MULA SINGH, BHAI

MULA SINGH, BHAI (1880-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the son of Bhai Jivan Singh and Mai Gulab Kaur of Valla village, in Amritsar district. He learnt Gurmukhi during his childhood and was also married young, but remained childless. He then went abroad to Singapore where he served in the 67th Battalion for 16 years. Retiring as a havilddr (sergeant) on a pension of Rs 10 per month, he came back to India, and settled at Chakk No. 10 Thothiari, in Sheikhupura district (now in Pakistan). During the First Great War (191418), the government was finding it difficult to get enough Sikh recruits needed to reinforce its expanded army, and even resorted to undeclared conscription.

Bhai Mula Singh went around the villages and supplied 25 recruits in the hope of getting a land grant as a reward from the government, but was disappointed. This and the imposition of martial law instead in the Punjab led to a change of loyalties on his part and he joined the ranks of the Akalt reformers. He was one of the Akali jathd led by Bhai Lachhman Singh Dharovali and massacred at Nankana Sahib by the hired assassins of Mahant Narain Das on 20 February 1921. See NANKANA SAHIB MASSACRE

References :

1. Shamsher, Gurbakhsh Singh, Shahtai Jivan. Nankana Sahib, 1938.