Al-Hindiya District

The country is the easternmost of Karbala Governorate and is bordered by Babil Governorate to.". tte east.^[1] It lies to the south of Baghdad and west of ancient Babylon. The Euphrates flows through the district from north to south. The principal town is Al-Hindiya, which lies on the road from Karbala to the west and Hillah to the east.^[1] The district is at an altitude of about 30 metres (98 ft) above sea level.^[2] Observations of rainfall at Hindiya in the 1920s and 1930s gave a mean annual precipitation of 160 millimetres (6.3 in), but there were wide variances from a maximum of 568 millimetres (22.4 in) to a minimum of 37 millimetres (1.5 in).^[3]

The city takes its name from the seat city, Al-Hindiya, which was founded in 1793 AD by "Yahya Asif Al-Dawla Bahadur Al-Hindi" (يحيى آصف الدولة بهادر الهندي), who was a vizier of Bahadur Shah Zafar. The vizier funded digging a canal on the Euphrates to provide drinkable water for the region.^[4]

The Hindiya city in the Ottoman era, which then covered a larger area of the lower Euphrates, was a rich source of grain. The peasants often paid tax in kind, in the form of barley, wheat and corn. In 1848 Najib Pasha triggered a rebellion that lasted two years by demanding excessive taxation. The government lost control of the countryside and its troops were confined to towns such as Karbala, Najaf and Hilla.^[5]

Writing of an 1849 expedition to explore the ruins of Ninevah and Babylon, Sir Austen Henry Layard reported that the large canal called the Hindiyah now led almost half the waters of the Euphrates into huge marshes west of Babylon. The Arabs had driven their buffaloes into the wetlands to escape the attention of the Turks. Abde Pasha was trying to dam the mouth of the canal and dry out the marshes.^[6] The current was washing away the earth and fascine barrier as fast as it could be built.^[7]

In the period from 1900 to 1908 most of the waters of the Euphrates shifted from the Hilla channel to the Hindiya, causing canals in the Hilla region to dry up and causing excessive flooding in the Hindiya region. The peasants were forced to move on a large scale, resulting in friction and conflicts. This was in part the motive for the Hindiya Barrage proposed by Sir William Willcocks to control the water system, completed in 1913.^[8] After World War I the British took over control of Iraq from Turkey. In 1920 there was an Iraqi revolt against the British. By July 1920 rebels were engaged with the British at Hindiya, Kufa and Rustamiya. Troops were sent from Hilla to Hindiya, and this caused the Beni Hassan tribes to rise in the Hilla District and seize the town of Kifl.^[9]

The town of Hindiya was the scene of a minor clash on 1 April 2003 during the Iraq War, when the US 3rd Infantry Division pushed past Republican Guards of the Nebuchadnezzar Division.^[10]

As of 2007 Karbala governorate as whole was estimated to have 887,859 people in 2007, with equal numbers of men and women. Al-Hindiya District had about 26% of the governorate's population, or about 230,000 people. As of 2014 the population was mainly Shia, including many refugees from the violence in Baghdad and Diyala.^[11] About 8.3% of the population were post-2006 internally displaced people. 20% of Al-Hindiya District families were headed by women. Education levels, particularly among women, were low. 23% of residents over the age of 10 were illiterate. 8.1% suffered from chronic disease, and 3.1% of infants aged 0–5 years had suffered diarrhea in the last two weeks.^[11]