About  Mallawan

Mallawan, also spelled Mallanwan is a town and Nagar Palika Parishad in Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It served as the original district headquarters from 1856 to 1858. It is located south of Bilgram, on the road to Unnao. Mallawan is a major centre of handloom weaving, with handloom cloth being a major export. As of 2011, the population of Mallawan is 36,915, in 6,086 households. It is included in the legislative assembly constituency of Bilgram-Mallanwan.

It's possible that Mallawan was a Buddhist site at the same time that Kannauj was, given the short distance between them, but this is uncertain. An image of Asa Devi found in a temple here is "probably of Buddhist origin."

In early times, the Mallawan area was ruled by the Thatheras until they were driven out by the Chandelas (in the west) and the Kurmis (in the east). Then, in 1033, it was invaded by Ghazi Sayyid Salar Masud ; the tomb of one of his companions is found in Mallawan, in the neighbourhood of Uncha Tola. According to tradition, Mallawan was once called "Ghazipur" in Masud's honour. Mallawan's Sheikh community claims to have originally come to the town at this time. Later, in 1544, three of the Sheikhs were given a grant in the neighbouring village of Mohiuddinpur by Sher Shah Suri, on the condition that they reside there, recite prayers five times daily in the mosque, and shooting ten arrows after reading the afternoon prayers.

The wandering saint Makhdum Shah, also called Misbah-ul-Ashiqin, came to Mallawan in

Mallawan is listed in the Ain-i-Akbari as the seat of a pargana. The town's jama masjid was built during Akbar's reign out of kankar blocks taken from an older building. By the turn of the 20th century, however, the mosque was described as being in ruins.

In 1726, Shitab Rai was made chakladar of Mallawan. He became infamous for acquiring property by burying landowners alive and then making their heirs sell it to him. According to the first British settlement report in the mid-19th century, the landowners' bones were still sometimes dug up by farmers around the old chakladar compound.

In 1765, Jesuit missionary and traveller Joseph Tiefenthaler visited Mallawan. He described it as a small but densely populated town surrounded by trees, with most buildings being made out of brick. There was a fort with towers, of mixed brick and mud construction, but by the early 1900s it had disappeared and the site had become farmland.

The 1773 treaty between the Nawab of Awadh and the British East India Company designated Mallawan as the site of a cantonment of British troops. The cantonment was by the road to Bilgram, in the village of Faizpur Kampu. It was in use until 1777, when it was moved to Kanpur, leading to Kanpur becoming a major city. Meanwhile, the Nawab had a military garrison in Mallawan itself until the 1850s.[4]

With the advent of British Rule, followed by the annexation of Oudh in 1856, Mallawan was made district headquarter and possessed considerable political importance. During the struggle of 1857 the Raikawars, independence fighters from nearby village Rudamau, burned Mallawan's court house. Conditions worsened, leading to the move of the district headquarter to Hardoi.