Early Period Before the rise of the Indus Valley civilization nearly 5,000 years ago, there were fortified towns in what is now Punjab. The area was brought into the Harappan civilization until about 1700 B.C. The Aryans, advancing from the northwest around 1500 B.C., completely overran the area. Successive invaders were assimilated with the Aryans and formed the ethnic stock of the Punjabis, Jats, and Rajputs.

The area played an important part in the development of Hindu beliefs, for there the ideas of the Vedas, the most sacred of Hindu religious books, took shape. In the 200's B.C., it was brought into the Maurya Empire. About 1,500 years later, it became a vital region for the Muslim kings of the Delhi Sultanate. It became a central region for the Mughal emperors.

The word Punjab is derived from the Persian words panj (five) and ab (water) and was the name applied to the region of the five rivers-Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

Rise of Sikhism. During the early 1500's, the preaching of the religious teacher Guru Nanak in the Punjab region inspired the development of the Sikh religion. Nanak became the Sikh's first guru or leader. In 1577, the fourth guru Ram Das founded the city of Amritsar. Guru Arjan built the Golden Temple at the end of the 1500's.

Banda Singh laid the foundations of the Punjab when he organized a band of Sikhs and won shortlived independence from the Mughals in 1709-1710. The Mughals executed Banda Singh in 1716. After 50 years of struggle against the Afghans and Mughals, the Sikhs established their own rule over the region in 1765. Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) welded the separate parts of the Punjab into a powerful state.

British rule. On the death of Ranjit Singh, there was disunity among the Punjabis, and they came into conflict with the British. After two wars, the Sikhs accepted British rule. Reluctantly, the Sikhs endeavoured to work in harmony with the British rulers. In the Indian Revolt of 1857, the Sikhs fought in support of the British. During World War I (1914-1918), the Punjab supplied 60 per cent of the Indian troops.

After the war, in 1919, the Punjab economy worsened and relations between the Sikhs and the British suffered. Strikes took place frequently and the brutality of the British in quelling demonstrations worsened matters. A massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, in 1919, was the climax of this period.

Independence. Indian and British leaders agreed to partition (divide) India into separate countries. The western part of the Punjab and eastern Bengal became the independent country of Pakistan on Aug. 14, 1947.
At that time, 5 million of India's 6 million Sikhs lived in the newly divided state of Punjab. They constituted 55 per cent of the population. Tens of thousands were killed in the fighting between Sikhs and the Muslims that accompanied partition.