The name of Moga may be
derived from the Indo-Scythian king, Maues, who invaded and ruled the area in the 1st century BCE after conquering the Indo-Greek polities of the region.[3]
The city may also have been named after Moga Gill, who along his brother Vega Gill, were men of importance among the Wadan Gills.[4]
History
Ancient era
Structures and sites dating before the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar are exceedingly rare due to the changing course of the Sutlej river throughout the centuries. As a result, very few sites dating back to antiquity have been uncovered in the local area of Moga. This effect is more pronounced in the western parts of the district.
The location of ancient villages and towns can be inferred from the presence of mounds of earth, brick, and pottery that have been excavated called thehs. These mounds are evidence that the banks of the river were inhabited in ancient times. Several coins have been discovered at the site of these mounds.[5]
Indus Valley civilisation
Sites identified as belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization have been discovered in the area. Scholars have linked these finds to other sites uncovered in the Rupnagar area of Punjab.[5][6][7]
Vedic period
The composition of the Rigveda is proposed to have occurred in the Punjab circa 1500 and 1200 BCE.[8]
Post-Vedic period (After 600 BCE)
The region of Moga belongs to the Malwai cultural zone, named after the ancient Malava tribe whom inhabited the area in ancient times.[9] During the reign of Porus in the 4th century BCE, the southern area of Punjab was ruled by both the Kshudrakas and Malavas. Some scholars believe they were pushed southwards due to martial and social pressures occurring in the north.[10]Alexander of Macedon warred with the Malavas for control of the region. This wrestle for power is recorded as being fierce and bitter in Greek historical accounts.[9] After the withdrawal of Macedonian forces in the area, the Malavas joined with anti-Greek forces to usurp Hellenistic power and control of the region, leading to the formation of the Mauryan dynasty.
The decline of the Mauryan dynasty coincided with an invasion of Bactrian Greeks, who successfully took control of the region in the second century BCE. This seizure of power in Punjab by the Bactrians led to the migration of the Malavas from the area to Rajasthan and from there to the now called Malwa plateau of Central India covering southern Rajasthan and western Madhya Pradesh.
Mediaeval era
The area is believed to have been under the writ of the Punwar clan of Rajputs during the early mediaeval period.[11] They were headquartered in Janer, at the old riverbed location of the Sutlej river, over six kilometres north of the present-day city of Moga. Later on, the Bhati clan of Rajputs, originating from Jaisalmer, established themselves in the area, superseding the previous Punwars for the authority in the region.
Jat tribes, whom had been practising migratory, nomadic-pastoralism for much of their recorded history, began to permanently settle the Moga area during this time and take up a sedentary lifestyle of settled agriculture.[12][13][14] First of them being the Dhaliwal clan, who firmly established themselves southeast of Moga at Kangar. They appear to have possibly obtained high repute, seeing as a woman of the clan, Dharm, who was the daughter of Chaudhary Mihr Mitha Dhaliwal, was wedded to the Mughal emperor Akbar.[15] The Gill clan of Jats, originally based in Bathinda, dispersed to the western parts of Moga district around this time. At the end of the 16th century, the Sidhu clan of Jats migrated northwards to the area from Rajasthan. A branch of the Sidhus, the Brars, established themselves in the south of Gill territory, pushing its former inhabitants northwards whilst taking control of their key places in the process. The Brars founded a chieftainship at Kot Kapura, 40 kilometres west of present-day Moga, and rebelled against the overlordship of Nawab Ise Khan, the Manj governor. Most of the Jat tribes of the local area were converted to Sikhism by the missionary works of the seventh Guru of the Sikhs, Har Rai.
In 1715 CE, Nawab Ise Khan, the Manj governor, stirred a rebellion against the Mughal hegemony but was defeated and killed. In 1760 CE, the ascendency of Sikh power became grounded after the defeat of Adina Beg, who was the last Mughal governor of Lahore.
