Origins of the House

The family stem begins with Sadho Singh — also written Sadhu or Sadda Singh — of Ahlu village near Lahore, remembered in the Sikh tradition as a devout follower of the Gurus. From that village his descendants took the name Ahluwalia. The line runs through his son Gopal Singh to Deva (Dewa) Singh, a follower of Guru Gobind Singh, whose three sons founded the three branches of the house: Gurbakhsh Singh, Sardar (Sadar) Singh and Badar Singh.

Traditional accounts carry the ancestry further back, to the Bhatti Rajputs of Jaisalmer. Griffin recorded that claim but doubted it, and it remains a matter of family tradition rather than record.

Badar Singh (d. 1722; Griffin’s chart prints 1723) married the eldest sister of Sardar Bagh Singh of Hallo Sadho in the Lahore district, and died while his only son was a small child. That son was Nawab Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, Sultan-ul-Qaum (3 May 1718 – October 1783): raised under the patronage of Mata Sundari, adopted by Nawab Kapur Singh, commander of the Dal Khalsa from 1748, liberator of Amritsar, conqueror of Delhi in 1783, and founder of Kapurthala State. He died at Bandala and was cremated at Dera Baba Atal, Amritsar.

He left no surviving son. An infant boy died before him, and his two daughters married Raja Mehar (Mirar) Singh of Tungwala and — Sardarni Karan Kaur — Sardar Mohar (Mohan) Singh of Fatehabad. Both sons-in-law figure again in this family’s story.

The chiefship passed, by Jassa Singh’s own designation, to his cousin Nawab Bhag Singh (b. before 20 October 1746; d. 10 July 1801), son of Ladha Singh of the Gurbakhsh Singh branch. The two sons-in-law contested his right in 1783 and failed.

One compilation records that Bhag Singh died of an infection of the foot at Kapurthala Fort; another account holds that he was killed at Phagwara. The two versions are unresolved — see the Findings.

His only son, Raja Fateh Singh Ahluwalia (1784 – 20 October 1837), named for his father’s victory at Kasur, swore alliance with Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Fatehabad in 1802, signed the Treaty of Amity with the East India Company on 1 January 1806, moved the capital from Fatehabad to Kapurthala, and rode in the great campaigns of the age, from Kasur and Amritsar to Sialkot, Kashmir and the frontier. He died of malaria at Kapurthala Fort.

The Behra marriage, c. 1812

Nawab Bhag Singh also left two daughters. One married Kanwar Sukha Singh of the Bhangi house, at Fatehabad, in 1779. The other married General Sardar Rattan Singh, of Behra — a General of the Ahluwalia Misl, the forces of Riyasat Kapurthala — in the marriage from which every later generation of this family descends.

The family papers do not preserve its date; the published compilation places it in 1812, the year their son Thakur Singh was born. Griffin’s chart of 1870 marks the match simply: “Daughter m. Rattan Singh Behra.” The family record confirms that Thakur Singh was the princess’s son. Through her the Behra line carries the blood of Nawab Bhag Singh and, before him, the whole stem back to Sadho Singh of Ahlu — and stands as blood-cousin to the Rajas and Maharajas of Kapurthala down to the present titular Maharaja, Brigadier Sukhjit Singh, MVC, born 1934.