| Mhow | |
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| Coordinates | |
| Country | India |
| State | Madhya Pradesh |
| District(s) | Indore |
| Population | 85,023 (2001[update]) |
| Time zone | IST (UTC+05:30) |
| Area |
• 556 metres (1,824 ft) |
Mhow (Hindi: महूँ) [1] is a cantonment in the Indore District in Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located 23 kilometres (14 mi) south of Indore city towards Mumbai on the Mumbai-Agra Road. The town was renamed as Dr Ambedkar Nagar in 2003, by the Government of Madhya Pradesh.[2]
This cantonment town was founded in 1818 by John Malcolm as a result of the Treaty of Mandsaur between the English and the Holkars who ruled Indore. John Malcolm's forces had defeated the Holkars at the Battle of Mahidpur in 1818. It was after this battle that the capital of the Holkars shifted from the town of Maheshwar on the banks of the Narmada to Indore.
Mhow used to be the headquarters of the 5th (Mhow) Division of the Southern Command during the British Raj. Today this small town is associated with the Indian Army and with B. R. Ambedkar, a political leader who was born here.
Mhow was a meter gauge railway district headquarter during the British Raj and even after 1947.[3] The irony is that Mhow still has no broad gauge railway line.
According to Hindu religious texts, Janapava kuti near Mhow is also said to be the birthplace of Parashurama, an avatar of Vishnu.
There is total lack of unanimity on how Mhow got its name. There are many theories about this. But there is no confirmation about which theory is true. Here are some of these in no particular order:
Sir John Malcolm has spelt the name of this town as MOW in his writings.It is obvious that the letter 'H' came in much later.
As of 2001[update] India census,[4] Mhow had a population of 85,023. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Mhow has an average literacy rate of 72%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 65%. In , 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.
This small town has representatives of almost all communities. The Bhils who are the original inhabitants of this area still live in villages scattered around Mhow.
The villages of Mhow (and Malwa) especially Badgonda, Gawli Palasiya, Kodariya, Kelod, Jamli and Harsola have a large number of Patidars who are originally from Gujarat. The Patels of Gujarat are a part of the Patidar community. Mhow has a sizable number of Marathis as it is part of Indore, the erstwhile state ruled by the Maratha Holkar family.
"There are more than 5000 Sindhi Muslims living in the 6 villages of mhow tehsil they came here late before400 years ago most of them are farmers and jagirdars this community is one of the oldest community living in the area they are living long before the Mhow was originated they came from sindh (mohenjodaro) late before 400 years they were warriors who saved jodpur kingdom from attackers and were gifted with thousands acres land in mhow area which comprise almost 30% of mhow tehsil.they live in chopati,banjari, karondia, richabardi,kesarbardi,&dada.the people have even participated in 1857 war against Britishers in mhow." - (by abdul salam mehar nasrani, mhow market chowk, jive sindh)
Among the various communities settled in Mhow some have a distinctive Raj connection; these include the Parsis or Zoroastrians, the Goan Catholics, the Anglo Indians, a community of Hyderabadi Muslims and the Ahir Muslims of Banda Basti. The first three communities are very small numerically.
The Parsis who were a thriving community at one time have now become a very small community in Mhow. They have a fire temple in Mhow town and a dakhma for the dead. The Tower of Silence is between Mhow and the Beircha Lake. The Parsis are very intimately connected with the growth and evolution of modern Mhow.
Mhow has a large number of Shi'i and Sunni Muslims. Mhow also has a substantial number of Dawoodi Bohra Muslims from Gujarat who are mostly businessmen by profession. Besides the Dawoodi Bohras, the business communities in Mhow includes Marwaris, Chourasias, Punjabi Hindu Aroras, Sindhis, Jains and Gujaratis . The Sikhs also have a presence in Mhow, many of them having arrived here after the partition of 1947 along with the Hindu Punjabis. Each community listed above has contributed in its own way towards the growth of Mhow.
