Shahkotਸ਼ਾਹਕੋਟ

History

Shahkot's history is that of a Doaba market town on the southern road out of Jalandhar. It served the villages between the Beas-Sutlej interfluve as their administrative centre, and with the reorganisation of districts it became one of the five tehsils — and a full subdivision — of Jalandhar district. Its position near the Sutlej, the river that marks the Doaba–Malwa boundary, made it a crossing-point town, and the Jalandhar–Moga road (old NH-71, now NH-703) runs through its heart.

The town's modern fame is agricultural rather than monumental: Shahkot's red chillies are prized across Punjab, and in the harvest season the town's rooftops are spread with drying peppers, turning whole neighbourhoods crimson — the sight the town is known by.

Geography & people

Shahkot lies at about 209–244 metres above sea level on NH-703, south-west of Jalandhar city and close to the Sutlej. The town's own population is roughly fifteen thousand (2011), while the tehsil holds over 1.6 lakh people across some 176 villages. Punjabi — the Doabi dialect — is the mother tongue; Hindus and Sikhs form the great majority. Literacy, at over 80 per cent in the town, runs well above the national average.

The Sutlej's proximity shapes the land: fertile, well-watered fields growing wheat, paddy, and of course the famous chillies, plus kinnow and vegetable belts.

Places of interest

Shahkot's sights are seasonal and agricultural: the chilli-drying rooftops of the harvest months, the grain market, and the town's schools and colleges. The Sutlej riverbank is a short drive away. Lohian Khas, the neighbouring nagar panchayat town, shares the tehsil, and Sultanpur Lodhi — Guru Nanak's town — is within reach to the north.

Notable people

Shahkot is known in Punjab's sporting lore as the home of Mehardeen, the famous kushti pehlwan (wrestler) whose bouts drew crowds across the Doaba. In public life the town is the assembly constituency that sent Jathedar Ajit Singh Kohar to the Punjab cabinet as transport minister. Its schools — a cluster of public and convent schools — have educated generations of the southern Doaba.