Mirpur

Mirpur, also known as 'Little Britain', is the largest city in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and the capital of Mirpur District. Mirpur is located at the extreme south of Azad Kashmir at an elevation of 459 metres (1509 ft). It is 125 kilometres (68 miles) south east of Islamabad via the Grand Trunk Road and 295 kilometres (183 miles) south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

History

The city of Mirpur was founded in 1052 AH (around 1642 AD) by a Gakhar chief Miran Shah Ghazi. The Imperial Gazetteer of India Provincial Series Kashmir and Jammu (1909) provides this information about Mirpur history as "it is said to have been founded by the Gakhars, Miran Khan and Sultan Fateh Khan"

 In District Mirpur, It was very difficult for a person to get an official job if he is not a permanent resident of this city but some high level officer were appointed from outside of the state due to will of Maharaja. A famous educationalist Doctor Ghulam Ul Saydeen who was director of education department belonged to UP (INDIA). The Chief of Staff of Armed forces and Chief Conservative of Forest Department were British.
              
Similarly, Raja Afzal Khan of KASGUMMA had been appointed as revenue assistant (AFSAR-E-MAAL) who was an employee of Punjab Civil Service and at the Time of Partition of India and Pakistan; he was Deputy Commissioner at Sialkot. Infect, he was Permanent resident and feudal.
            
On Administrative level, Mirpur district was divided in three administrative divisions and one vicegerency as Mirpur, Kotli, Bhimber and vicegerency Noshehra. All the area of Mirpur is agricultural, so every division was categorised in village registrars (Patwar). The Superior officer of district was called Minister of Ministry (Wazeer-e-Wazarat) was also the collector of agricultural tax. Revenue Assistant was his subordinate, whose responsibility was to transfer registrations of land, accounts of two crops of the year and also to collect agriculture tax.
              
The senior officer of judicial was Session Judge. There was one magistrate of grade one or judge who was called MUNSIF. Other than these, there was a Government layer who was used to plead the case in district court. Barrister Sardar Mohammad Abrahim was appointed in Mirpur at the same position, who afterward became the first president of Azad Kashmir Government. The senior officer of police was called SP of Police Captain.
  
There is an amazing thing about the Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber and that, there was no personal or inheritance house of any Muslim feudal and land-lord.


In advanced period, when it was easy to get education, medical facilities, and economical items in cities; the rich class, land lords started to make their own house, bangles, and villas in the neighbouring districts of Mirpur like Rawalpindi and Jhelum. These were Ghakhar, Janjua and Jaat families. But the others classes did not leave villages and didn’t move to city. The Reason could be as they wanted to live outside the city’s majority and wealthy Hindu’s to keep their culture and heritage. Through this they salved to mix up themselves in powered Hindus.

The Sikh Empire

The area now comprising Mirpur has been historically associated with Pothohar. Though modern demarcation of Pothohar devised by British excludes Mirpur by using Jhelum river as the eastern boundary. By the end of 18th century, Gakhar power in Pothohar had declined. Mirpur had become part of Chibb ruled state of Khari Khariyali with capital at Mangla Fort. With the rise of Sikh power in Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji established his supremacy and set his eyes on the chibh states of Bhimber and Khari Khariyali. In 1810, a force was sent against Raja Sultan Khan of Bhimber and was met with fierce resistance. However, in 1812 another sikh army under prince Kharak Singh defeated Sultan Khan and the Bhimber state was annexed as Jagir on Kharak Singh. Around the same time, Ranjit Singh acquired Gujrat and invaded Khari Khariyali ruled by Raja Umar Khan. Raja Umar Khan made peace with Ranjit Singh. But before a settlement could be made, he died and the state and Mirpur became part of Ranjit Singh's territories.

In 1816, Ranjit Singh annexed Jammu state and in 1820 awarded Jammu to his commander Gulab Singh who hailed from Jammu and was under the service of Ranjit Singh for the past eight years. Between 1831-39 Ranjit Singh bestowed on Gulab Singh the royalty of the salt mines in northern Punjab, and the northern Punjab towns including Bhera, Jhelum, Rohtas, Mirpur and Gujrat. Gulab Singh kept on expanding his kingdom and in 1840 Baltistan was made subject to Jammu and Gilgit fell to a Sikh force from Kashmir in 1842. The state of Kashmir was annexed by Ranjit Singh in 1819. However the rebellion in Hazara in the beginning of 1846, compelled the country to be transferred to Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu as well.

As an aftermath of the First Anglo-Sikh War and the Treaty of Lahore, The Treaty of Amritsar was signed between the British Government and Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu on March 16, 1846. This treaty transferred him all the hill states between Ravi and Indus. The transfer included Kashmir Valley, Hazara and the southern hill states (including former Khari Khariyali). Thus sealing the fate of Mirpur with the new state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Early Mirpur

Since Mirpur lies at the point where the Jhelum River breaks out of the heavily forested foothills of the Pir Panjal mountains into the plains of the largely treeless Punjab. It was an ideal spot for the construction of the boats used to carry goods down the five rivers of the Punjab to the Indus River and onto the seaports in the Indus delta. Traders have been operating from there across the Indian Ocean for over three thousand years. Most of the crew on the boats trading up and down the Punjab and Indus River system were drawn from Mirpur, as training as a boat-builder was a necessary prerequisite for becoming a boatman.