Mhow and the Indian Army are inseparable. The Army has been here since 1818. Up until World War II, Mhow was the headquarters of the 5th Division of the Southern Army. According to local legend Winston Churchill also spent a few months in Mhow when he was a subaltern serving with his regiment in India (a local shop still boasts of him as its customer). The house on the Mall where he is supposed to have lived has gradually crumbled due to neglect and age. It has been pulled down and a jogger's park has been built on its grounds by the Infantry School, Mhow.
Mhow is synonymous with the Indian Army and has been a training centre of the Army since British days. It houses three premier training institutions:
(i) The Infantry School - the alma mater of the Indian Infantry which is the spearhead of the Indian Army
(ii) The Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE), the alma mater of the Corps of Signals. The Corps of Signals is like the nervous system of the Indian Army as it is responsible for communications. MCTE (then School of Signals) was the first training institution in Mhow.
(iii) The Army War College (formerly known as the College of Combat).
These three institutions together form the backbone of Mhow.
Each of these institutions is headed by a Lieutenant General.
* MCTE Mhow (the first training institution in Mhow)
MCTE was known as the School of Signals till 1967. It is the alma mater of the Corps of Signals. MCTE conducts telecommunications and Information Technology courses for officers, JCOS, NCOs and soldiers of the Indian Army. Officers and men from other countries also attend courses here. It also trains gentlemen cadets for a Bachelors degree in engineering. These cadets get commissioned into the Indian Army's Corps of Signals on completion of their training. They are known as the 'Information Warriors' of the Indian Army.
* The Infantry School, Mhow
The Infantry School Mhow conducts courses related to the infantry for men and officers of the various regiments of the Indian Army. The Commando Wing of this school is in Belgaum, Karnataka. The Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) which has produced many medal winning shooters for the Army and for India is a part of The Infantry School Mhow. Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw had served as the Commandant of this school in the fifties while he was a Brigadier
* Army War College, Mhow
The Army War College was known as the College of Combat till a few years ago. The Army War College conducts three courses—the Junior Command (JC) course, the Senior Command (SC) course and the Higher Command (HC) course. The former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General K. Sundarji was the Commandant of the College of Combat during the early eighties. His successor as COAS General V.N. Sharma also served as the Commandant of the College of Combat.
*ARTRAC - Army Training Command
The Army Training Command or ARTRAC was born in Mhow in 1991 before it shifted to Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) in 1994. At that time its General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC-in-C) was Lt. General Shankar Roy Chowdhary who went on to become the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Its first GOC-in-C was Lt. General A.S. Kalkat who had earlier commanded the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka. ARTRAC was housed in the campus of the present Army School Mhow. This was used as All Arms Wing of MCTE for many decades. It was originally built and used as the BMH (British Military Hospital).
Attending a course in Mhow is something every Army officer looks forward to with eagerness and enthusiasm.
Mhow has one seat in the State Legislative Assembly (the Vidhan Sabha). The first elected MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) was the Mr.R.C.Jall (Indian National Congress)who belonged to the Parsi community.
The MLA from Mhow is Mr. Kailash Vijayvargiya of the BJP. According to the State Assembly results declared on Tuesday 9 December 2008 he defeated Shri Antar Singh Darbar of the Congress(I) party, who had been the MLA from Mhow for the last two terms, by a margin of more than 8800 votes.
The MLA from Mhow before Shri Antar Singh Darbar was the late Shri Bherulal Patidar (1941–2005)of the BJP or Bharatiya Janata Party. Shri Patidar was also the Deputy Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha. He was the Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission at the time of his sudden and unexpected death on Sunday 13 November 2005.
The late Mr. Prakash Chandra Sethi, former Chief minister of Madhya Pradesh
Until 2009 the people of Mhow resided in the Indore Lok Sabha constituency. Under the delimitation exercise carried out all over the nation Mhow is now in the Dhar Parliamentary constituency though it continues to be in Indore district for administrative purposes. The MP from the Dhar constituency is Mr. Gajendra Singh Rajukhedhi of Indian National Congress.
No self promotional material here please. Institutes which are neither schools nor colleges are requested to not enter their names here. The sole purpose of this section is to list the names of schools, colleges and educational institutes like the IIM and the IIT.
