Jhabal Kalanਝਬਾਲ ਕਲਾਂ

Where is Jhabal Kalan?

Jhabal Kalan, also spelt Chabhal Kalan, is a large village in Tarn Taran tehsil of Tarn Taran district, Punjab, in the Majha region. It lies about 16 kilometres west of Tarn Taran town and about 21 kilometres from Amritsar. In Mughal times the village stood on the main Delhi to Lahore highway, and the road junction here was known as Manak Chowk. Today Jhabal Kalan is also administered as a nagar panchayat town, while the census still records it as one village: code 037884, PIN 143301, covering 1,806 hectares, with its own gram panchayat.

Bibi Bhani's jagir and the Guru's visit

The village's recorded history begins in the Mughal period. Under Akbar, Jhabal was given in jagir to Bibi Bhani, daughter of Guru Amar Das and wife of Guru Ram Das, as a wedding present, and an account cited by Guru Nanak Dev University scholars credits the village with a third of the revenue of the whole Patti pargana. In May 1629 Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru, came to Jhabal to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, Bibi Viro. The shrine raised where he stayed, at the western edge of the village by the old Manak Chowk, is today Gurdwara Bibi Viro Sahib.

Mai Bhago: the warrior daughter of Jhabal

Jhabal Kalan is best known across the Sikh world as the birthplace of Mai Bhago, also called Mata Bhag Kaur (c. 1670-1720). She was born into a Dhillon family steeped in the Gurus' service: her father, Malo Shah, served in Guru Hargobind's army, and her grandfather Bhai Pero Shah was the brother of Bhai Langah, the chief of 84 villages who had become a Sikh in Guru Arjan's time. Trained in arms like her father, Mai Bhago grew up in Jhabal and married Bhai Nidhan Singh of Patti.

Her moment came in the crisis of 1704-05. As Guru Gobind Singh held out at Anandpur, forty Sikhs from the Majha, many from her own neighbourhood, signed a written disclaimer and left the Guru. Mai Bhago was disgraced by their desertion and shamed them publicly until they agreed to return with her. She led them across Malwa in search of the Guru, and at the pool of Khidrana they met the pursuing Mughal force. All forty died fighting and were blessed by the Guru as the Chali Mukte, the Forty Liberated Ones, and the place took the name Muktsar, the Pool of Liberation. Mai Bhago, grievously wounded, was the only one of the party to survive. She recovered, stayed with the Guru at Talwandi Sabo, and later served as one of his armed bodyguards, riding with a long lance and musket. After the Guru's death in 1708 she settled far south at Janwada, near Bidar, where her dera is now Gurdwara Tap Asthan Mai Bhago.

Generals, chiefs and historians

Mai Bhago was not Jhabal's only gift to Sikh history. Bhai Langah, her great-uncle, the chief of 84 villages, helped in the construction of the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar and stood by Guru Arjan in his last days at Lahore. In the eighteenth century the village produced Sardar Baghel Singh (c. 1730-1802), leader of the Karorsinghia misl and one of the most celebrated Sikh generals of his age, remembered among the chiefs who carried Sikh arms to Delhi.

The three Jhabalia brothers, Amar Singh, Sarmukh Singh and Jaswant Singh, took a leading part in the Gurdwara Reform movement of the 1920s, and the historian Sardar Karam Singh (1884-1930), one of the first modern historians of the Sikhs, also came from Jhabal Kalan.

Gurdwara Bibi Viro Sahib and the village's shrines

The village's senior shrine is Gurdwara Bibi Viro Sahib, on the western edge of the settlement where Guru Hargobind stayed in 1629. Its present building, raised by tradition in the eighteenth century, has a square, marble-floored hall with the sanctum at its centre, two storeys of rooms above and a dome topped by a gold-plated pinnacle, and it is managed by the SGPC through a local committee. Within its compound stands a gurdwara in memory of Mai Bhago. The village also honours her at Gurdwara Janam Asthan Mata Bhag Kaur, at her birthplace, and remembers its general at Gurdwara Baghel Singh.

Population and households

The 2011 census counted 14,564 people in Jhabal Kalan: 7,740 men and 6,824 women, in 2,821 households, about 5.2 people per household and a density of about 806 people per square kilometre. Children up to six numbered 1,751, about 12 per cent. Scheduled Castes made up 4,782 people, about 33 per cent. Literacy stood at 73.82 per cent among those aged seven and above, men at 78.08 per cent and women at 69.09 per cent. Of 4,552 workers, the largest group, 2,006 people, worked in trade, transport and services, ahead of 884 cultivators and 480 agricultural labourers.

Land and farming

Of the village's 1,806 hectares, 1,560 hectares were net sown area in 2011, and every sown hectare was irrigated, almost entirely by canal. Only about 8 hectares were under non-agricultural use. Farm power supply was recorded at eight hours a day, and most farm work is done by the landholding families themselves.

Schools and facilities

The village has government schools at every level, primary, middle, secondary and senior secondary, so children can study to Class 12 without leaving. The Census 2011 Village Directory also recorded an anganwadi centre and an ASHA worker, a post office, a PDS ration shop, mobile coverage and an internet common service centre, and banking inside the village itself: a commercial bank branch, a cooperative bank branch and an ATM. No health facility was recorded inside the village in 2011, so Tarn Taran remains the hospital town.

Getting there

Jhabal Kalan is reached by pucca, all-weather roads, with a private bus service in the village. Tarn Taran, about 16 kilometres away, is both tehsil and district headquarters, and Amritsar, with its airport and railway hub, is about 21 kilometres away. Neighbouring villages include Lalu Ghuman, Gidri Bhagiari, Pandori Hassan and Kot Siviyan.

Who was Mai Bhago?

Mai Bhago (c. 1670-1720), born in Jhabal Kalan, was the Sikh warrior who in 1705 led the forty deserters of Anandpur back to Guru Gobind Singh. The forty died at Khidrana and were blessed as the Chali Mukte; Mai Bhago survived and became the Guru's bodyguard.

What is the population of Jhabal Kalan?

Jhabal Kalan had 14,564 people at the 2011 census, in 2,821 households in Tarn Taran tehsil of Tarn Taran district.