Kunjpura is a village in

Karnal district Karnal district is one of the 22 districts of Haryana state in North India which constitutes the National Capital Region (NCR) of the country. The city of Karnal is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) and is the administrative headqu ...

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

(prior to 1966

Punjab state Punjab (; ) is a state in northern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the north and northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast, and ...

), India, about 10 km northeast of Karnal city and about 130 km north of the national capital,

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. It is on the right bank (west bank) of the

Yamuna River The Yamuna ( Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of about on the southwestern slopes of Ban ...

, off the

Grand Trunk Road The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sarak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sarak, and Long Walk) is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. ...

that runs from

Amritsar Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...

and further on to

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

Overview

Kunjpura was founded b
Nawab Najabat Khan
in 1729. Kunjpura village has a fort with a long history. It was a major halting point for those who traveled from

Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass (خیبر درہ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversing pa ...

before modern metalled roads came to be. In 1739, an Afghan adventurer,

Najabat Khan Najabat Khan was an Afghan warrior of the 18th century, and founder of a line of chiefs of Kunjpura which he was granted by Nadir Shah in 1739 and the titlehood "Nawab". Nawab Najabat Khan was killed during the Battle of Kunjpura at his fort on 1 ...

, was granted a chiefdom by

Nadir Shah Nader Shah Afshar ( fa, نادر شاه افشار; also known as ''Nader Qoli Beyg'' or ''Tahmāsp Qoli Khan'' ) (August 1688 – 19 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian h ...

as ''

nawab Nawab (Balochi language, Balochi: نواب; ar, نواب; bn, নবাব/নওয়াব; hi, नवाब; Punjabi language, Punjabi : ਨਵਾਬ; Persian language, Persian, Punjabi language, Punjabi , Sindhi language, Sindhi, Urd ...

'' at Kunjpura. Kunjpura was won by the forces of

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shi ...

in 1761. A senior secondary school is located at the entry point in this Village.

Sainik School, Kunjpura

The

Sainik School The Sainik Schools are a system of schools in India established and managed by the Sainik Schools Society under Ministry of Defence (MoD). They were conceived in 1961 by V. K. Krishna Menon, the then Defence Minister of India, to rectify the regio ...

situated west of Kunjpura village was started in 1961 on the large property that originally belonged to the last Nawab of Kunjpura, Ibrahim Ali Khan. The property passed into the hands of the Defence Ministry as the nawab migrated to Pakistan after the independence of India and died in Lahore in 1952. The alumni of the school have done well in the Military establishments as well as in the civilian life. The old boys of the school are called Kunjeans.

People and economy

The landowners of the village are of one religion and no caste system. The economy of the village is booming compared to many villages in the state of

. The market is large relative to normal villages and the traders are quite prosperous. This could be attributed to the large buying power of the residents of the

situated nearby. The soil is alluvial in nature and the

Yamuna The Yamuna (Hindustani language, Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in List of major rivers of India, India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a ...

river is not too far. Thus, irrigation is not an issue for the farmers and they are easily able to harvest more than two crops a year.

References

Karnal Villages in Karnal district {{Haryana-geo-stub