Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/201

 — BAH Section XII.

123

The Northern parganas.

While the Raikwdrs and the Janwars were thus spreading themselves °^®^ west and east, the north was still held by the parganas during this hill chiefs and by the tribes of Banjaras, who, under The northern

cover of the woods, penetrated far south.

P^"°*^-

Shah Jahan

at the beginning of his reign had conferred on Salona Begam, wife of his favourite child Prince Dara, 148 a ona a villages in what is now the Nanpara ilaqa, and had given the name of pargana Salonabad to the grant. The attacks of the Banjaras, however, prevented the occupation of the estate, and the jagir was abandoned by the lady, for in Maha Singh's farman pargana Salonabad was one of those made over to that noble. .

= 1637 A.

D., Rasul Khan Togh, Pathan, a Ris^ldar in the service of Shah Jahan, was appointed keeper of the fort dnpara. ^^ Bahraich, and for the pay of his company of soldiers five villages of very doubtful value were assigned him in Pargana Salonabad, These five hamlets were, however, destined to become the nucleus

In 1047 H.

The Risald^r lived of one of the finest estates in Oudh, that of Nanpdra. at Kumaria in Baundi, and Rastil Khan and his son Jahan Khan are buried there. Muhammad Khan, the second in descent from Rasul Khan, was the first to settle in Nanpara, and it was his son Karam Khan who may be said to have founded the estate. The office of fort captain had probably been relinquished when Muhammad Khan left Bahraich, but the family still continued to be mansabdars and to hold their jagir somewhat increased in extent. Karam Khan, however, exerted himself so successfully against the Banjaras that he gained among the country folk the title of rdja, and left his son Mustafa Khan an estate apart from his jagir, which was .sufficiently large to pay revenue to the amount of Rs. 6,000, the sum demanded from him by Major Hancock on the part of the Oudh Government. Refusing to pay, he was carried off to Lucknow, where he died in 1777 A. D.

Pargana Rajhat and half of Sujauli was held by the Hill Raja of Saliana, while Guman Singh of Jagan^'°^^'^ nathpur, probably one of the Ikauna family, held clea^^"ease nominally the remainder of Sujauli and a part of Sultanpur Kundri. That the jungle, however, was too much for Janw^r colonists is evident from a clearing lease deed given by Asif-ud-daula's From this orders to Himmat Singh of Piagpur in the year 1788 A. D. document it appears that out of 1,734 villages embracing the whole of the country comprised in what is now in Nanpara, Charda, Dharmanpur, and a portion of the Naipal Tarai 1,486 were entirely deserted and were leased to Himmat Singh for ten years at a progressively increasing jama, rising from Rs. 1,101 to 17,808.

During

this period

This same lease deed shows that in that year the Nanpara ilaqa consisted only of fifty-nine villages besides twenty-three villages jagir. decade of the eighteenth century there set in an era of progress for these northern tracts. Himmat Singh's exerHis success. ^j^^^g y^^j-Q jnainly directed to clearing the dense jungle

With the

last