Hari Singh Nalwa was born at Gujranwala in 1791, an Uppal Khatri, and entered Ranjit Singh Ji's service at about fourteen. He commanded at Kasur, Attock, Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar, and was governor of Kashmir, Hazara and Peshawar in turn.
He took the Khalsa frontier to the mouth of the Khyber, which no Indian power had held since the Mughals at their height, and built or rebuilt forts at Jamrud, Sumergarh and elsewhere to hold it.
He was killed at Jamrud on 30 April 1837, defending the fort against an Afghan force under Dost Muhammad Khan's sons. The account is that his death was concealed from the garrison until relief arrived, and the fort held.
He struck coin at Kashmir in his own administration and founded Haripur in Hazara, which carries his name.
In Pashtun folklore he is a figure used to frighten children, which is quoted in Punjab with some pride and is worth reading as evidence of how the frontier administration was conducted rather than only as a compliment.
He held Kashmir, Hazara and Peshawar as governor at different times, and the frontier of the Sikh state at its furthest extent was the frontier he held.
He built Haripur in Hazara as a planned town and the fort at Jamrud at the mouth of the Khyber, and he was killed there in 1837.
He is the one Sikh commander whose name is remembered on the Afghan side of the line, and the accounts on both sides of him are so different that they barely describe the same person.