The Hijli Kingdom existed between 1687 and 1886 in the eastern part of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. Initially Hijli was a small island village on the banks of the Rasulpur River as it flows to the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

. It developed into a port town in 1687. Slowly, it converted into a province or kingdom covering parts of

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

and

Orissa Odisha (), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is a state located in Eastern India. It is the eighth-largest state by area, and the eleventh-largest by population, with over 41 million inhabitants. The state also has the thir ...

. The

Contai Contai is a coastal and subdivisional city and a municipality in East Medinipur district, West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Contai subdivision. Etymology In the 5th century, during the visit of Faxian, Fa-Hien, Contai was uninh ...

basin also belonged to this kingdom. Mansingh is believed to be the founder King of Hijli. It had important towns like Tamluk or Tamralipta, Panskura, along with Keleghai and Haldi rivers on the north, the south and east sides bounded by the

and Kharagpur, Keshiary, Dantan and Jaleswar on the west. The capital of Hijli was in Bahiri up to 1628 and afterwards it was shifted to Hijli. This kingdom was ruled for some years by Taj Khan, a disciple of Guru Peer Mackdram Sha Chisti. It was also ruled sequentially by Kushan, Gupta, Gauda, Pala and Sena dynasties and also by

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

. It is known that Hijli had excellent business and trade centers during the reign of

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

Kings and continued during the Mughal dynasty. Captain Nicolson was the first British colonialist to invade Hijli and captured the port only. Afterwards, in 1687, Job Charnock, with 400 soldiers, captured Hijli, defeating

and Mughal Emperors. A war broke out with the Mughal Empire, and a treaty was signed between Job Charnock and the Mughul Emperor. The loss suffered by Job Charnock, forced him to leave Hijli and proceed towards Uluberia while the Mughal Emperor continued to rule the kingdom. From there they finally settled at Sutanuti, and slowly established

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

(now

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

) for their business in eastern

. This was the start of

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

in India. It was at its peak in 1754 and the prosperity of Hijli Province during this period was beyond description. Towards the second half of the 18th century, another Port town Khejuri came into existence, primarily set up by the British for carrying out trade with European countries. Khejuri was also an island set up on the banks of River Koukhali. Development of this region because of Khejuri and Hijli Port can be gauged by the fact that the first Indian

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

Office was established in 1852, connecting Khejuri with

. In the devastating

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an ant ...

of 1864, both the ports got destroyed. The islands have since got merged with the main land. Hijli as we know it today, in Kharagpur, is only a very small part of erstwhile Hijli Province and was created for establishing administrative offices and a jail known as Hijli Detention Camp by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

in the 19th century. It is curious that almost the entire Kharagpur subdivision of today has boundaries identical to the Hijli Province. In May 1950, the first Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Kharagpur was established surrounding the area of Hijli Detention Camp.

References

{{Paschim Medinipur topics Medieval Bengal History of Bengal