Modern era
Sikh period
The forces of Tara Singh, the misldar of the Dallewalia Misl of the Sikh Confederacy, led incursions into modern-day Moga district, all the way to Ramuwala and Mari. Fortresses (ਕਿਲਾ Kilā in Punjabi) were constructed at both places by the Sikh misl. The local nawab of Kot Ise Khan in modern-day Moga district became a protectorate of the Ahluwalia Misl. In 1763-64 CE, Gurja (Gujar) Singh, his brother Nusbaha Singh, and his two nephews, Gurbaksh Singh and Mastan Singh, of the Bhangi Misl, crossed the Sutlej river after a sacking of Kasur and gained control of the Firozepur area (including Moga) whilst Jai Singh Gharia, another band from the same quarters, seized Khai, Wan, and Bazidpur, and subordinated them.[5]
British period
During the First Anglo-Sikh War, the forces of the Sikh Empire crossed the river Sutlej on 16 December 1845, and fought battles at Mudki, Firozshah, Aliwal, and Sabraon. The Sikh forces were defeated by the British and retreated beyond the Sutlej. After the war, the British acquired all former territory of the Lahore Darbar south and east of the Sutlej. When the Sutlej campaign finished at the end of 1846, the territories of Khai, Baghuwala, Ambarhar, Zira, and Mudki, with portions of Kot Kapura, Guru Har Sahai, Jhumba, Kot Bhai, Bhuchcho, and Mahraj were added to the Firozepur district. Other acquisitions by the British were divided between the Badhni and Ludhiana districts. In 1847, the Badhni district was dissolved and the following areas were incorporated into the Firozepur district: Mallanwala, Makhu, Dharmkot, Kot Ise Khan, Badhni, Chuhar Chak, Mari, and Sadasinghwala.[5]
During the Mutiny of 1857, there were reports of a Roman Catholic church being burnt down amongst other buildings of the colonial establishment in Firozepur district during sparks of tension.[16]
During the late 19th century, the Kuka movement was prevalent in the areas of Moga, with many of its followers drawing from the laypersons of the district.[17][18] The Kukas are believed to be one of the first resistance movement of the subcontinent towards Indian independence from European powers.[19]
During the Indian Independence Movement, many revolutionaries came from Moga district. Many of them were tried and executed as a result of their activities against the colonial government.[20]
As per provisional data of 2011 census Moga urban agglomeration had a population of 159,897, out of which males were 84,808 and females were 75,089. The effective literacy rate was 81.42 per cent.[1]
The table below shows the population of different religious groups in Moga city and their gender ratio, as of 2011 census.
Population by religious groups in Moga city, 2011 census[22]
As of 2001[update] India census, the town of Moga had a population of 124,624. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Moga has an average literacy rate of 68%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 71%, and female literacy is 66%. In Moga, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age.[23]
Education
Below is the list of notable educational institutes in Moga:
Moga is well connected by road to the following nearby cities, by the following highway routes:
NH5 to Chandigarh and Shimla in the northeast and to Ferozpur in the West
Notable people
This article's list of residents may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are residents, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. (July 2022)
^Nomads in the sedentary world. Anatoly M. Khazanov, André. Wink. London: Routledge. 2001. ISBN978-0-203-03720-1. OCLC820853396. Hiuen Tsang gave the following account of a numerous pastoral-nomadic population in seventh-century Sin-ti (Sind): 'By the side of the river..[of Sind], along the flat marshy lowlands for some thousand li, there are several hundreds of thousands [a very great many] families ..[which] give themselves exclusively to tending cattle and from this derive their livelihood. They have no masters, and whether men or women, have neither rich nor poor.' While they were left unnamed by the Chinese pilgrim, these same people of lower Sind were called Jats' or 'Jats of the wastes' by the Arab geographers. The Jats, as 'dromedary men.' were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions at that time, with numerous subdivisions, ....((cite book)): CS1 maint: others (link)
^Wink, André (2004). Indo-Islamic society: 14th – 15th centuries. BRILL. pp. 92–93. ISBN978-90-04-13561-1. In Sind, the breeding and grazing of sheep and buffaloes was the regular occupations of pastoral nomads in the lower country of the south, while the breeding of goats and camels was the dominant activity in the regions immediately to the east of the Kirthar range and between Multan and Mansura. The jats were one of the chief pastoral-nomadic divisions here in early-medieval times, and although some of these migrated as far as Iraq, they generally did not move over very long distances on a regular basis. Many jats migrated to the north, into the Panjab, and here, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, the once largely pastoral-nomadic Jat population was transformed into sedentary peasants. Some Jats continued to live in the thinly populated barr country between the five rivers of the Panjab, adopting a kind of transhumance, based on the herding of goats and camels. It seems that what happened to the jats is paradigmatic of most other pastoral and pastoral-nomadic populations in India in the sense that they became ever more closed in by an expanding sedentary-agricultural realm.
^Dalal, Sukhvir Singh (April 2013). "Jat Jyoti". Jat Jyoti. Jat Biographical Centre B-49, First Floor, Church Road, Joshi Colony, I. P. Extension Delhi 110092: Jat Biographical Centre: 7.((cite journal)): CS1 maint: location (link)
^Punjab Government Records, Mutiny Reports. Vol. VIII. pp. Pt.I, pp. 47–57, pt.II, pp. 208–210, 331.
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