Amar Singh
Amar Singh (1888 - 1962), who came into prominence in the Gurdwara Reform Movement, was the eldest of the 3 sons of Gopal Singh of the village of Jhabal, in Amritsar district of the Punjab. His greatgrandfather, Gulab Singh, had served in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his grandfather, Harbhagat Singh, had been an aide-de-camp to Kanvar Nau Nihal Singh. Born in 1888, Amar Singh was educated at the village school and at Khalsa Collegiate School, Amritsar. After passing the matricualtion examination, he joined the police department and became a subinspector. Once as he saw police officials snatch away kirpans from some Sikhs, he protested and told the superintendent of police that dispossessing a Sikh of his kirpan meant violating his religious freedom.
Protesting the British demolition of a portion of the outer wall of Gurdwara Rikabganj in Delhi, a ban on the wearing of kirpans by Sikhs and incidents such as the killings at Budge Budge led Amar Singh to resign his appointment in the police. He got started on a political career by organizing and addressing, in association with Dan Singh Vachhoa, a series of public meetings in his own village and in the neighbourhood. He defied orders of the deputy commissioner of Amritsar banning a meeting, he had organised, to be held at Manji Sahib close to the Golden Temple to protest against a robe of honour having been conferred by the manager of the Darbar Sahib on General Reginald Dyer, who had given the order to fire in the Jallianvalian Bagh Massacre.
The meeting did take place and resolutions castigating the deputy commissioner as well as the manager were adopted. Following a public appeal by Sardul Singh Caveeshar for volunteers for a ShahidiJatha or martyrs` band to march to Delhi on 1 December 1920 to rebuild the Gurdwara Rikabganj boundary wall, demolished by the British, Amar Singh and his brother Jaswant Singh made a whirlwind tour of the Punjab addressing meetings and signing up volunteers. At one such meeting during the Amavas fair at Tarn Taran, held under the auspices of the Central Majha Khalsa Diwan, complaints were received about the mismanagement of Gurdwara Babe di Ber at Sialkot. Amar Singh was deputed to visit the shrine and make a report.
He was joined there by his brother, Jaswant Singh, as well as Teja Singh of Bhuchchar and Kartar Singh of Jhabbar with their bands of volunteers. The government yielded to public pressure and the management of the gurdwara was handed over to a committee of selected Sikhs on 6 October 1920. Henceforth the Jhabal brothers were recognized as a force in Sikh affairs. When the control of the Akal Takht was taken over by the Sikhs and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee formed on 16 November 1920, both of them and their third brother, Sarmukh Singh, were included in the new organization as members. Amar Singh was nominated a member of the provisional commitee to manage the Tarn Taran Gurdwara after it had been taken over from the priests by the reformists.
He took a leading part in assuming possession of gurdwaras at Othian, Teja Kalan, Chomala Sahib, Panja Sahib, Peshawar, Ramdas and Jhabal. For giving a public speech, the British thought was controversial, after the Nankana Sahib tragedy, he was arrested and imprisoned for six months. Amar Singh presided over the third annual session of the Sikh League held at Lyallpur in 1922. He participated in the non-cooperation movement launched by the Indian National Congress as well as in the Akali morchas for the reformation of the gurdwaras. On 16 July 1922, he was elected vicepresident of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.
He suffered imprisonment again for making seditious speeches at the time of the morcha for securing release from the British of the keys of the Golden Temple Toshakhana (Treasury). After the Sikh Gurdwaras Act was passed, Amar Singh drifted more towards the Congress and remained for some time president of the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee. He died on 28 March 1962 at the village of Dayal Bhararig, in Ajnala tahsil of Amritsar district, where he had been allotted lands after the partition of the Punjab (1947).
References
1. Pratap Singh, Giani, Gurdwara Sudhar arthat Akali Lahir. Amritsar, 1975
2. Josh, Sohan Singh, AJca/i Morchian da Itihas. Delhi, 1972
3. Harbans Singh, The Heritage of the Sikhs. Delhi, 1983
4. Ganda Singh, ed., 5ome Confidential Papers of the Akali Movement. Amritsar, 1965
5. Sahni, Ruchi Ram, Struggle for Reform in Sikh Shrines. Ed. Ganda Singh. Amritsar, n.d.
AMAR SINGH (1888-1948), of the Sheri Punjab, journalist, scholar and a prominent figure in SIKH politics, was born on 27 May 1888 at Pindi Gheb in Attock district of the Punjab, now in Pakistan. His grandfather, Gauhar Singh, had held a civil appointment under Maharaja RANJIT Singh. He spent his childhood and received education in Urdu and Persian in Jammu and Kashmir where his father, Gulab Singh, was an employee of the ruler, Maharaja Pratap Singh. After his father`s death, the family settled in Rawalpindi where Amar Singh ran a shop for some time before he adopted journalism as his profession. He launched the Lyall Gazette, a weekly in Urdu, under the patronage of the Chief KHALSA Diwan whose point of view on political, religious and social issues he supported and discussed in his writings. He gradually turned away from the moderate policies of the Diwan, and identified himself with the more radical politics of Baba Kharak Singh. In 1921, he renamed his paper SheriPunjab ("Lion of the Punjab") which title became an epithet popularly added to his name. The paper still continues to be issued under this name, since the partition of the Punjab, from Delhi. Besides journalism, Amar Singh was active in civic and political affairs. He was a member of the municipal committee, LAHORE, for 16 years. He was virtually a permanent president of Singh Sabha, Lahore, and of the managing board of the local historical Sikh shrines. In 1921, he was made a member of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and, during theJaito morcha or agitation, he was arrested (7 January 1924) and sentenced to two years` rigorous imprisonment. He was elected to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee under the Sikh Gurdwaras Act in 1926 and 1930. During subsequent elections in 1933, 1936 and 1939 (the last in the series till after Independence), he came in as a coopted member. When in 1934 Baba Kharak Singh dissociated himself from the Shiromani AKALI Dal and set up his own Central AKALI DAL, Amar Singh was chosen to be the senior vicepresident of the new party. In 1947, Amar Singh migrated to Delhi. He died at Kasaulion9July 1948. Amar Singh wielded a powerful pen. He was an acknowledged master of Urdu prose, and he employed the talent to devastating effect in political and religious polemics. His humorous column Argara, written under a pseudonym, "Risaldar Major," mixing anecdote, wit and satire, was very popular in contemporary Urdu journalism. Amar Singh also composed verse in PUNJABI, Urdu and Persian. He translated Omar Khayam`s Rubaiyat into Punjabi verse. He also wrote two novels and several short stories in Urdu. He was as accomplished a speaker as he was a writer, and frequently addressed Sikh assemblies on religious and political issues.
References
1. Harbans Singh, The Heritage of the SIKHS. Delhi, 1983
