History

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 mentioned 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 mainly 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 best 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.