Basirhat has a long history of farmer's movements like the Tebhaga movement. Basirhat subdivision was formed on 1 January 1861 as per a Government order and it consisted of Balia Pargana's Basirhāt, Kalinagār, Hāruā and Hasnābād Police Stations. Previously, Basirhat was under the jurisdiction of Barasat sub-division and was named as Basurhāt till 1896. Basirhat municipality was established on 1 April 1869 and it is divided into 23 wards covering an area of 22.5 km².
Geography
Police station
Basirhat police station covers an area of 267 km2 and serves a population of 637,538. Basirhat PS has under it Basirhat town outpost and two other outposts at Panitor and Boatghat. The police district has a 22 km border, out which 14 km is land border and 8 km is riverine border. 11 km of the border remains unfenced. Basirhat PS has jurisdiction over Basirhat municipal area and Basirhat I CD Block. Around half of the 4,095 km long India-Bangladesh border has been fenced and vigil along the border has been tightened up. As of 2017, Cattle smuggling across the border was unofficially estimated to be a Rs. 4,000 crore business, half of it across the Basirhat border and the balance through Malda and Murshidabad. In 2017, The Sunday Guardian reported, “The crackdown by the Border Security Force on the illegal, but lucrative, business of cow smuggling along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, resulted in immense resentment among a section of the area’s minority community. This culminated in the communal flare-up in the state’s Basirhat sub-division earlier this month. A source close to the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress told The Sunday Guardian over phone, “Cow smuggling to Bangladesh, through the riverine border in Basirhat, Taki and other adjoining areas, has taken a hit as the BSF has become very strict and is maintaining a constant vigil. This has hurt the locals, who were earning crores from these illegal activities. Rendered jobless, they blamed the situation on the majority community.””
CD Block HQ
The headquarters of Basirhat I CD Block are located at Basihat.
Demographics
As per the 2011 census, Basirhat Urban Agglomeration had a population of 144,891, out of which 73,491 were males and 71,400 were females. The 0–6 years population was 12,578. Effective literacy rate for the 7+ population was 86.88 percent. Bengali is the principal language spoken in the area.
Education
was established in 1947. Affiliated with the West Bengal State University, it offers honours courses in Bengali, English, Sanskrit, philosophy, political science, history, geography, education, accountancy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, physiology and economics. It also offers general courses in arts, science and commerce, and a post-graduate course in Bengali.
