Jamalpur

About Jamalpur

Jamalpur sits in the north of Mymensingh Division, roughly 140 km north of Dhaka. Its western edge is the broad, shifting channel of the Jamuna, while the Old Brahmaputra cuts across the district and passes right beside the town. The Jhenai and Banar rivers and a scatter of beels add to the water, so much of the land is low, fertile and flooded for part of the monsoon. In the far north, along the Meghalaya border, the flat country gives way to the low, wooded Garo hills.

The district has seven upazilas: Jamalpur Sadar, Melandaha, Islampur, Dewanganj, Bakshiganj, Madarganj and Sarishabari. Char islands in the Jamuna are home to farming families who move with the river, and the hill fringe around Bakshiganj is home to Garo, Hajong and other small communities. For most Bangladeshis, though, the name Jamalpur brings one thing to mind first: the embroidered quilts and cloth that women stitch in thousands of village homes.

History

The town takes its name from Shah Jamal, a Sufi preacher remembered as having come from Yemen during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar; his shrine still stands in the town. The area was long part of greater Mymensingh. It saw the Fakir-Sannyasi resistance of the late eighteenth century and indigo unrest in the nineteenth, and the railway reached it at the end of the 1800s, eventually making Bahadurabad Ghat the rail-ferry crossing of the Jamuna for traffic to the north. Jamalpur became a separate district in 1978 and joined the new Mymensingh Division in 2015.

In 1971 the border outpost at Kamalpur in Bakshiganj was the scene of some of the hardest fighting of the Liberation War, ending in early December with the surrender of the Pakistani garrison there. Sector commander Khaled Mosharraf, filmmaker Amjad Hossain and painter Biren Shome are among the people linked to the district.

Economy and livelihoods

Farming still employs most households: rice, jute, sugarcane, mustard, pulses, groundnut and tobacco grow on the river plains and chars, and jute trading has a long history here. Two state industries anchor the district, the Zeal Bangla Sugar Mills at Dewanganj, founded in 1957, and Jamuna Fertilizer at Sarishabari, which produces urea. Beyond them, the real cottage economy is needlework. Nakshi kantha, embroidered bed covers, cushion covers and hand-stitched dresses are made by rural women, often through NGOs and small workshops in the Sadar upazila, and sold to boutiques in Dhaka and abroad.

Food, culture and festivals

Folk performance runs deep in Jamalpur: jari gan, the ballad of Gunai Bibi, pala songs such as Rupban and women's wedding songs are part of village life, and monsoon boat races on the Jamuna and bullfights draw crowds. The Garo community in the north keeps its own harvest dances and songs.

At the table, the district is known for pithali, a rice-flour-thickened curry, and for mendi or milli, a slow-cooked meat dish served at large feasts. Winter brings sugarcane molasses from the chars, and pithas made with it.

Places to visit in Jamalpur

1. Gandhi Ashram, Kapashatia

   In Kapashatia village in Melandaha, about 15 km from town, a local Congress leader set up this ashram in 1934 to promote non-violence and village crafts. Most of it was destroyed after 1947, but the office cottage survived and now sits beside a Freedom Struggle Museum with photographs, journals and objects from the British era and 1971.

2. Lauchapra recreation centre

   A hill park in Bakshiganj near the Meghalaya border, with a viewing tower over the forested Garo hills. It is the most popular day trip in the district, especially in winter when the air is clear.

3. Kamalpur Liberation War memorial

   A memorial at Kamalpur, Bakshiganj, marking the long 1971 battle for the border outpost. Every year on 4 December the area commemorates the day the garrison fell.

4. Shah Jamal's shrine and Doyamoyee temple

   Two old places of worship in Jamalpur town: the mazar of the saint the town is named after, and the Sri Sri Doyamoyee temple, one of the main Hindu temples of the district and the focus of Durga Puja crowds.

5. Bahadurabad Ghat

   The old rail-ferry terminal on the Jamuna in Dewanganj, once the main crossing for trains and wagons heading to the north. The Jamuna Bridge ended its heyday, but the riverbank and the new river terminal are worth a look for anyone interested in the river.

What Jamalpur is famous for

• Jamalpur nakshi kantha
• Islampur bell-metal (kansa) ware
• Hand-embroidered three-piece
• Sugarcane molasses (akher gur)

How to get to Jamalpur

By rail, intercity trains such as the Tista Express and the Agnibina Express run from Dhaka's Kamalapur and Airport stations to Jamalpur Town station via Mymensingh, taking roughly four to five hours. By road, buses leave Dhaka's Mohakhali terminal and take about four to five hours depending on traffic, either through Mymensingh or through Tangail and Madhupur. Within the district, CNG auto-rickshaws and local buses reach Bakshiganj, Islampur and Dewanganj.

Markets and haats

Kansaripara, Islampur

The bell-metal quarter of Islampur town, on the Old Brahmaputra, where families have cast and polished kansa plates, bowls, glasses and puja vessels for generations. Brass and copper ware is sold here too.

Nakshi kantha showrooms, Jamalpur town

The town centre has a cluster of handicraft shops and NGO outlets selling quilts, bedsheets, cushion covers and embroidered three-piece sets straight from the stitching villages.

Jarultala Haat, Islampur

A twice-weekly afternoon haat, held on Saturdays and Tuesdays, for vegetables, river fish and everyday goods, typical of the busy rural markets across the char country.

Jamalpur at a glance

Shops from Jamalpur on Midmart

No shop from Jamalpur is selling on Midmart yet.

Questions about Jamalpur

More districts in Mymensingh Division

• Mymensingh Old Brahmaputra city of zamindar palaces, ballads and Muktagachha monda
• Netrokona Garo hills, china-clay lakes and haor country, with balish mishti on top
• Sherpur Garo hill forests, Tulshimala rice and chhanar payesh