Mathura district


Mathura district, situated along the banks of the river Yamuna, is a district of Uttar Pradesh state of north-central India. The historic city of Mathura is the district headquarters. Mathura district is home to many important sites associated with goddess Radha and Lord Krishna, who according to legend, was born in Mathura and grew up in the nearby town of Vrindavan. Both cities are some of the most sacred sites in the Vaishnava tradition, making Mathura district an important Hindu pilgrimage centre.
The District is part of Agra division. Total area of Mathura district is 3340 sq. km. There are 5 tehsils in Mathura district.
Mathura has an ancient history. The district lies in the centre of the cultural region of Braj. According to the Archaeological Survey of India plaque at the Mathura Museum, the city is mentioned in the oldest Indian epic, the Ramayana. In the epic, the Ikshvaku prince Shatrughna slays a demon called Lavanasura and claims the land. Afterwards, the place came to be known as Madhuvan as it was thickly wooded, then Madhupura and later Mathura.
In the 6th century BCE Mathura became the capital of the Surasena mahajanapada. The city was later ruled by the Maurya Empire and the Shunga Empire dynasty. It may have come under the control of Indo-Greeks some time between 180 BCE and 100 BC. It then reverted to local rule before being conquered by the Indo-Scythians during the 1st century BC.
Mathuran art and culture reached its zenith under the Kushan dynasty which had Mathura as one of their capitals, the other being Purushapura. The dynasty had kings with the names of Kujula Kadphises, Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva I.
Megasthenes, writing in the early 3rd century BC, mentions Mathura as a great city under the name Μέθορα.
The Indo-Scythians conquered the area of Mathura over Indian kings around 60 BCE.
The district was then ruled by the Gupta Empire and the Vardhas before falling into the hands of local Rajput and Jat rulers.
The findings of ancient stone inscriptions in Magorra, a town from Mathura, provide historical artifacts giving more details on this era of Mathura. The opening of the 3 line text of these inscriptions are in Brahmi script and were translated as: "In the 116th year of the Greek kings..."
The Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura are sometimes called the "Northern Satraps", as opposed to the "Western Satraps" ruling in Gujarat and Malwa. After Rajuvula, several successors are known to have ruled as vassals to the Kushans, such as the "Great Satrap" Kharapallana and the "Satrap" Vanaspara, who are known from an inscription discovered in Sarnath, and dated to the 3rd year of Kanishka, in which they were paying allegiance to the Kushans.
Mathura served as one of the Kushan Empire's two capitals from the first to the third centuries.
Fa Xian mentions the city, as a centre of Buddhism about AD 400; while his successor Xuanzang, who visited the city in 634 AD, which he mentions as Mot'ulo, and said that it contained twenty Buddhist monasteries and five Brahmanical temples. Later, he went east to Thanesar, Jalandhar in the eastern Punjab, before climbing up to visit predominantly Theravada monasteries in the Kullu valley and turning southward again to Bairat and then Mathura, on the Yamuna river.
The city was sacked and many of its temples destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 and again by Sikandar Lodhi, who ruled the Sultanate of Delhi from 1489 to 1517.
Sikander Lodhi earned the epithet of 'But Shikan', the 'Destroyer of Hindu deities'. The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, built the city's Jami Masjid. The noteworthy fact is that the exact place of birth of Krishna, according to historians, is in the place of worship of the Hindus, though the mosque was built near the birthplace of Krishna. The bigger Krishna shrine, better known as Shree Krishna Janambhumi is a few metres away from birthplace of Krishna. It was built by Jugal Kishore Birla in 1954.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Mathura district has a population of 2,547,184, roughly equal to the nation of Kuwait or the US state of Nevada. This gives it a ranking of 167th in India. The district has a population density of. Its population growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 22.53%. Mathura has a sex ratio of 858 females for every 1000 males, and a literacy rate of 72.65%. 29.68% of the population lived in urban areas. Scheduled Castes made up 19.89% of the population.
The district has about 1,600,000 voters, including 3,00,000 Jat people, 2,50,000 Thakur, 1,75,000 Brahmin. Mathura receives a large number of daily visitors besides pilgrims who stay for an average of 3 days. Mathura's urban area's floating population on normal days is between 100,000 and 125,000 per day, whereas on festive and auspicious days it is over twice the population of urban area.
The majority of people in Mathura are Hindus. Muslims are equally divided between rural and urban areas while the Hindu population is mainly rural.

