Sangrurਸੰਗਰੂਰ

History

Sangrur was founded about four hundred years ago by Sanghu, a Jat — the town's name is his. Its great chapter began in the early nineteenth century, when Raja Sangat Singh of Jind (reigned 1822–34) made Sangrur the capital of Jind State, one of the Phulkian kingdoms. The Jind rulers built their capital's institutions here: the Banasar Bagh with its marble baradari — their summer retreat — the palaces, the administrative offices and the planned streets of the royal core. Gajpat Singh, the founder of Jind State, belongs to the earlier part of the story; Sangat Singh made Sangrur what it was.

In 1948 the princely order ended and Sangrur district was carved out of the territories of Patiala, Nabha, Malerkotla and Jind — with Sangrur town, the old Jind capital, as its headquarters. The town kept its administrative role and added the institutions of a modern district: courts, colleges, hospitals and, in the 2010s, the PGIMER satellite centre and the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital — the latter two making Sangrur a medical destination for the whole of southern Malwa.

Geography & people

Sangrur lies in the heart of Malwa, on the roads linking Patiala, Barnala, Bathinda and Malerkotla, with a railway station on the Ludhiana–Jakhal line — the junction town of southern Malwa. The 2011 census counted 88,043 residents in the municipal council. Punjabi is the everyday language; Sikhs form the majority. The economy mixes district-town administration, the grain market, small industry and the growing medical-educational sector around the new hospitals.

Places of interest

The Banasar Bagh — with its marble baradari in the middle of a water tank, the Jind rulers' summer retreat — is Sangrur's showpiece. The Clock Tower in the old city is the civic landmark. The town's gurdwaras and temples serve its population, and the district's villages offer the standard Malwa countryside. The new medical institutions have added a modern layer to the old capital's attractions, and the town's markets — cloth, utensils, everyday goods — carry the bustle of a district headquarters.

Notable people

Sanghu, the Jat founder of four centuries ago, gave the town its name — and the town has carried it through a princely capital, a district headquarters, and a medical hub. Gajpat Singh founded Jind State; Raja Sangat Singh made Sangrur its capital and built the Banasar Bagh. In the modern era Sangrur's name is carried by its administrators, its doctors — the new hospitals are drawing specialists — and its political figures, the district being one of Malwa's key constituencies.