Batala

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Batala, a town located on the Amritsar-Pathankot railway line, is a sub-divisional headquarters of Gurdaspur district of Punjab state, India. The town has a historical importance in the history of Sikhism as Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikh faith was married to Bibi Sulakhni, the daughter of Moolchand Chona, a trader from this town.[1] Batala is a market place for agricultural commodities. The town has several industrial and manufacturing facilities, particularly connected with cotton weaving and ginning; and production of sugar.

Batala is 39km from the famous city Amritsar. It's a beautiful city with many historical places to visit but is most famous for its Gurudwara Kandh Saheb. Its famous because Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji (First guru of sikhs)said that,"EH KANDH REHNDI DUNIYA TAK RAHEGI". that is "This wall will not fall as long as the world exists".Many people visit to see this wall or the magic created by god.

The real name of the city was VATALA and by the time it has been changed to BATALA.The People here are quite religious.The most famous personality from this city was Shiv Kumar Batalvi and famous industrailist like S.Jagat Singh Matharoo , H.S.Heera(Matharoo), S Karam Singh Bhullar and many other Industrailist as the city was called "The city of Industries" .

The Weather here is very hot in summers and bitter cold in winters with almost zero visibility due to fog. There is a very famous temple of Lord Kartike known as temple of Achaleshwar Mahadev situated at Jalandhar road.the city is known for its cast iron casting industry.

Batala is famous for cast iron industries.Many of the foundaries have to close down their opertions due to recent downfall between 1995-2004. Even the old companies like Capital Engg Works, Khalsa Foundry etc, Micro Engg works couldn't survive. The shut down took many good industrialists But today again the machine tools industry boasts for its monopoly in this area like Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh.

It has a large Ramgarhia and Aggarwal community. People from both these communities are industrialists.

Batala also has Maharaja Sher Singh's Mahal which is now Baring Union Christian college. It also has Baradari. It should not be forgotten that city had a huge Muslim population prior to the partition of India in 1947. Infact it was widely believed that this city shall become part of the new state Pakistan. But it was given to Bharat instead. This award is still debated in certain academic and intellectual circles in Pakistan. The Muslim community made a significant conmtribution to the industrial character the city acquired in later years. Two very famous industrial names of that ear were Batala Engineering Company and Hindustan Engineering works. It is amazing how a tiny place can produce so many great names. The rather obscure town of Batala on the Indian side of Punjab -- only 50 miles east of Lahore -- has given us quite a few Batalvis. Batala has given us greats in the fields of politics, literature, history, poetry, Islam, and law. Someone should carry out a serious study into the Batala phenomenon. What caused it? Was it just coincidence, of the right sort of people being in the right place at the right time? Was it the early schooling and family training? Or was it the Punjabi ‘hawa’ (air)? Not content with merely coming from this town, these chaps proudly announce their association with it by using the surname ‘Batalvi’. And wherever they go, they take Batala with them. In Pakistan we even have a Batala Colony in the city of Faisalabad. Pakistan’s famous Batalvis were the prominent historian Ashiq Hussain Batalvi and the legal man Ijaz Hussain Batalvi. Our own distinguished scholar-journalist Khaled Ahmed once reminded me, “Not only was Ashiq from Batala, KK Aziz’s town [more on this later], but also my other great, Ghulam Ahmad Parvez”. India has given us the Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi, and the list for the pre-partition period includes the following names: Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, the Punjab chief; Allama Mashriqi, the founder-leader of the Khaksar movement; and Maulvi Muhammad Husain Batalvi, the Ahl-i-Hadith leader. Khaled Ahmed also e-mailed me some years back: “According to KK Aziz, in his biography of his father, Punjab’s strong man Sir Fazl-i-Hussain was a Chauhan Rajput from Batala. His daughter married Manzur Qadir, the famous lawyer and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister”.The Fazl-i-Hussain family members are old family friends of Professor KK Aziz. I gather that KK’s grandfather was a friend of Sir Fazl-i-Hussain’s father, Hussain Bakhsh. It was Husain Bakhsh who had suggested that KK’s father go to England for higher education, which he did. KK himself followed later with a PhD in history from Manchester University. Another Batalvi is Mian Kifayat Ali (1902-1994), who used the pen name ‘A Punjabi’. Kifayat wrote the well-known book ‘Confederacy of India’ (1939). This book has been referred to as “the most comprehensive and far-reaching scheme aimed at furthering and elaborating the idea of Pakistan”. KK Aziz fondly recalls his early days in Batala and would love to visit the Indian town. Now that the Indo-Pak relations are improving perhaps more and more people will be able to cross over and visit the places of their birth or the places of their youth in the pre-1947 era. And about time, too. While discussing his early days in Batala, KK Aziz recalled that he had seen Allama Mashriqi during a rally in the town. Mashriqi was a great and fiery orator who had the audience spellbound. Allama Mashriqi (died 1963) was a Cambridge man (Christ’s College). KK Aziz once wrote a letter to me on the subject of cats and what is interesting is that he also brings in his other love, that is Batala. He writes in his letter: “I was not unfamiliar with having cats as pets in the house. I am a village boy and as a baby had cats sleeping with me. I grew up with them. Later in Batala when I was a schoolboy there were several cats in the house. But later when we moved to Lahore the evils of ‘urbandom’ caught up with us”. KK Aziz also knew Ashiq Hussain Batalvi’s family in Batala, a “well-educated lot with brilliant conversation skills”. Khaled Ahmed has written: “Ashiq Hussain Batalvi is undoubtedly the greatest historian in my view on the basis of his classic, Allama Iqbal kay Akhri do sal, his three volumes on the Pakistan Movement, and his most entertaining sketches of the personalities of the years prior to the creation of Pakistan”. There are far too many prominent Batalvis for the size and importance of the town. With distinguished persons on either side of the Indo-Pak border, a town such as Batala can bring the people together and lead to greater harmony in the region. Let there be greater ‘cross-border tourism’ and intermingling for the benefit of the masses.