ਅਬੋਹਰਅਬੋਹਰ

Abohar is the largest city of Punjab's Fazilka district, a municipal corporation of about 145,000 people near the India-Pakistan border and the Rajasthan line. It is Punjab's kinnow capital, with the Abohar belt growing up to 60 percent of the state's kinnow crop, and it hosts the unusual Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary, where the Bishnoi community protects blackbucks on its own farmland.

Where is Abohar?

Abohar stands in the south-western corner of Punjab, about 32 kilometres south of Fazilka town, close to the India-Pakistan border and the Rajasthan boundary. It is the nearest border town to Fazilka and a meeting point between Punjab and Rajasthan, within reach of Haryana as well. The city lies at 30.1334 degrees north and 74.2001 degrees east, at an elevation of 180 metres. The 2011 census counted 145,302 people here, 76,984 men and 68,318 women. Punjabi is the official language, spoken alongside Hindi and Bagri; about 83 percent of residents are Hindu and about 16 percent Sikh. From Abohar it is roughly 76 kilometres west to Bathinda, 217 kilometres south-west to Ludhiana, and 300 kilometres to Chandigarh, while Lahore in Pakistan lies about 156 kilometres to the west-north-west as the crow flies.

Why is Abohar called the kinnow capital?

Because the orchards around it grow an outsized share of the region's favourite winter citrus. The Abohar belt alone contributes up to 60 percent of Punjab's total kinnow output. The sandy soil and canal water of the region suit citrus, and the harvest travels from Abohar's mandis across northern India every winter. The city is sometimes called the 'California of Punjab' for its rich soil, irrigation and fruit. Cotton, mustard and wheat grow here too, and the old mandis still trade in the region's farm produce.

History: from Akbar's records to a cotton town

Abohar is older than its orchards. In Book II of the Ain-i-Akbari, the Mughal revenue record, it appears as Abuhar, a pargana under the Sarkar of ਸਰਹਿੰਦ in the Subah of Delhi, a fiscal district with defined boundaries and assessed land revenue. The city also has a Tughluq connection: Firoz Shah Tughluq's mother, Bibi Naila, came from Abohar, and his court historian Shams-i Siraj Afif lived here. A mud fort once defined the old town.

Under the British, Abohar became a hub of horse breeding and a major cotton trading centre, doing business with Karachi and other mandis. Partition in 1947 left it in Ferozepur district, just short of the Radcliffe Line; in 2011 it became part of the new Fazilka district. A city museum project is working to gather this heritage in one place.

The blackbuck sanctuary

Abohar's most unusual distinction is not a building but an animal. The Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary is an open sanctuary spread over 18,650 hectares of farmland across 13 villages, and the forest department owns none of the land: the Bishnoi community protects the blackbuck on its own fields.

The Bishnois are a Hindu sect founded in Rajasthan in the late fifteenth century, known for treating the blackbuck as sacred. In Abohar, Chaudhary Sant Kumar Bishnoi of Dotaranwali village, born in 1915, turned his family's patrolling against poachers into an organised movement and formed the All India Wildlife Defense Bishnoi Committee. At the community's request, the Punjab government notified 13 villages, from Raipura to Bazidpur Bhoma, as the Abohar Wildlife Sanctuary in 1975; in 2000 the villages were legally declared a sanctuary under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Sant Kumar received the Indira Gandhi Environment Award in 1992.

The blackbuck is Punjab's state animal, and this is the only area in the state where it is still found in the wild, alongside nilgai, chinkara, wild boar, porcupine, hare and jackal. A 2011 wildlife census counted about four thousand deer here, though recent numbers are disputed and stray dogs have become a serious threat. At Maharana village, the Shaheed Mata Amrita Devi Bishnoi Park honours 363 Bishnois who gave their lives in Jodhpur three centuries ago protesting the felling of trees.

What to see in Abohar

The Ghanta Ghar clock tower in Bazaar No. 9 and Bhagat Singh Chowk are the old city's landmarks. Gurdwara Nanaksar on the Fazilka Road and the historic Gurdwara Badtirath at Haripura draw devotees from the surrounding villages, and the Panjpir shrine holds a fair every Thursday. DAV College is the city's best-known educational institution, and the Central Institute of Postharvest Engineering and Technology runs a campus here for research on fruits and vegetables. In the kinnow season, the orchards and the fruit mandis are the real sights.

Getting there and the town today

Abohar is a railway junction, connected by rail towards Delhi via Bathinda and towards Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan, and by road to Fazilka, Malout and the Rajasthan towns across the border. It is a working market town rather than a tourist stop, but between the kinnow orchards, the blackbuck villages and the old bazaars, it gives a visitor a clear picture of south-western Punjab.