Sidhu is the largest got of the Malwa and the one with the strongest political history in Punjab.
The Phulkian houses of Patiala, Nabha and Jind descend from Phul, a Sidhu Jat, which makes Sidhu the clan of the three Phulkian states, among the eight princely states merged into the Patiala and East Punjab States Union in 1948. Faridkot's Brar rulers are of the related Brar branch.
The tradition derives the name from Sidhu Rao, a Bhatti Rajput, with a migration from Rajasthan into the Malwa in the medieval period. As with all got traditions, this is a claim of Rajput descent of the kind every landholding clan in northern India makes.
Sidhu villages are concentrated in Bathinda, Mansa, Faridkot, Muktsar, Ferozepur and Sangrur.
Brar is treated as a branch of Sidhu in most accounts, and Sidhu-Brar is used as a compound. The Faridkot rulers, and a large part of the Malwa's landholding families, are Brar.
Any list of prominent Punjabis of the last century contains a great many Sidhus and Brars, and the reason is the Malwa's land and the princely states' patronage rather than anything about the clan.
Sidhu is the got of the Phulkian houses, which means the ruling families of Patiala, Nabha and Jind were all of it, and it is dense across the southern Malwa.
The Brar are a branch of the Sidhu and the name is carried across Faridkot, Muktsar and Ferozepur, and the Faridkot ruling family was Brar.
A got that produced three princely states leaves a particular pattern: a very large number of villages carrying the name, and a set of families with land and title in the middle of them.