Safidon - History

History

The place is possibly the site of Sarpadevi or Sarpidadhi referred in Mahabharata and Vamana Purana. It is associated with snake sacrifice of Janamejaya, son of Parikshit. The latter lost his life in the struggle against the Nagas of Taxiles, which was later avenged by his son Janamejaya, symbolised in the epic tradition of Sarpasastra (snake sacrifice) which possibly took place at Sarpadevi. There are three ancient temples and tirthas of Nagesvara Mahadeva, Nagadamni Devi and Nagashetra.

The area was first occupied by a Pre-Harappan Chalcolithic agricultural community, whose pottery has been recovered from a number of places near Safidon, including Anta, Morkhi, and Beri Khera.

The area was irrigated during the reign of Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1351-1388) of the Tughlaq dynasty, who built a canal from the Yamuna which entered the district at Anta, and thence flowing through the present Jind tahsil from east to west in the line of the old Chutang nadi past the town of Safidon and Jind, reached up to Hisar. Firoz also made administrative changes, creating a separate Iqta of Safidon and placed the entire area of the present district under its Mukta, Yalkhan, a trusted noble. He also changed the name of Safidon to Tughluqpur.

After Firoz's death, discord disrputed the Delhi Sultanate, and the Tughlaq dynasty lost Safidon and Jind. Timur attacked northern India in 1398, entering Haryana from Punjab. The district of Jind did not suffer much at his hands; during his march from Kaithal to Panipat he touched only the outskirts of the district except for a short distance of a few kilometres from Moana (a small village)to Safidon and a little beyond. While local inhabitants fled, the fort of Safidon was burned.

Gajpat Singh, a great grandson of Phul, the founder of the Phulkian Misl, one of the 12 confederacies of the Sikhs in the 18th century took advantage of the above situation. He took part in the attack of the Sikhs on the province of Sirhind in 1763 in which Zain Khan, The Afghan governor of the province was killed. Gajpat Singh occupied a large tract of the country including Jind and Safidon as his share of the spoil.

During the reorganization of the Punjab in 1966, the Sangrur district was divided and Jind and Narwana Tehsils were allocated to Haryana and were constituted into Jind district. The Jind tahsil was divided into two tehsils of Jind and Safidon in 1967. In January 1973, five villages of Kaithal Tehsil were transferred to Safidon Tehsil .