Ulhasnagar - History

History

Ulhasnagar is a municipal town and the headquarters of the Tahsil bearing the same name. It is a railway station on the Mumbai-Pune route of the Central Railway. Ulhasnagar, a colony of migrants in the aftermath of the Partition of India (1947), is 61 years old. Situated 58 km from Mumbai, the once-barren land has developed into a rich town of Thane district. Originally, known as Kalyan Military transit camp (or Kalyan Camp), Ulhasnagar was set up especially to accommodate 6,000 soldiers and 30,000 others during World War II. There were 2,126 barracks and about 1,173 housed personals. The majority of barracks had large central halls with rooms attached to either end. The camp had a deserted look at the end of the war and served as a ready and commercial ideal ground for Partition victims. Sindhis, in particular, began life anew in the new land.

After the partition of India, over 100,000 Sindhi-speaking refugees from the newly created West Pakistan were relocated to deserted military camps five kilometres from Kalyan. The area was converted into a township in 1949, and named Ulhasnagar by the then Governor-general of India, C. Rajagopalachari (literally 'city of joy'; ulhas=joy; nagar=city). On August 8, 1949 the first and last Governor-General of India, C. Rajagopalachari, laid the foundation stone.

A suburban railway station was built in 1955. In January 1960, Ulhasnagar Municipality was formed, with Arjun K. Ballani as first chief, and a municipal council was nominated. In 1965, elections to this council were held for the first time. Now this 28 square kilometre area has 389,000 people of Sindhi descent, the largest enclave of Sindhis in India. The town lies outside Mumbai city but within the Mumbai Conurbation. In 2010, the estimated population of Sindhi Hindus in Ulhasnagar was 400,000.

Business turnover in Ulhasnagar was estimated at Rs. 1,000 crores (US$ 200 million) in 1995. Consequently, politicians started to charge money to look the other way, and by 1999, each corporator in the municipality was said to be making 5 to ten lakhs in "protection money".

In 1986, Pappu Kalani was elected president of the Ulhasnagar Municipal Council (UMC), and the same year, Ulhasnagar elected him to the state legislature as a candidate of the Indian National Congress. Pappu Kalani (born 1951) is an Indian criminal-politician from Ulhasnagar. After emerging as the leader of an organized crime syndicate in the 1980s, he won elections for the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 1986 with the Indian National Congress party,. He won 1990 elections as Indian National Congress, 1995, 1999 elections as Independent and has been elected continuously from this seat since then, including two elections in the period 1992–2001 when he was in jail on murder charges. His formal name is Suresh Budharmal Kalani and Pappu may be a nickname, though he prefers it as part of the formal name, writing Suresh (Pappu) Budharmal Kalani in his election papers. Pappu Kalani is how he is inevitably referred to, however.He is currently on bail in 19 cases including eight of murder and was most recently elected the MLA for Ulhasnagar from the Republican Party of India (Athavale) in the Maharashtra state assembly elections, 2004. People need to raise their voice whether Kalani Family should be part of political powers.

Ulhasnagar is one of the major exporter of clothes and fabrics not just in India but all over the world. Daily turn around in this business is more than 10 million. It is also the home of some of the richest people in Mumbai.