Anga comprised of the modern districts of Bhagalpur and Munger, and also extended north wards up to the river koshi and included the western portion of the district of Purnea. Rahul Sankritayan in "Budh Charya" has mentioned that the area lying north of the Ganga was known as Anguttarap.

The first historical account of the old district of Munger appears in the Travels of Hiuen-Tsiang who visited the portions of it, towards the close of the first half of the seventh century A.D. After that there is a gap in the history of the district until the ninth century A.D., when it passed into the hands of Pala kings. The history during Pala period has become known mainly through the inscriptions. However, it is true that both Hiuen – Tsang’s account and Pala inscriptions cover maibly the Southern part of Munger district. The area passed through Muslim rule after the advent of Muslim rule in India.

Munger, in the later history, came into prominence, in the year 1762, when Kasim Ali Khan made it his capital instead of Murshidabad , from which he removed his treasure, his elephants and horses, and even the gold and silver decorations of the Imambara. He built himself a palace with a breast work before it for thirty guns, and had the fortifications strengthened; while his favourite General Gurghin Khan, an Armenian who had formerly been a cloth merchant at Ispahan, reorganized the army, had it drilled and equipped after the English model, and established an arsenal; the manufacture of fire-arms, which still is carried on at Munger, is said to date back to this period. Soon after he had established himself at Munger, Mir Kasim Ali came into collision with the English, which finally resulted in capture of Munger in the year 1763.

With the extension of the British dominions, Munger ceased to be an important frontier post. The existence of Munger, as a separate executive centre is believed to date from the year 1812. The extent of the Munger jurisdiction is not mentioned in the local records till september 1814, when it is stated to comprise five Thanas or Police divisions, namely, Munger,Tarapur,Surajgarha, Mallepur and Gogari. In 1834 pargana chakai was transferred from the district of Ramgarh and in 1839 pargana Bishazari from the district of Patna. Numerous minor changes followed but the greatest change was effected in June 1874, when parganas Sakhrabadi, Darra, Singhaul, Kharagpur and Parbatta were transferred from Bhagalpur to Munger, together with tappas Lowdah and Simrawan and 281 villages from parganas Sahuri and Lakhanpur comprising in all an area of 613.62 square miles. The subdivision of Jamui was formed in 1864, at first with headquarters at Sikandra, but in 1869 they were transferred to Jamui. The Begusarai subdivision was established in 1870 and in 1943-44, Khagaria subdivision was established with headquarters at Khagaria.

When Khagaria subdivision was created, it comprised of an area of 752 square miles and as per the census of 1951, had a population of 5,84,625 persons. It had seven Police Thanas, namely, Khagaria, Gogari, Chautham, Parbatta, Alauli, Beldaur and Bakhtiyarpur. Presently, Bakhtiyarpur forms part of Saharsa district, Most of the part of Khagaria district was referred to as ‘ Pharkiya Pargana.’ In the 1926 District Gazetter of Munger, it has been referred as "a pargana in the north east of the Munger subdivision, with an area of 506 square miles comprised mainly within the Gogri thana." This tract formerly belonged to an ancient family of Zamindars, of whose history little is known except what was collected in 1787 by Mr. Adair, the collector of Bhagalpur. Towards the close of the 15th century, the Emperor of Delhi sent a Rajput, namely Biswanath Rai, to contain lawlessness in the area. He successfully accomplished the task and obtained the grant of a Zamindari in this part of the country, and the estate developed on his posterity without interruption for ten generations. The annals of the family, however, after the first quarter of the 18th century, are a record of little but bloodshed and violence. At the time of publication of the 1926 Gazetteer , the greater portion of the estate was the property of Babu Kedarnath Goenka and Babu Deonandan Prasad.

Administrative Development:

Under the rule of Mughal emperors, the old district of Munger appears to have been included in ‘Sarkars’ Hajipur, Tirhut and Munger. The district was constituted after 1832 by the transfer of several parganas from the districts of Bhagalpur, Bihar and Tirhut. The first provisional survey in pargana Pharkiya was carried out between 1835 and 1838 by Lt. Egerton. This survey was determined upon in order to demarcate certain ‘Wairana’ lands, i.e., tracts of waste land outside the orbit of settled and cultivated villages, to which it was held that Permanent Settlement did not extend. This survey was confined to boundaries and had neither the accuracy nor the completeness of the subsequent revenue survey. The latter was carried out in the rest of the district by Captain Sherwill in 1845-1847. A survey of diara lands subsequently took place in 1865-1866. The next survey operation was carried out in this area between 1899 and 1904. This is the last survey of this area and in last almost hundred years, no revisional survey has taken place resulting in poor updation of land records.

