Balachaurਬਲਾਚੌਰ

History

Balachaur's origin story belongs to legend. The royal family of Jaipur is said to have visited the place for meditation and named the tehsil 'Balachaur' after their son Balraj. A stronger local tradition holds that in 1539 Sher Shah Suri — the founder of the Sur Empire — sought the blessings of the holy man Raj Dev before launching his attack on the Mughal emperor Humayun. Raj Dev died in 1596, and the locals built a tomb in his honour, where he is revered as Baba Balraj. In 1949 the Balraj Mandir Committee was formed to manage the shrine, with Zaildar Balwant Singh as its first president.

In recorded history Balachaur grew as the administrative town for the villages at the eastern edge of the Doaba, near the Shivalik foothills. It became the chief town of its tehsil in Nawanshahr district (1995), renamed Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in 2008, and today hosts the government offices that serve the surrounding countryside.

Geography & people

Balachaur stands at about 260 metres above sea level on the roads linking Nawanshahr with Rupnagar and Anandpur Sahib, at the Doaba's eastern edge where the plain meets the hills. The municipal council — 13 wards, elections every five years — counted 21,631 people in 2011. Punjabi is the everyday language. The town serves as an administrative hub: tehsil offices, courts and the Baba Balraj Government College on Bhaddi Road, which brought higher education to a region that long lacked it.

The surrounding country grows wheat, maize and paddy, with the Shivalik foothills rising to the east.

Places of interest

The tomb and temple of Baba Balraj is Balachaur's spiritual centre and the anchor of its founding legend. The town's government offices, grain market and college campus are its civic landmarks. The Shivalik foothills to the east — and Anandpur Sahib beyond — make the town a gateway to the hill edge of the Doaba.

Notable people

Balachaur's notable figure is a saint rather than a statesman: Baba Balraj (Raj Dev, d. 1596), the revered holy man of its founding legend, whose tomb remains a place of veneration more than four centuries after his death. In modern times the town is known for its educators — the staff of Baba Balraj Government College, which opened the doors of higher education to the tehsil's villages.