Chakdina

Chakdina or Dinachak is a village in Kharian Tehsil of Gujrat District, Punjab, Pakistan. It is situated at about five km westwards from the town of Lalamusa.

Chakdina is situated in the Ganja Union Council. Other villages in this Union Council are Ganja, Chak Ikhlas, Hail, Mughli, Dhalla, Chak Rajjadi, Jataria Khurd, Jataria Kalan, Chatta and Sarwani.

Etymology

The name Chakdina is combination of words 'Chak' meaning village and 'Dina' meaning of Allahdin. The first inhabitant of the village Chaudhry Allahdin was nicknamed Dina hence Chakdina became the name of the village. There are other villages in the union council which have names of the same pattern like Chak Ikhlas and Chak Rajjadi.

History

Many people still refer to the old name of the village which was Dinachak. It was founded in eighteenth century by Chaudhry Allahdin, a Gujjar of Arab descent at the site of Shahpur, a deserted city considered to be the capital of Gujjar tribe.

British India (BI) Steam Navigation Company (registeed in 1856 as the Calcutta & Burmah Steam Navigation Company and got new name in 1862) borrowed the name Chakdina from this village to name two of its ships. Chakdina (1) built in 1914 was bombed and sunk in Mediterranean in 1941.^[1] Chakdina (2) built in 1951 was transferred to Peninsular and Oriental (P&O) Steam Navigation Company in 1973, in 1975 it was renamed Strathlairg and it was scrapped in Taiwan in 1977.^[2]

The total agricultural land of the village is 1,350 acres (5.5 km²). In 1966, after the Mangla Dam was built, some people from Mirpur (Azad Jammu and Kashmir) migrated to the village and inhabited a new locality namely 'Chak Fazal Shah' within the revenue limits of Chakdina. They also purchased some agricultural land from the people of Chakdina. In exchange for some land, they helped its owners to send their sons to England for job. As such five boys of the village were sent to England who later settled there. Some overseas workers belonging to this village have also settled in other European countries such as Norway, Italy, Spain and Portugal and in North America.

Population

Presently, most of the current population of the village, traces its descent from Chaudhry Allahdin who belonged to the Kundowana sub-caste of the Gujjars. However, the village also has other sub-castes of Gujjars like Porr, Machiwal etc. The village also has Syed and Kashmiri families.

Schools

The village has middle schools for girls and boys.

Tombs

There are tombs of Sain Khaki Shah and Sain Bahawal Sher in the village.

Bazaar Dinaychakian

One of the famous bazaars in the town of Lalamusa is named after Chakdina and is called Bazaar Dinaychakian. Dinaychakian means, in Punjabi, the people of Dinachak. This bazaar was inhabited by Bagh Sha, a Hindu who migrated from Chakdina to Lalamusa in 1929. The first building in the bazaar was Haveli Bagh Sha. Some parts of this building are still present in original form.

Politics

Nobody from the village has so far contested the elections for Senate, National Assembly or Punjab Assembly. Afsana Afsar remained member of Youth Parliament Pakistan,^[3] a project of Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT)^[4] in 2008-09 from YP45-PUNJAB26.

References

1. ^ http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/AssortedClass.html
2. ^ http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/Cclass.html
3. ^ "Youth Parliament of Pakistan 2009-2010". Youthparliament.pk. http://www.youthparliament.pk/. Retrieved 2010-10-23. 
4. ^ "Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency". PILDAT. http://www.pildat.org/. Retrieved 2010-10-23.