ਬਦਰੁਖਾਨਬਦਰੁਖਾਨ

Where is Badrukhan?

Badrukhan is a large village in Sangrur tehsil of ਸੰਗਰੂਰ district, Punjab, in the Malwa region, standing on the Sangrur to Barnala road about 5 kilometres from Sangrur city. The 2011 directory recorded Sangrur, about 4 kilometres away, as its nearest town. In the census record Badrukhan carries village code 039772, covers 2,084 hectares and has PIN code 148001. It falls in the Sangrur community development block and has its own gram panchayat, and for political representation it sits in the Sunam assembly constituency and the Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency. Villages recorded around it include ਉਪਲੀ, ਅਂਧੇਰੀ, ਚੱਠਾ ਸੇਖਵਾਂ and ਖਿਲਰਿਆਂ.

A capital of the Jind State

Few villages in Punjab carry a history like Badrukhan's. The village's own recorded history says that the people of five small settlements, Vada Agwarh, Vichla Agwarh, Dalamwal, Dhaliwas and Thagan wali Patti, went under the leadership of Pandit Badru to Gajpat Singh, the Phulkian ruler of Jind, asking for protection from dacoits. Gajpat Singh joined the five settlements into one village and named it Badrukhan after Pandit Badru. In 1763, when Gajpat Singh founded his state after the fall of Sirhind and took the town of Jind, Badrukhan was made the capital of the Jind State, and he built a fort here. The fort still stands in the village: the Sangrur district's list of historical places records Fort Badrukhan as the residence of Raj Kaur, and a Punjab government tender in 2021 covered a park and a statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh for the village.

The maternal village of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Badrukhan's deepest link is with the founder of the Sikh Empire. Raj Kaur, the daughter of Gajpat Singh of Jind, was born at Badrukhan in about 1758. She married Maha Singh of the Sukerchakia Misl and became the mother of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, so Badrukhan is Ranjit Singh's maternal village, his nanke. A local belief holds that Ranjit Singh himself was born here; the standard histories give his birthplace as Gujranwala, where he was born on 13 November 1780, and this page records the Badrukhan claim as the village's belief, not as settled fact. What is not in dispute is the honour the village still receives for the connection: on 29 June 2023 the Punjab government held the state level function for the Maharaja's 184th death anniversary at Badrukhan, where a statue of him installed by the government stands, and the village's government senior secondary school carries his mother's name, the Mata Raj Kaur PM Shri Government Senior Secondary School.

People and work

The 2011 census counted 8,601 people in Badrukhan: 4,538 men and 4,063 women living in 1,695 households, about 5.1 people to a household. Spread over 2,084 hectares, the density works out to about 413 people per square kilometre. The sex ratio was 895 women for every 1,000 men. Children up to the age of six numbered 870, about 10 per cent of the village. Scheduled Castes made up 2,782 people, about 32 per cent of the population, and no Scheduled Tribe population was recorded. The village grew from 7,762 people in 2001 to 8,601 in 2011, a rise of about 11 per cent.

Literacy in 2011 stood at 66.74 per cent among residents aged seven and above, with men at 71.15 per cent and women at 61.82 per cent. The census recorded 2,700 workers, about 31 per cent of the village. Of the 2,409 main workers, the largest group, 1,110 people, were other workers in trade, transport and services, ahead of 905 cultivators and 352 agricultural labourers; a further 291 people were marginal workers. Counting everyone, the village held 943 cultivators against 383 agricultural labourers: this close to Sangrur city, most farm work is done by the landholding families themselves, and the biggest single workforce already works outside farming.

Land and farming

Farming still covers most of Badrukhan's land. Of the village's 2,084 hectares, 1,847 hectares were net sown area in the 2011 record, and every sown hectare was irrigated, but the water here comes mostly from below the ground: wells and tube-wells irrigated 1,539 hectares against just 308 hectares from canals, the reverse of the canal villages further south. About 223 hectares were under non-agricultural uses and only 14 hectares were barren. Farm power supply was recorded at 6 hours a day.

Harbaksh Singh and the village's soldiers

Badrukhan's best documented son is Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh, born in the village on 1 October 1913, the youngest of seven children. His father, Dr Harnam Singh, was the first person from Badrukhan to become a doctor. Harbaksh Singh joined the first course of the Indian Military Academy in 1933, fought against the Japanese in Malaya, survived years as a prisoner of war, and in the 1965 war with Pakistan he commanded India's Western Command, the army that held the Punjab front; he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1966. The village's recorded notable list also names his brother, Major General Gurbakhsh Singh, and Pandit Durga Das Bhardwaj, who served as a revenue minister of the old Jind State. None of these men yet has an entry of his own on Jugti; they are recorded here as candidates for the people collection.

Schools

Education in the village runs through one government primary school, one government middle school, one government secondary school and one government senior secondary school, so children can study in Badrukhan up to Class 12. The senior secondary school carries the name Mata Raj Kaur, after the village's most famous daughter, and its full present day name is recorded as the Mata Raj Kaur PM Shri Government Senior Secondary School Badrukhan.

Health and daily services

Health facilities recorded inside the village in 2011 were a primary health centre, a dispensary and a veterinary hospital, with no health sub-centre, community health centre or allopathic hospital. Drinking water came from untreated tap water supplies, and total sanitation campaign coverage was recorded, though no community toilet complex. Badrukhan has a sub post office of its own, while the main post office was recorded 5 to 10 kilometres away; postal listings give the village branch its own PIN, 148002, beside the census PIN 148001 kept in this page's facts. Banking stands inside the village, with a commercial bank branch and a cooperative bank branch, though there was no ATM in 2011. The village also had a PDS ration shop, mobile phone coverage, an anganwadi centre and an ASHA health worker, with the internet common service centre 5 to 10 kilometres away: 23 of the census directory's 32 facility fields were positive. Domestic electricity supply was recorded at 12 hours a day.

Faith in Badrukhan

The village's historic gurdwara, described in news reports as built in memory of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, is its best known place of worship, and day to day worship is served by the village's own gurdwaras and temples. In September 2026, according to police accounts reported in the press, masked men entered the gurdwara at night and shot a sewadar, who survived; police arrested three men and said the motive was an attempted robbery. The village's faith calendar otherwise turns with the gurpurabs and with the state honours paid here each year to the Maharaja whose mother was born in Badrukhan.

Getting there

Badrukhan stands on the Sangrur to Barnala road on pucca, all-weather roads, and both public and private bus services run in the village itself. The nearest railway station was recorded 5 to 10 kilometres away, at Sangrur, which is also the tehsil and district headquarters, about 4 to 5 kilometres from the village.

What is the population of Badrukhan?

The population of Badrukhan was 8,601 at the 2011 census, living in 1,695 households in Sangrur tehsil of Sangrur district. It had grown from 7,762 in 2001.

Why is Badrukhan famous?

Badrukhan was made the capital of the Jind State in 1763 and its fort was the residence of Raj Kaur, the mother of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was born in the village. It is the birthplace of Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh, the Western Command chief of the 1965 war.

Which district is Badrukhan in?

Badrukhan is in Sangrur district, Punjab, in Sangrur tehsil and the Sangrur block. Its census village code is 039772.