OverView of Mahurapur

An authentic history of the village is yet to be traced.  However, the name "Mahurapur" is very close to two or three words in terms of pronunciation: Mohr, Mohra and Mahua. If the first word, Mohr, is its etymological source, the land was a ‘gift’ or prize given to a person by the landlord.  The second word, Mohra, simply means ‘pawn’, and as a place name, be it a town or a village, it has wide acceptance: for example, ‘Mohra Sharif’ (holy place) in Rawalpindi District, Pakistan, and Mohra, one of the towns in Gaya District of Bihar. The possibility of the third word, Mahua, cannot be ruled out: "Mahua" has a real topographical context. The village is very close to the Santhal Parganas, and the north-western side of the village is dominated by tribal (the Santhal) settlement. The entire area is rich in the plantation of Mahua trees. Maybe, originally it was "Mohuapur" and later in popular conversation a consonant sound 'r' was inserted between two vowels - 'u' and 'a'. After prolonged deforestation a settlement took place during the pre-moghul eras. However, all these are hypothetical positions and cannot be substantiated with authentic facts.

Under the Police Station, Murari, Mahurapur is one of the old villages in the extreme northern part of Birbhum District where once renowned British ICS officer Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840-1900) worked as District Magistrate. At present Mahurapur is a medium-sized village. Population is balanced between mainly Hindus and Muslims. There are some 2500 people living in the village. Most of them depend on agriculture and stone quarry at a nearby place called Gopalpur. Of them about one dozen families are from outside settled in the village. Educated people are engaged in different profession like teaching, office clerks, business, and so on. Some have shifted to towns and cities. Agricultural productions are mainly paddy and some vegetables and the land owners depend mostly on natural rains. The area was once famous for cattle rearing and milk products. Even during the 1960s there were many families who had substantial landed properties and cattle population. Even in the 1970s one could see a huge cattle population in the village and in the evening a long procession of the cattle returning home was a regular scenario. One had to wait for long before the cattle traffic made the roads clear for him.

The village is relatively peaceful. As with other villages, it feels the pressure of new cultural waves and accordingly televisions at homes and makeshift video parlours seem to have affected the outlook of the young generation. The Rathajatra Fair, once popular, is no longer to be found in its old spirit. The Football tournament too is gone. Nature too seems to have turned it face from the village. A huge number of an Australian bird species which visited the place and dominated a special pond of the village in the winter season, no longer find it a suitable site for winter habitat. The village, once infested with no less than 3000 hanumans, has now not even a single soul. In the 1960s government agencies came to shoot them one after another and since then they too have never turned back to the village.