AHLUVALIA MISL. See also MISLS Ahluvalia Misl was one of the twelve misls or Sikh confedracies which had gained power in the Punjab during the latter half of the eighteenth century, derived its name from the village of Ahlu, in Lahore district, founded by a Kalal or distiller of wine,

CHHOTA GHALLUGHARA, lit. minor holocaust or carnage, as distinguished from Vadda Ghallughara (q.v.) or major massacre, is how Sikh chronicles refer to a bloody action during the severe campaign of persecution launched by the Mughal government at Lahore against the Sikhs in 1746. Early in that year, Jaspat Rai, the

PREMA PLOT, a conspiracy allegedly engineered by Maharani Jind Kaur with the help of some Sikh sardars to assassinate Sir Henry Lawrence, the first British Resident at Lahore, and the Sikh commander in chief, Tej Singh, and to topple the British control of the Punjab. One of the factors

AZAD PUNJAB scheme, signifying a major shift in the kinds of political strategies to be pursued by Sikh political leadership in their efforts to enhance the political influence of their community, was a crucial turning point in the development of modern Sikh politics. With the introduction of the Montagu Chelmsford

HARSARAN DAS was news writer of the British government at the Sikh capital of Lahore who sent his reports to the political agent at Ludhiana. His despatches cover the period of political turmoil at Lahore from the death of Karivar Nau Nihal Singh, 8 November 1840, to the assassination of

ROUND TABLE CONFERENCES, held in London during 1930-32, were a series of high level meetings attended by representatives of the British government, rulers of Indian princely states and leaders of public opinion in British India to discuss proposals for introducing further constitutional reforms in India on the basis of the

PUNJAB BOUNDARY COMMISSION was one of the two high powered panels set up under Governor General Lord Mountbatten`s partition plan of 3 June 1947 (the other one being the Bengal Boundary Commission) to divide the Punjab between India and Pakistan, the two new states that were being carved out. The

FATUHAT NAMAH-I-SAMADI, an unpublished Persian manuscript preserved in the British Library, London, under No. Or. 1870, is an account of the victories of `Abd us-Samad Khan. Nawab Saifud Daulah `Abd usSamad Khan Bahadur Diler Jang was appointed governor of the Punjab by the Mughal Emperor Farrukh-SIyar on 22 February 1713,

SARDAR, in Persian amalgam of sar (head) and dar (a suffix derived from the verb dash tan, i.e. to hold) meaning holder of headship, is an honorific signifying an officer of rank, a general or chief of a tribe or organization. Sikhs among whom, during the time of the Guru

BENGAL AND INDIA SECRET LETTERS, also known as Letters received from India and Bengal or merely Secret Letters to the Secret Committee, preserved at the India Office Library, London. This correspondence is arranged in two series: the first covers the period 1778-1859 and the second 1817-1857. Relevant Enclosures to

HOME MISCELLANEOUS SERIES is a manuscript series of records in the India Office Library, London. It is not chronologically arranged, and seems to have been classified to absorb surplus or duplicate copies of records which could not be included in the regular series. Many of the papers in this series