Sri Muktsar Sahibਸ੍ਰੀ ਮੁਕਤਸਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ

The Battle of Muktsar

In December 1705, on the sandy ridge outside the town then called Khidrana, forty Sikhs who had earlier deserted Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib returned to face a Mughal force many times their number. Led by Mai Bhago, they fought to the last man, holding the imperial army long enough for the Guru to escape. The Guru, watching from a nearby mound, tore up the disclaimer they had signed and blessed them as the Forty Liberated Ones, the Chaali Mukte.

The town was renamed Muktsar, the pool of liberation, for the sarovar at its heart, and in 2012 the district's name was raised to Sri Muktsar Sahib. Gurdwara Tuti Gandhi Sahib marks where the Guru stood, and the Shahid Ganj memorial holds the cremation site of the forty.

Maghi and the fairs

Every January, the Maghi fair fills Muktsar with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims honouring the forty martyrs. It is among the great religious gatherings of Malwa, part pilgrimage and part rural festival, with wrestling bouts, folk singers and political conferences sharing the fairground. The district's religious calendar turns around this single week.

The district today

Sri Muktsar Sahib district, with about 902,000 people counted in 2011 across roughly 2,615 square kilometres, sits at Punjab's southwestern edge near the Rajasthan border. Its fields grow cotton, wheat and paddy, and its towns of Gidderbaha and Malout serve as mandi centres. Village-level pages for Sri Muktsar Sahib district are being added to the Kosh.