Language

At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 75.20% of the population in the district spoke Hindi, 22.25% Braj and 0.81% Urdu as their first language.

Geography and climate

Mathura is located at. It has an average elevation of 174 metres. The climate of Mathura is tropical extreme with very hot summers with temperatures rising beyond 44 °C, and cold and foggy winters with the temperature dipping to 5 °C. The average rainfall is 793 mm, received mostly during the monsoons from July to September.

Administration

Region of Mathura was added to British territory in 1803 A.D. Till 1832 A.D, when Mathura was recognised as district, the region was partly administered from Agra and partly from Sadabad.

Strategic importance

Mathura is the home for Indian I Corps within the Indian Army's Central Command, hosting Strike I Corps headquarters in a large classified area in the outskirts of the city known as Mathura Cantonment. It hosts Strike Infantry units, Air Defence units, Armoured Divisions, Engineer brigades, Artillery Units and classified units of Strategic Nuclear Command. Corps I is primarily responsible for western borders of India. In 2007 during Exercise Ashwamedha, all the armoured, artillery and infantry divisions performed a simulation of an overall NBC environment. The aim was to show operational ability in high intensity, short duration and 'sudden' battles.

Politics

Mathura is governed by a number of bodies, the most important being the Mathura Nagar Nigam, which is responsible for the master planning of the city. Now the responsibilities of planning of the city as well as urban areas handed over to MATHURA-VRINDAVAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY. The Authority established in 1977.
Mathura Lok Sabha constituency elects MP from this district. In 2019 Hema Malini won the election.

Healthcare

Health care facilities in Mathura are provided by Central, State and Local government facilities, besides numerous private providers. As per the recent District Level Household and Facility Survey 2007 – 2008, only 33% of currently married women are using a modern method of contraception, which is lower than the state average of 34.8%. Usage of any modern method, though, is higher in Mathura in comparison to the state's average of 26.7%. The percentage of IUD, Pill and Condom usage is again below the state average. The DLHS 3 estimates unmet Family Planning need in Mathura at 38.9%: 9.8% unmet need for spacing methods and 29.1% unmet need for limiting methods. The percentage of birth of order 3 and above is quite high at 46.9%. Mathura has lesser percentage of girls marrying before 18 years of age, which is 31.6% in comparison with the state average of 33.1%. But the most alarming statistic is that of mothers who had at least 3 antenatal care visits during the last pregnancy, which is only 21% as compared to the state average of 64.4%.

Public infrastructure

Economy and industry

One of the major contributors in the economy of Uttar Pradesh are Mathura Industries. Mathura Refinery located in the city is one of the biggest oil refineries of Asia. This oil refinery of the Indian Oil Corporation is a highly technologically advanced oil refinery. Mathura Refinery is the first in Asia and third in the world to receive the coveted ISO-14001 certification for Environment Management System in 1996.
Textile printing industry that includes both sari-printing and fabric dyeing and silver ornaments manufacturing are major industrial contributors to the region. Majority of these silver ornaments include silver jewellery and statues for gods and goddesses including Krishna. Apart from these other industries are water tap manufacturing units and other decorative and household items.
Mathura also is a big centre for production of cotton materials;prominent among them being pure white bleached cotton sarees for women and dhotis for men, and cotton niwar tapes for beds.
It is also a hub for production of milk based sweet meats, prominent among them being mathura Pedas and burfis. Renowned as the place where rivers of milk flowed, Mathura till today boasts of Milk trading centres where you can buy any amount of fresh milk where rates vary every few minutes and are notified on a black board akin to stock prices.

Education

Mathura is home to the Uttar Pradesh Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Veterinary University, the first of its kind in the state and the fourth in the country to be made independent veterinary universities. The University is located on the Mathura-Agra road, about from Mathura.
Many schools like Parmeshwari Devi Dhanuka, Hanuman Prashad Dhanuka, Kanha Makhan Public School, Kanha Makhan Millenium School, Amarnath Vidya Ashram, Sacred Heart, Mathura, St. Dominics, Ramanlal Shorawala, SRBS International School, Braj shiksha sadan school and Rajiv International School are also located here.