MPBSE SCHOOLS
CBSE SCHOOLS
COLLEGES
DISTANCE LEARNING IGNOU (NEW DELHI)Study center AISECT -IGNOU Study center
NATIONAL LEVEL INSTITUTES (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF ESTABLISHMENT)
*Campus 1-Near Sardar Patel School Kodariya , Mhow
*Campus 2-Opp.To Dreamland Cinema,Above TVS Showroom, Shikhshatan School,Mhow
The river Chambal which flows through the dacoit infested areas of Northern India is said to begin at the hill of Janapav which is in a village named Kuti,around 15 km from Mhow town. On top of the hill of Janapav is a temple and ashram. According to local legend this used to be the ashram of Jamadagni, the father of Parashurama (an Avatar or reincarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu God of sustenance). A mela, or religious fair, is held at Kuti every year on the auspicious day of Kartik Purnima - the first full moon after Diwali, which is also celebrated as Guru Nanak's birthday by the Sikh community - and people from villages far and near come to pray and pay their obeisance. The next day the same mela shifts to the Balaji temple in Badgonda village. The river Gambhir which eventually joins the Kshipra - the river on whose banks the ancient, holy city of Ujjain is built - also begins at the hill of Janapav. From there it flows north towards Mhow.
Mhow has been connected to Indore and Khandwa by metre gauge railway lines. On Jan 18 2008, when the Union Cabinet approved the gauge conversion for the Ratlam-Mhow-Khandwa-Akola railway line.(472.64 km). The cost of the gauge conversion would be about Rs.1421.25 crore.
Bharat Ratna Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's father Ramji Maloji Sakpal was a Subedar Major—a VCO or Viceroy Commissioned Officer (the equivalent of a Sergeant Major)—in a battalion of the British Indian Army's Mahar Regiment. The Mahars are an oppressed caste from Maharashtra state of India and are part of the Dalits or downtrodden and untouchable people of India. Dr. Ambedkar had fought on behalf of the Dalits and is a very honoured figure in India today. He and hundreds of thousands of his followers had converted to Buddhism as they claimed disillusioned with Hinduism. A memorial to Dr. Ambedkar in the shape of a Buddhist stupa is being built at a spot where his father's quarters used to be. It is located by the Agra-Mumbai Road and is very near the temple, gurudwara and mosque of the Infantry School Mhow.
Mhow has now been renamed Dr. Ambedkar Nagar in honour of the father of the Indian constitution, who was born here. The renaming has not been without controversy. Many claim that it has been done due to the compulsions of vote bank politics. The new name is used for official purposes and has not been widely accepted. Ambedkar was born in Mhow as his father Subedar Major Ramji Maloji Sakpal - a VCO (Viceroy Commissioned Officer) of the Mahar Regiment - was stationed here. He had nothing to do with Mhow claim opponents of the renaming. They also claim that the name Mhow has a history of its own and is a name which the Indian Army and civilians are deeply attached to. These are also the views of many who say that they have nothing against Ambedkar or the Dalits but are attached to the name Mhow. Opponents of the renaming claim that Porbandar, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, has not been renamed Gandhinagar and Jawaharlal Nehru's birthplace Allahabad is still Allahabad and not Nehrunagar hence it is not necessary to rename Mhow after Ambedkar. The Dalits claim that this opposition is mainly due to the ingrained bias that upper castes have against them. The controversy refuses to die.
Some books about Mhow include:
There are references to Mhow in the works of Rudyard Kipling.
Mhow has Bollywood connections too. Actors Pooja Batra and Celina Jaitley, who are born in Army families, have their parents settled here. Old time Actress Sheila Ramani also has a Mhow connection. Prakash Jaju, Ex Secretary to Priyanka Chopra belongs to Mhow.
A leading Road Safety and Transport Systems Specialist: Kailash Chandra Tiwari, son of Shri Shambhu Prasad Tiwari, was born in Maharaj ki Oree, Bhagora-Kodaria in Mhow, in 1953. He has been involved in many countries to improve road safety and to alleviate traffic and transport problems. He studied in Grade 1-5 and 11-12 in Mhow and did his BE from SGSITS Indore.
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