Khagaria was part of Munger Sadar Subdivision till 1943. In the year of 1944, it was constituted into a separate subdivision. In the year 1959, Khagaria subdivision had one subdivisional officer(1st class), one Land Revenue Deputy Collector(2nd class), one sub-deputy collector(1st class), one sub-deputy magistrate(3rd class) and 6 Anchal Adhikaris and Block Development Officers(all 2nd class except one 3rd class). At that time the six blocks were Alauli, Khagaria, Chautham, Gogari. Parvatta and Simari-Bakhtiarpur. There were seven police thanas, namely Alauli, Khagaria,Choutham, Gogri, Parvatta, Beldaur and Bakhtiarpur. Beldaur was constituted into C.D. Block in the 2nd phase and Simari-Bakhtiarpur was transferred to the district of Saharsa. Khagaria was made a separate district in the year 1981, with one subdivision and six C.D. blocks. In the year 1992, vide notification No. 143 dated 13th May 1992; of Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department of Govt. of Bihar, Gogri was notified as a separate subdivision with three blocks, namely Gogari, Parvatta and Beldaur. In the year 1995, Mansi block-cum-anchal was created by carving out six panchayats from Choutham. Thus presently Khagaria consists of two subdivision and seven anchal-cum-blocks.

A perusal of the history of local self-government reveals that District Board of Munger was established in 1887, under Bengal local self Government Act, 1885. The Board originally consisted of 25 members. The District Magistrate was an ex-officio member of the Board and was invariably its Chairman; there were six other ex-officio members, and twelve were elected and six nominated by the Government. From the constitution of the Board in 1887 till 1917 the European District Magistrates used to be invariably the chairman of the Board; the first being I.E.Kaunshead.The first two Indian chairmen were Rai Bahadur G.C.Banarjee (1918) and Raja Deoki Nandan Prasad (1922). Non-official Chairmen presided over the board, for the first time after 1924,when the District Boards were reconstituted on an elective basis under the provisions of the Bihar and Orissa local self-Government (Amendment) Act of 1924-25.Under the District Boards of Munger, there were four local Boards, situated at the subdivisional headquarters.While the Local Boards at Munger, Jamui and Begusarai were formed in 1887,that at Khagaria was established in 1948. Initially the Local Board at Khagaria consisted of eight members six elected and two nominated. The Local Board used to get allotment of funds from the District Board for maintenance of village roads, upkeep of pounds, water supply and village sanitation. Under the District Board, there were eight Union Committees, one of them being Khagaria. Under the Municipal Act, four of these, including Khagaria was converted into Notified Area Committees. Khagaria Union Committee was converted into the Notified Area Committee in 1950, with 12 members. Khagaria became a municipality in the year, while Gogri was converted into a notified area committee in the year.

After independence, Bihar Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 brought a great leap towards local self-government in the form of panchayats, which were initially formed with a population of around 2000 persons. In 1957-1958, in the entire Munger district, there were 159 panchayats. Later on a three-tier panchayat system was established.

The local self government in rural areas was reorganised vide Bihar Panchayati Raj Act, 1994. Under the new act, Khagaria has 129 panchayats, 185 panchayat Samiti members, 1859 Gram Panchayat ward members and 18 Zilla Parishad members. However the elections could not be held till 31st Dec.1999. The last panchayat elections were held in Bihar in the year 1978.

Khagaria sub divisional hospital was provincialised in the year 1949 under the Kosi and Kamla Relief Scheme. That time, it had 30 beds for male and 12 beds for female. In 1959, apart from the sub divisional hospital, Khagaria subdivision had dispensaries at Gogri, Chautham, Simri Bakhtiarpur, Alouli, Parbatta, Bahadurpur, Bharatkhand, Chapraon and Beldaur. Khagaria sub divisional hospital has still the same status, even almost twenty years after Khagaria became district. The present capacity of this hospital is of 82 beds. Apart from this hospital, Khagaria has 1 Referral hospital, 6 PHCs, 15 Additional PHCs and 149 Health sub-centres.