Kushtia

About Kushtia

Kushtia lies at the northern tip of Khulna division, where the Padma bends south-east and throws off the Gorai, its main distributary into the south-west. Across the Padma to the north are Pabna and Rajshahi; Rajbari is to the east, Jhenaidah and Chuadanga to the south, and Meherpur and the Indian border to the west. The land is fertile river plain, with chars along the Padma that flood in the monsoon.

Few districts of its size have given Bengal so many cultural figures. The mystic Baul poet Lalon lived and is buried here, Rabindranath Tagore managed the family estates at Shilaidaha and wrote some of his best-known work beside the Padma, and Kumarkhali produced the novelist Mir Mosharraf Hossain, the journalist Kangal Harinath and the revolutionary Bagha Jatin.

Kushtia town is a lively commercial and university centre, with the Islamic University on its outskirts, while Bheramara, Mirpur and Kumarkhali are busy upazila towns built around rice mills, power stations and handloom weaving.

History

Until 1947 the area was part of Nadia district. When Bengal was partitioned, its eastern subdivisions became the new Kushtia district; Chuadanga and Meherpur were later separated, leaving today’s six upazilas. The railway arrived early: the line from Calcutta reached Jagati in 1862, and Jagati is counted as the oldest railway station in Bangladesh. Kumarkhali had already been an East India Company centre for silk and indigo, and Mohini Mills, founded in Kushtia in the early twentieth century, became one of the largest textile mills in Bengal.

Lalon Shah died at Cheuria in 1890, and his akhra became a gathering place for Bauls ever after. Tagore spent long periods at Shilaidaha in the 1890s and later. In 1971 Kushtia saw some of the first organised resistance, when local fighters and Bengali troops attacked the Pakistani garrison in the town at the end of March.

Economy and livelihoods

Farming remains central, with rice, wheat, jute, sugarcane, tobacco, pulses and vegetables on the Padma floodplain. Khajanagar near Kushtia town is one of the biggest rice-milling clusters in the country, and Kushtia rice is sold nationwide. Kumarkhali and the surrounding villages weave lungis, gamchhas, bedsheets and saris on power and hand looms, much of it traded at the huge weekly cloth haat at Poradah. Industry includes a sugar mill, cable and electrical manufacturing, the Bheramara power plants and tobacco processing, and the district’s food makers turn out tiler khaja sold at stations and bus stands all over Bangladesh.

Food, culture and festivals

Music defines Kushtia. Every October, on the anniversary of Lalon’s death, Bauls and visitors from across Bengal gather at Cheuria for days of songs, and a second gathering is held at Dol Purnima in spring. Tagore’s birth anniversary is marked with a festival at Shilaidaha.

The local speech is close to standard Bangla, and the food has its own signatures: tiler khaja, a crisp layered sesame sweet now recognised as a geographical indication, creamy kulfi malai sold from carts in the evening, and freshly milled rice.

Places to visit in Kushtia

1. Lalon Shah Mazar, Cheuria

   The white-domed shrine of Fakir Lalon Shah and his followers on the edge of Kushtia town, with an auditorium and akhra where Baul songs are performed. It is busiest during the October and spring festivals.

2. Shilaidaha Kuthibari

   Tagore’s estate house in Kumarkhali, a three-storey building with a distinctive pyramid roof set in gardens near the Padma. It is now a museum of his furniture, photographs and personal belongings.

3. Tagore Lodge, Kushtia town

   A smaller house in Milpara where Tagore stayed while running his business interests in town, restored as a memorial museum.

4. Mir Mosharraf Hossain’s birthplace, Lahinipara

   The home village of the author of Bishad Sindhu in Kumarkhali, with a memorial library and museum.

5. Hardinge Bridge and Lalon Shah Bridge

   At Bheramara the steel spans of the 1915 Hardinge railway bridge cross the Padma beside the modern Lalon Shah road bridge. The riverbank is a popular spot at sunset.

What Kushtia is famous for

• Kushtia tiler khaja
• Kumarkhali lungi
• Handloom gamchha
• Kushtia rice

How to get to Kushtia

Buses from Dhaka’s Gabtoli terminal reach Kushtia in about five to six hours, crossing the Padma by bridge or ferry depending on route. Intercity trains between Dhaka and Khulna via the Jamuna bridge stop at Bheramara, Mirpur and Poradah, all a short ride from Kushtia town. There is no airport in the district; Jashore airport is roughly two to three hours away by road.

Markets and haats

Poradah cloth haat

At Poradah in Mirpur upazila, a vast weekly cloth market where weavers and wholesalers from across the region trade lungis, gamchhas, saris and bedsheets.

Khajanagar

A cluster of rice mills and wholesale traders near Kushtia town, where fine and coarse rice is milled and sent by truck across Bangladesh.

Kushtia Boro Bazar

The old central market of Kushtia town, good for spices, cloth, tiler khaja and household goods.

Kushtia at a glance

Shops from Kushtia on Midmart

No shop from Kushtia is selling on Midmart yet.

Questions about Kushtia

More districts in Khulna Division

• Bagerhat Khan Jahan’s mosque city on the edge of the Sundarbans
• Chuadanga Border farmland of date molasses, betel leaf and the Darshana sugar mill
• Jashore The flower capital, home of date molasses and the Benapole gateway
• Jhenaidah Sultanate mosques, Naldanga temples and the giant banyan of Kaliganj
• Khulna River city of shrimp and the gateway to the Sundarbans
• Magura Raja Sitaram’s country of jute fields, pera sandesh and Khamarpara doi
• Meherpur Mujibnagar, where Bangladesh’s first government took its oath
• Narail S M Sultan’s Chitra river country, home of boat races and cricketers
• Satkhira Early mangoes, soft-shell crabs and the western Sundarbans