Colonial Punjab

Youngest wife of Ranjit Singh and regent for her son Duleep Singh. The British saw her as the most dangerous person in Punjab, imprisoned her and exiled her; she escaped to Nepal.

Founder of the Arya Samaj in 1875. His movement found its strongest support in Punjab, where it founded the DAV colleges.

Founder of the Ahmadiyya movement at Qadian in Gurdaspur district in 1889. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims; Pakistan declared them non-Muslims in 1974.

Last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. Deposed at ten in 1849, separated from his mother, converted to Christianity and taken to England. The Koh-i-Noor passed to Queen Victoria.

The 'Lion of Punjab' of the independence movement. Beaten by police at a protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore in 1928, he died weeks later.

Poet-philosopher of Sialkot and Lahore, writing in Urdu and Persian, who wrote a celebrated poem on Guru Nanak and later argued for a Muslim homeland.

Ghadar Party revolutionary who returned from California to raise a rising against British rule. Hanged in Lahore at nineteen.

Shot Michael O'Dwyer, governor of Punjab at the time of Jallianwala Bagh, in London in 1940 and was hanged at Pentonville.

Actor from Lyallpur and Peshawar who starred in India's first talkie, founded Prithvi Theatres and began the Kapoor dynasty of Bombay cinema.

Socialist revolutionary hanged in Lahore at twenty-three with Rajguru and Sukhdev. Among the most celebrated figures of India's independence movement.

Comrades of Bhagat Singh in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, hanged with him in Lahore on 23 March 1931.

Astrophysicist born in Lahore, who worked out the limit beyond which a dying star must collapse, and won the Nobel Prize in 1983.

Urdu poet from Sialkot whose 'Subh-e-Azadi' mourned the dawn of 1947 as 'not the dawn we longed for'.

Cricketer from Kapurthala who made India's first Test century in 1933 and was independent India's first Test captain.

Short-story writer born near Ludhiana whose stories of Partition, such as Toba Tek Singh, are the sharpest record of its madness.

Novelist and historian from Hadali in the Salt Range. His Train to Pakistan and two-volume History of the Sikhs are classics.

Ramgarhia Sikh from Faridkot who rose from the Praja Mandal to Chief Minister of Punjab and President of India, 1982–1987.

Prime Minister of India who ordered Operation Blue Star in June 1984 and was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards on 31 October.

The leading woman poet of Punjabi, born in Gujranwala. Her elegy for Partition calls on Waris Shah to rise from his grave and write a new verse for the daughters of Punjab.

Politician born in Jhelum, a student activist in Lahore, who became Prime Minister of India and argued for generous relations with India's neighbours.

Actor who began in the Punjabi films of Lahore and became Hindi cinema's most famous villain.

Urdu poet from Ludhiana whose sharp, socialist lyrics changed the Hindi film song.

Chief Minister of Punjab from 1992, under whom the insurgency was crushed. Killed by a suicide bomber in Chandigarh in August 1995.

Biochemist from a village near Multan who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for showing how the genetic code is read.

Singer from a village near Amritsar who grew up in Lahore and became the voice of Hindi cinema.

Actor and director born in Peshawar whose tramp in Awaara and Shree 420 was loved from Moscow to Cairo.

Decorated Indian Army major general, dismissed shortly before retirement, who organised the defences of the Harmandir Sahib complex and was killed in Blue Star.

Physicist from Jhang who shared the Nobel Prize in 1979 for unifying two of the forces of nature.

Physicist from Moga, called the father of fibre optics, whose work on sending light through glass fibres underlies the internet.

Five times Chief Minister of Punjab, both the youngest and the oldest, and for half a century the face of the Akali Dal.

Wrestler from a village near Amritsar who became a world champion of professional wrestling and then a film star.

The 'Flying Sikh', a Partition orphan from Muzaffargarh who became Asia's greatest sprinter and missed an Olympic medal in Rome by a fraction of a second.

Partition refugee from Jhelum district who starred in Mother India and later led a peace march across Punjab in the 1980s.

Economist born in Gah in western Punjab who opened India's economy as finance minister in 1991 and was Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014.

Poet, lyricist and film-maker born at Dina near Jhelum, whose Partition memories run through his work.

Director General of Punjab Police who led Operation Black Thunder II and the counter-insurgency campaign of 1991–95. Credited by supporters with ending the insurgency and criticised by rights groups for its abuses.

Village boy from Ludhiana district who became one of Bombay's biggest stars, Veeru of Sholay.

Romantic poet of pain, the youngest winner of India's Sahitya Akademi award, for his verse play Loona.

Ghazal singer from a Punjabi Sikh family who brought the ghazal to a mass audience in India.

Son of the last Maharaja of Patiala, soldier and twice Chief Minister, who quit Parliament in protest at the army's attack on the Darbar Sahib in 1984.

Fighter pilot from near Ludhiana, the only member of the Indian Air Force to win the Param Vir Chakra.

Left-arm spinner from Amritsar, one of the great Indian spin quartet and a captain of India.