Toba Tek Singh District

Toba Tek Singh District ( Punjabi and ur, ) is a district of Faisalabad Division province of Pakistan. It is located between 30°33' to 31°2' Degree north latitudes and 72°08' to 72°48' Degree longitudes. It became a separate district in 1982.

Etymology

The city and district is named after a Sikh religious figure Tek Singh. Legend has it that Tek Singh, a kind-hearted man served water and provided shelter to the worn out and thirsty travelers passing by a small pond ("TOBA" in Punjabi) which eventually was called Toba Tek Singh, and the surrounding settlement acquired the same name. There is also a park here named after Tek Singh.

British Raj

Toba Tek Singh was developed by the British toward the end of the 19th Century when a canal system was built. People from all over the Punjab (currently Indian and Pakistani Punjab) moved there as farmlands were allotted to them. Most of the people who migrated there belonged to Lahore, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur districts.
The Imperial Gazetteer of India described the tehsil of Toba Tek Singh as follows:

Tehsil of the new Faisalabad District, Punjab, lying between 30°50' and 31°23' N. and 72° 20' and 72°54' E., with an area of . The population in 1906 was 148,984. It contains 342 villages, including Toba Tek Singh (population, 1,874), the headquarters, and Gojra (2,589), an important grain market on the Wazirabad-Khanewal branch of the North-Western Railway. The land revenue in 1905-6 amounted to Rupees 470,000. The tehsil consists of a level plain, wholly irrigated by the Chenab Canal. The soil, which is very fertile in the east of the tehsil, becomes sandy towards the west. The boundaries of the tehsil were somewhat modified at the time of the formation of the new District of Faisalabad (formerly called Lyallpur).

The predominantly Muslim population supported Muslim League and Pakistan Movement. After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the minority Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India while the Muslim refugees from India settled in the Toba Tek Singh District.

After independence

During the 1970s, when many Pakistani cities were renamed to change names given after British Rulers to their original or native names, or to names more acceptable to the local population (for example, Montgomery was renamed to its old original name Sahiwal), Toba Tek Singh remained one of the very few cities to maintain its original name mainly because of noble reputation of Tek Singh. In 1982, Toba Tek Singh, formerly a subdivision, was separated from Faisalabad District and became a separate district.

in 1970, the historical Kisan Conference saw 200,000 Kisans (peasants) and progressive people from the whole country gathered in Toba Tek Singh. The conference had a great impact on the political history of Pakistan and led to the land reforms during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Demography

Toba Tek Singh is located in central Punjab and occupies 3252 square kilometers and is made up of large areas of lowlands that flood frequently during the rainy season; the floods originate from the Ravi River that runs along the southern and southeastern borders. During the British Raj, Toba Tek Singh had a small Sikh population, much of which migrated to India after the partition in 1947, while many Muslim refugees from modern-day India settled in the Toba Tek Singh District.

At the time of the 2017 census the district had a population of 2,191,495, of which 1,100,365 were males and 1,090,879 females. Rural population is 1,749,524 while the urban population is 441,971. The literacy rate was 67.32%. Muslims were the predominant religious community with 96.83% of the population while Christians were 3.05% of the population.

At the time of the 2017 census, 97.86% of the population spoke Punjabi and 1.03% Urdu