Ranjit Singh in order to further subdue the Afghanis ordered Hari Singh Nalwa and Prince Sher Singh to remain in North West Frontier province. He also ordered them to construct series of small forts all along the highway leading to Khyber pass. He correctly had assessed the importance of Khyber pass., and thus organized the defenses of his frontier with Kabul. Hari Singh Nalwa was given governorship of North West Frontier province which he ruled with firm hand. Even to this day, Afghanis remember Hari Singh Nalwa as "the only general who thoroughly defeated and humiliated them"
Battle of Naushera, opened gateway to NWFP
Haripur in Hazara Division in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan is named after him.
Nalwa had a number of conversations with British, French and German royalty, in which they conversed as equals. Baron Charles Hughart remembers him fondly in his memoirs on travelling through the Peshawar region, in which he was given a portrait of Nalwa from the man himself. Hari Singh Nalwa spoke, wrote and read Persian as well as the Indian languages, and was familiar with world politics, including details about the European states.
If Nalwa had lived, many feel that the British would never have been able to hold or enter the Punjab. He beat the Afghans at Attock Fort and held Afghanistan, something which the British failed to do. As Sir Lepel Griffen states: "Hari Singh Nalwa, the man with the terror of whose name Afghan mothers used to quiet their fretful children..." As was often the case with his battles, he did so at the request of Hindus living in this region, for they prevailed upon him to free them from the religious tax imposed upon them by the Mughal rulers.
Hari Singh earned the name 'Nalwa' after he killed a tiger, as Baron Hugel, a European traveller writes in "Travels in Kashmir & the Punjab: " I surprised him by knowledge whence he had gained the appellation of Nalwa, and of his having cloven the head of a tiger, who had already seized him as its prey. He told the Diwan to bring some drawings and gave me his portrait, in the act of killing the beast."