MALVA, not to be mixed with a tract of this name in Central India, is one of the three main divisions of the present Punjab state of India, the other two being Majha and Doaba. It is in the shape of a rough parallelogram lying between 29°-30′ and 31°-10′ North latitudes and 73°-50′ and 76°-50′ East longitudes, bounded by the River Sutlej in the north, Haryana in the east and the south, Rajasthan in the southwest corner, and by Bahawalpur state of Pakistan in the west. Malva comprises eleven of the seventeen administrative districts of Punjab, viz., Firozpur, Faridkot, Moga, Muktsar, Bathinda, Sangrur, Mansa, Ludhiana, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Ropar, excluding its Nurpur Bedi tahsil or sub-division which falls across the Sutlej and geographically lies in the Doaba region.
G.A. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. IX, Part I, who based his demarcation on the spoken dialect Malvai, would exclude the present Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Ropar districts and part of Ludhiana district from Malva because of a different dialect, Povadhi, spoken there. But because of demographic changes consequent upon partition of the country (1947) and subsequent allocation of a major part of Povadhi-speaking area to the newly created state of Haryana (1966), it is not inappropriate to call the entire cis-Sutlej tract of the present Punjab as Malva. Malva is a dialectical variation of the Sanskrit word Mallava, which was the name of an ancient tribe (Malloi of the Greek accounts) who challenged, though unsuccessfully, the might of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC and might have later migrated to the south of the Sutlej, giving the name Malva, the land of the Mallavas, to their new homeland.
With an area of 32,808 square km and a population of 11,817,142 (1991 census), Malva is the largest region of the present Punjab. It has 65.1 per cent of the total area and 58.5 per cent of the total population—360.1 per square km against 401 per square km for the entire state. The density of population district-wise varies vastly between Ludhiana (629) and Firozpur (272). Till the latter part of the nineteenth century, Malva, leaving aside a narrow strip along the Sutlej, was an arid semi-desert covered with slow-growing trees such as van (Quercus incana) and jand (Prosopis spicigera) and thorny bushes like karir (Capparis aphylla) and malha beri, a kind of jujube. Although by and large a plain country, the region, especially its southern and southwestern parts, had become undulated with mounds of sand blown in from Rajasthan by southwesterly winds. Cultivation was almost entirely dependent upon rain which was erratic and usually scanty.
Introduction of canal irrigation with the renovation of the Sirhind canal initiated a change which, strengthened by later developments—especially the harnessing of water resources and the availability of cheap hydro-electricity—culminated in intensive agriculture of the 1960s and the following decades, and transformed the face of Malva and helped make Punjab the granary of India. The hardy farmers of the region, including those brought here in the aftermath of the partition of the country in 1947, converted the former forest and sandy mounds into neatly marked lush green farmlands. Major crops grown are wheat, paddy, cotton and oilseeds, with sugarcane cultivation picking up rapidly since the beginning of the 1980s.
This, coupled with the growth of small and medium-scale industry, though at a slower pace, has brought prosperity which in turn is resulting in a perceptible change for the better in education and cultural fields, although the literacy rate (45.6 per cent) still lags behind the state average (49.2 per cent). As in the case of density of population, there is vast variation also in district-wise literacy rate which ranges between 57.2 per cent for Ludhiana (highest in the state) and 32.8 per cent for Sangrur. Yet, of the three universities in the state, two are located in Malva—Punjab Agricultural University at Ludhiana and Punjabi University at Patiala—besides an autonomous college of engineering and technology at Patiala. Similarly, of the four medical colleges in the whole of Punjab, three are located in the Malva region. In the industrial field, Malva, with its two huge thermal plants, one each at Bathinda and Ropar, and industrial complexes at Ludhiana, Rajpura, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (Mohali) and Mandi Gobindgarh, is far ahead of the other two regions.
According to 1991 census figures, of the ten Punjab towns having a population of over 100,000 each, five lie in Malva. Ludhiana (1,012,062 persons) is the most populous city in the state. Malva’s part in the history of the Sikhs dates back to the time of Guru Nanak, whose peregrinations also covered this ancient land. Guru Angad’s birthplace, Sarai Nanga, lies in Malva. Guru Hargobind, Guru Har Rai, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh travelled extensively through this area. Many eminent Sikhs such as Bhai Bhagatu, Bhai Bahilo and Bhai Mani Singh came from Malva.
