Khiron is a village and corresponding

community development block In India, a community development block (CD block) or simply Block is a sub-division of District, administratively earmarked for planning and development. In tribal areas, similar sub-divisions are called tribal development blocks (TD blocks). T ...

in Rae Bareli district, Uttar Pradesh, India. Located on the main

Raebareli Raebareli () is a city in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Raebareli district, and a part of Lucknow Division and comes under the Uttar Pradesh State Capital Region (UP-SCR). The city is situated on the ...

Unnao Unnao is a city and district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Unnao is located on the eastern bank of the Ganges River, and it is a satellite city of Kanpur. Administratively, Unnao lies within Unnao district, the district of Unnao and is ...

road,semari Khiron is an old Muslim town that historically served as the seat of a

pargana Pargana or parganah, also spelt pergunnah, equivalent to Mohallah as a subunit of Subah (Suba), was a type of former administrative division in the Indian subcontinent during the time of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal and British Colonial empire ...

. As of 2011, the village has a population of 9,955, in 1,714 households. It has six primary schools and one medical clinic. It serves as the headquarters of a

nyaya panchayat A Nyaya panchayat () is a system of dispute resolution at the village level in the panchayati raj system of India. Current movements in India Legislation to formalize these bodies and bring them within the ambit of organised justice in India ...

that also includes 11 other villages. Khiron hosts an annual mela at the Balbhadreshwar Mahadeo temple on

Phalguna Phagun () is a month of the Hindu calendar. In India's national civil calendar, Phalguna is the twelfth month of the year and corresponds with March/April in the Gregorian calendar.Henderson, Helene. (Ed.) (2005) ''Holidays, festivals, and ce ...

Badi 13; the festival is part of

Shivratri Maha Shivaratri is a Hindu festival celebrated annually to worship the deity Shiva, between February and March. According to the Hindu calendar, the festival is observed on the fourteenth day of the first half (night start with darkness - ...

and is dedicated to the worship of

Shiva Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...

. Vendors bring various everyday items to sell at the fair. Khiron also hosts markets twice per week, on Mondays and Thursdays; the main items traded are cloth and vegetables.

History

Khiron was fortified and made the seat of a

during the reign of

Asaf-ud-Daula Mirza Asaf-ud-Daula (23 September 1748 – 21 September 1797) was the Nawab wazir of Oudh ratified by Shah Alam II, from 26 January 1775 to 21 September 1797, and the son of Shuja-ud-Dowlah. His mother and grandmother were the Begums of ...

; the headquarters had previously been at Satanpur since its foundation and fortification by the Bais raja Sathna. Khiron was also historically the seat of a

taluqdar Taluqdars or Talukdar (, Hindustani: /; '' taluq'' "estate" + '' dar '' "owner"), were aristocrats who formed the ruling class during the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate, Mughal Empire and British Raj. They were owners of a vast amount of l ...

i estate belonging to a Janwar dynasty, and there were also several

Kayasth Kayastha (or Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Ka ...

qanungo families, including many descended from Rai Sahib Rai, who had been a chakladar under the

Nawabs of Awadh The Nawab of Awadh or Nawab of Oudh was the title of the rulers of Kingdom of Awadh (anglicised as Oudh) in northern India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Nawabs of Awadh belonged to an Iranian dynasty''Encyclopædia Iranica'', R. B. B ...

. Rai Sahib Rai had built a fort at Khiron whose ruins still exist. There is also the tomb of Fateh Shahid, a companion of the Muslim folk hero

Sayyid Salar Masud Syed Salar Masud Ghazi (10 February 1014 – 15 June 1034), also known as Ghazi Miyan, was a semi-legendary Muslim figure and military leader associated with the Ghaznavid invasions of India in the early 11th century. Born on February 10, 1014, i ...

. The population of Khiron declined sharply in the late 1800s from 3,408 in 1869 to 2,669 in 1901. At the 1901 census, there were 559 Muslims, almost entirely

Pathan Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

s. Turn-of-the-century Khiron had a large primary school, a cattle pound, a branch post office, and two bazars called Balbhaddarganj and Raghunathganj, holding markets twice per week. There was a large tank to the north and east of the town, as well as some

kankar Kankar or (kunkur) is a sedimentological term derived from Hindi (and ultimately Sanskrit) which is occasionally applied in both India and the United States to detrital or residual rolled, often nodular calcium carbonate formed in soils of se ...

quarries and plenty of orchards. The 1951 census recorded Khiron as comprising 10 hamlets, with a total population of 2,939 people (1,474 male and 1,465 female), in 593 households and 593 physical houses. The area of the village was given as s. 338 residents were literate, 295 male and 43 female. The village was listed as belonging to the

of Khiron and the

thana Thana means " station" or "place" in South Asian countries. The word ''thana'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''sthana'' or "sthanak", meaning "place" or "stand", which was anglicized as ''thana'' by the British. * Thanas of Bangladesh, forme ...

of Gurbakshganj. The 1961 census recorded Khiron as comprising 10 hamlets, with a total population of 3,210 people (1,679 male and 1,531 female), in 590 households and 536 physical houses. The area of the village was given as s and it had a post office at that point. There was a

dispensary A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital, industrial plant, or other organization that dispenses medications, medical supplies, and in some cases even medical and dental treatment. In a traditional dispensary set-up, a pharmacist dispense ...

run by a local body with five male beds and one female bed; It had one

grain mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separate ...

, and four small manufacturers of clothing. Average attendance of market was 500 and for the festival it was 400. The 1981 census recorded Khiron as having a population of 5,243 people, in 946 households, and having an area of . The main staple foods were listed as wheat and rice. The

1991 census It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving fifteen sovereign republics and the CIS in its place. In July 1991, India abandoned its policies of dirigism, license r ...

recorded Khiron as having a total population of 6,296 people (3,317 male and 2,979 female), in 1,127 households and 1,124 physical houses. The area of the village was listed as . Members of the 0-6 age group numbered 1,262, or 20% of the total; this group was 52% male (658) and 48% female (604). Members of scheduled castes numbered 2,029, or 32% of the village's total population, while no members of scheduled tribes were recorded. The

literacy rate Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

of the village was 35% (1,581 men and 642 women). 1,757 people were classified as main workers (1,613 men and 144 women), while 213 people were classified as marginal workers (all women); the remaining 4,326 residents were non-workers. The breakdown of main workers by employment category was as follows: 828 cultivators (i.e. people who owned or leased their own land); 290 agricultural labourers (i.e. people who worked someone else's land in return for payment); 27 workers in livestock, forestry, fishing, hunting, plantations, orchards, etc.; 0 in mining and quarrying; 42 household industry workers; 66 workers employed in other

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

, processing, service, and repair roles; 12

construction worker A construction worker is a person employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure. Definitions By some definitions, construction workers may be engaged in manual labour as unskilled or semi-skilled workers ...

s; 200 employed in trade and commerce; 34 employed in transport, storage, and communications; and 258 in other services.

Villages

Khiron CD block has the following 94 villages:

References

{{Raebareli district Villages in Raebareli district Community development blocks in India Former zamindari estates in Uttar Pradesh