Ahluwalia jatt

AHLUWALIA (Jatts and Kalals)

Main article: Ahluwalia

AHLUWALIA is the one of the twelve misls (sub-divisions) whose Commander was the supreme commander of the Dal Khalsa. The Dal Khalsa included all the misls, Sikhs who had fought under one flag and under the leadership of Nawab Jassa Singh Ahluwalia.

The AHLUWALIA are very few in number nowadays. People have almost forgotten about their bravery and about the Ahluwalia fighters of the past. That's is why people today compare Ahluwalia's with khatri community which is not correct and misleading. Many non Ahluwalias especially Hindhu Punjabi got merged into the Ahluwalia sect (they were originally from khatri or any other community) and started calling themselves Khatis and started marrying their children to other Khatri castes.

However, in contrast with Sikh values, the traditional Ahluwalia's still continue to marry their children to Ahluwalia, although this tradition is thankfully disappearing especially outside India. Apparently Ahluwalia's occupy many villages in Punjab and are regarded as big landlords as compare to jatts.

A case has been made to a certain extent that a few percentage of Khatri Sikhs got merged into the Ahluwalia community; this happened mostly after the partition when there were no records available. These communities started calling themselves Ahluwalias and shorten the name to Walia. This influx of people known as Walias were assumed to be 'Khatri' or in worse terms 'Bhapa' which has resulted in much confusion among the general Sikh community and so some people have assumed that the Ahluwalia sect to be an offshoot of Khatri caste.