The years following the death in 1708 of Guru Gobind Singh were the most turbulent period of Sikh history, when the Mughal governors of Punjab and later the Afghan invaders had let loose a reign of terror and religious persecution against the Sikhs. The jungles of Malva, with their comparative inaccessibility on account of shortage of water and other scarcities impeding large-scale operations, provided the warring Sikh bands from across the Sutlej with a natural sanctuary.
Some local Sikh sardars, descendants of Bhai Phul blessed by Guru Hargobind and Guru Har Rai and collectively known as the Phulkian misl, carved out territories over which they ruled as independent or semi-independent chiefs. This is how the former Sikh states of Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Faridkot, Kalsia, Kaithal and Ladva came into existence. When Maharaja Ranjit Singh rose to power north of the Sutlej and started amalgamating other misl territories into his own dominions, the states south of the Sutlej, known as cis-Sutlej states, sought protection under the British, whose suzerainty they accepted. They became tributaries of the British empire while the districts of Ludhiana and Firozpur came under the latter’s direct rule.
Of these Sikh states, Kaithal lapsed to the British dominions on the death, without a male heir, of its last ruler, Bhai Udai Singh, in 1845, and Ladva was annexed as a punishment to its ruler, Sardar Ajit Singh, for his open support to the Sikh government of Lahore during the first Anglo-Sikh war (1845–46). The remaining five Punjab Sikh states and the Muslim state of Malerkotla continued to exist till after the independence of India in 1947. In May 1948, they, in combination with Kapurthala in the Doaba region and the sub-mountainous Hindu state of Nalagarh, formed themselves into what was called the Patiala and East Punjab States Union, PEPSU for short. In 1956 PEPSU was amalgamated with Punjab, which was further split into Haryana and the Punjabi-speaking state of Punjab on 1 November 1966.
References:
- Visakha Singh, Sant, Malva Itihas, 3 vols. Kishanpura, 1954.
- Malva Des Ratan di Sakhi Pothi. Amritsar, 1968.
- Latif, Syad Muhammad, History of the Punjab. Delhi, 1977.
- Cunningham, Joseph Davey, A History of the Sikhs. London, 1849.
The Story of Malva
Malva, the great southern tract of Punjab, stretches like a vast parallelogram between the Sutlej River in the north and the deserts of Rajasthan in the southwest. For centuries, this land was rugged and arid, dotted with thorny bushes and windswept sand dunes. Yet it was here that some of the most defining chapters of Punjab’s story unfolded.
The name Malva itself carries echoes of antiquity. It comes from the Mallavas, an ancient tribe remembered in Greek accounts as the Malloi, who once stood against Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. Though they could not defeat him, their spirit endured, and their descendants gave their name to this land south of the Sutlej.
For generations, Malva was a semi-desert, its farmers dependent on erratic rains. But with the coming of canals and later hydroelectric power, the face of Malva changed. By the mid-20th century, its hardy cultivators had transformed barren soil into lush fields of wheat, cotton, and sugarcane. Malva became the beating heart of Punjab’s agricultural revolution, helping to make the state the granary of India.
Yet Malva is more than farmland. It is a cradle of Sikh history. Guru Nanak’s journeys brought him here, and Guru Angad was born in Sarai Nanga, within its bounds. Guru Hargobind, Guru Har Rai, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and Guru Gobind Singh all traveled across this land, leaving behind footprints of faith and resilience. Eminent Sikhs such as Bhai Bhagatu, Bhai Bahilo, and Bhai Mani Singh hailed from Malva, carrying its spirit into the wider Sikh world.
In the turbulent years after Guru Gobind Singh’s passing in 1708, Malva’s forests and sandy tracts became sanctuaries for embattled Sikh bands. Here they regrouped, fought, and survived against Mughal governors and Afghan invaders. From these struggles rose the Phulkian misl, descendants of Bhai Phul, who carved out territories that later became the princely states of Patiala, Nabha, Jind, and Faridkot. These states, along with Malerkotla, endured through the colonial era and eventually merged into modern Punjab after independence.
Today, Malva is the largest region of Punjab, home to Ludhiana—the state’s most populous city—and to centers of learning like Punjab Agricultural University and Punjabi University. Its industries, thermal plants, and universities stand alongside its gurdwaras and farmlands, symbols of both tradition and progress.
