Bajwa

Bajwa is a major landowner clan of the Jat community, native to the Punjab region of India and Pakistan.

Etymology

The word "Bajwa" means the 'Clan of the Hawk' and is derived from the word "Baaz Wala", the Persian word for hawk or falcon. The Bajwas reside in the Bajwat, which means 'the land of Bajwas', and are the native inhabitants of Bajwat Areas of the Sialkot and Narowal districts in Punjab (Pakistan) and Gurdaspur District in India. The Bajwat is now known as Bajwat sector; an area bordering Pakistan and India.

Origin and mythology

Bajwa is a prominent and longstanding Jat clan (tribe) of the Punjab. Their origins are unclear, but according to Hindu mythologies the Bajwa are descendants of the Suryavansh, or "the sons of Sun God"; the family of superiors of the subcontinent.

Such myths assert that the ancestor of the Bajwas is Baba Manga and that the tribe's origin was Bajwat in the Sialkot and Narowal districts of Pakistan (in the Shiwalik foothills and quite near the Indian border as well as the city of Jammu). Baba Manga was said to have had had seven sons: Naro, the eldest, established a village named Naro Bajwa Narowal; the second son Deepa founded Kotli Bajwa; and the third son, Chandu founded Chanduwal. The small city of Pakistan Chawinda at the Indian border the in Sailkot district was also established in the name of Chawinda Sing Bajwa. It is said that Bajwa Jats had eighty-four villages in the Sialkot area.