Gonda district

Early / Ancient period

The area of present-day Gonda district lay within the ancient kingdom of Kosala, one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas of early India, with Ayodhya and Shravasti as major centres.^[3][4] Archaeological remains associated with early Buddhism have been discovered in the region, particularly around Shravasti.^{[5][6][unreliable source?]}

Medieval and early modern period

In the early medieval era, the region was ruled by the Kalachuris of Sarayupara (c. 8th–11th centuries), whose domain along the Sarayu (Ghaghara) included parts of Bahraich and Gonda.^[7] From the 12th century onward, Gonda was gradually absorbed into larger north Indian polities and became part of the administrative apparatus of the Awadh region under successive sultanates and later the Mughal Empire.^[8]

Company and British period

Gonda was originally part of the Nizamat of Gorakhpur. After the cession of Gorakhpur to the British in 1801 under a treaty with the Nawab of Oudh, Gonda was united administratively with Bahraich.^[5][9]

When Awadh was annexed in 1856 by the British, Gonda was constituted as a separate district.^[5][10] On 7 January 1875, a boundary settlement ceded the tract between Baghaura Tal and the Arrah River to Nepal.^[5][11]

Swaminarayan's birthplace – Chhapaiya

The village of Chhapaiya in Gonda district is widely recognized as the birthplace of Swaminarayan (born Ghanshyam Pande in 1781).^[12][13] This is an established fact in local government and pilgrimage sources, though academic historical research on the early life of Swaminarayan is limited.

Role in the Indian independence movement

Gonda was involved in India's struggle for independence. Notably, Raja Devi Bakhsh Singh escaped to Nepal during the 1857 rebellion.^[14] It is also recorded that Chandra Shekhar Azad sought refuge in the region, and Rajendra Lahiri was imprisoned and executed in Gonda Jail.^{[citation needed][15]}

Recent history

In independent India, the district came into the national spotlight following the 1982 Gonda Encounter, in which 13 persons were killed in a staged police encounter. In 2013, a special CBI court sentenced three policemen to death and five others to life imprisonment for their roles in the case.^[16][17]

Development status

In 2006, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj identified Gonda as one of India's 250 "most backward districts" (out of a total of 640).^[22] It was also one of 35 districts in Uttar Pradesh that received allocations under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF).^[23]

The BRGF programme was delinked from the central budget beginning in financial year 2015–16, pursuant to the implementation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission's recommendations of enhanced state revenue share.^[24] Subsequently, Gonda district has been included in the Government of India's Aspirational Districts Programme under the aegis of NITI Aayog, which seeks to accelerate development across health, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, and infrastructure indicators.^[24]

Population

Historical population

According to the 2011 census Gonda district has a population of 3,433,919,^[39] roughly equal to the nation of Panama^[40] or the US state of Connecticut.^[41] This gives it a ranking of 95th in India (out of a total of 640).^[39] The total number of literates in the district is 1,679,99 which constitute 48.9% of the total population. Population in the age range of 0 to 6 years was 572,386. The effective literacy (population 7 years and above) was 58.7%.^[39] The district has a population density of 857 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,220/sq mi).^[39] Its population growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 24.17%,^[39] higher than the average of Uttar Pradesh (20.09%). Gonda has a sex ratio of 921 females for every 1000 males,^[39] and a sex ratio among children 0–6 years old of 926, both higher than the state average (908 and 899 respectively). 6.55% of the population lives in urban areas. Scheduled Castes made up 15.49% of the population.^[39]

The human development index of the Gonda district is very low.^[42]

Languages

The official language of the district is Hindi.^[43]

At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 81.03% of the population in the district reported Hindi as their mother tongue, 16.04% reported Awadhi, and 2.68% reported Urdu.^[44][45]

Awadhi is traditionally the dominant spoken language of the region, as Gonda lies within the cultural area of Awadh.^[46] Although the 2011 Census records over four-fifths of the population as speaking Hindi, this figure includes regional varieties such as Awadhi, which 16.04% explicitly identified. Linguists note that Awadhi continues to be widely used in daily communication, folk songs, oral traditions, and local literature, while standard Hindi serves as the formal and administrative language.^[47]

Apart from Hindi, languages spoken in the district include Awadhi, a variety of the Hindi continuum spoken by over 38 million people in the Awadh region,^[48] as well as Bhojpuri and English, though their numbers in the district are too small to be reported separately in the Census.^[44]

Institutions and schools

• LBS Degree College
• Meena Shah Institute of Technology and Management (MSITM) Degree College^[53]
• Saraswati Devi Nari Gyansthali P.G. College
• St Xaviers Senior Secondary School.
• Saraswati Vidya Mandir Inter College Malviya Nagar, Gonda ^[54]