British rule

With the arrival of British rule however, the thriving river trade was decimated due to the construction of railway lines from Bombay and Karachi into the interior of the Punjab. Moving goods by rail was both cheaper and quicker, and hundreds of Mirpuri boatmen found themselves out of a job.

At the same time long-distance ocean trade was shifting from sail to steam. There was a huge demand for men who were prepared to work in the hot, dirty and dangerous stokeholds of the new coal-fired steamers. European seamen avoided such jobs whenever they possibly could. They preferred to work on deck. But in the 1870s Mirpuri ex-river boatmen were desperately searching for a new source of income. Although unfamiliar with stoking coal-fired boilers, they were prepared to learn and quickly gained a virtual monopoly of jobs as engine-room stokers on new steamships sailing out of Karachi and Bombay, a position they retained until coal-fired ships were finally phased out of service at the end of the second world war.

Post war

After world war two a new set of opportunities opened up. Britain's economy was just setting off on what proved to be a long post-war boom, and there was an acute short of labour in the foundries of the Midlands, and the textile mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Now it was the turn of ex-seamen to become industrial workers in Britain. So when the Mangla lake was filled up in 1966, depriving large numbers of Mirpuri farmers of their land, an alternative was readily available: to move overseas to join those of their kinsfolk who had established themselves in Britain.

As a result, Mirpur is one of the principal sources of migration from Pakistan to Europe, and especially to Britain, so much so that close to half a million migrants from this area now live in the United Kingdom. Although it is widely believed that the principal reason for this outflow was the construction of the Mangla Dam, this is only partially true. Whilst the construction of the dam undoubtedly reinforced the scale of the outflow, since the waters of the lake swamped most of the best land in the District, emigration from this region began long beforehand.

Mirpur City

Mirpur city is situated at 459 meters above sea-level and is linked with the main Peshawar-Lahore Grand Trunk road at Dina Tehsil. It is the headquarters of Mirpur District, which comprises three sub-divisions, Mirpur, Chaksawari & Dadyal [2]. The building of the new city in late sixties paved the way for New Mirpur situated on the banks of Mangla lake. In fact the remains of the old city (old Mirpur) are underneath the waters of the Mangla Lake, during colder months the water level decreases such that you can see the tops of minarets from the first mosques, and also the remnants of a Sikh gurdwara as well as a Hindu mandir possibly dedicated to the "mangla mata" (mangla mother goddess).This is a glimpse of pre-independence times when there were many faiths co-existing in Kashmir as a whole, but however after partition the Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs fled to India. Mirpur was well planned and the buildings are mostly of modern design, in addition there is significant inward investment from expatriates now living in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, & the Middle East. The city has a number of hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and other urban facilities.

Industry

As Mirpur adjoins the industrial cities of Pakistan, the Government of Azad Jammu & Kashmir has successfully endeavoured to develop it as an industrial place and promote private investment for establishing, Foam, Polypropylene, Synthetic yarn, Motorbikes, Textile, vegetable ghee, logging and sawmills, soap, cosmetics, marble, ready-made garments, matches, rosin, turpentine and scooter industrial units in the area. However, much of the infrastructure still needs further development in order to compete on a national level. As part of the relief/compensation package in the wake of Mangla Dam Raising Project, a New City is being developed along the southeastern outskirts of Mirpur. Civil works at huge scale are going on around the whole district, by the Pakistani & Chinese contractors for raising the dam. Four towns in the district have been planned besides the new city, to resettle the population affected by the project.

Transport

Buses

Mirpur has the biggest & busiest bus network in Azad Kashmir, running from early hours of the morning to late night. Daily routes includes Dadyal, Bhimber District, Dina, Gujrat, Jhelum, Kharian & Kotli District. The new flying coachs in Mirpur travel to larger cities of Pakistan including Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Muzaffarabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi & Sialkot.

Auto rickshaw

Auto Rickshaws are very popular mode of transport for short routes within the city. Many of the new rickshaws in the city use Compressed natural gas (CNG) instead of the petrol engines as CNG is environmentally clean and cheaper compared petrol.

Air

The nearest airport is the Islamabad International Airport, which is approx 80 Miles (130 km) by road from Mirpur city.

Culture

Mirpur (to the west and south) borders the Punjab province of Pakistan and the ethnicity, language and culture of both Punjab & the Mirpur district are virtually the same. The region has historically been a part of Greater Punjab. Pothohari also referred as Mirpuri is the main languages spoken in Mirpur, whereas Punjabi is spoken in areas bordering Bhimber and Gujrat districts.

Cultural events

Saif Ul Malook Festival

The Saif Ul Malook Festival takes place annually in April, usually in the city centre. It is an important event celebrating the anniversary of Baba Pir-e-Shah Ghazi Qalandar (Damrian Wali Sarkar) who was the spiritual guide/teacher of Mian Muhammad Bakhsh, the Legendary Sufi saint & Potwari/Hindko poet famous for his poetic master piece Saif ul Malook.

Pahari Mushahira

Pahari Mushahira is a literary event in which poets from all over Azad Kashmir present their poems to general audience. Pahari Mushahira are celebrated regularly in Mirpur city as part of the campaign of Alami Pahari Adabi Sangat for the preservation and rehabilitation of the Pahari language and the Culture of Jammu and Kashmir.

Thanks: Wikipedia.org
Sufi Mohammad Nazir Chaudhary (for Pictures of Old Mirpur)