VARYAM SINGH, BHAI

VARYAM SINGH, BHAI (1881-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was born on 31 July 1881, the son of Bhai Dula Singh and Mai Hukami, a Mazhabi Sikh couple of the village of Sutoval, in Amritsar district. Dula Singh had a targe family of five sons and four daughters and Varyam Singh was the eldest of the sons. In 1893, the family moved to Chakk No. 64 Bandala Nihaleana in Lyallpur district. Varyam Singh enlisted in the army during the First Great War (1914-18) and served in the 8th Battalion.

There he underwent the vows of the Khalsa, and also learnt to read and write Gurmukhi. He returned home after the war ended and enlisted as an Akali volunteer. He participated in the liberation of Gurdwara Bhai Joga Singh at Peshawar. As the call came from Nankana, he joined up forthwith and fell a martyr in the firing upon the jatha inside the compound of Gurdwara Janam Asthan, in the morning hours of 20 February 1921. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar, sanctioned a pension of Rs 175 per annum for his mother, who after imbibing the holy amritwas renamed Hukam Kaur.

VARYAM SINGH, BHAI (1883-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the son of Bhai Buta Singh and Mai Mahitab Kaur of Haripur, in Jalandhar district. He attended the high school up to the fifth standard learning to read and write Gurmukhi. He grew up into a good looking, healthy young man. He joined the army and served in the 22nd Punjab Battalion, where he underwent the initiation rites of the Khalsa. He left service because of his wife`s ill health. He rejoined the army, this time the Singapore Military Police where he was promoted naik (corporal), but his own health deteriorated and he got his discharge after ten years of service.

He then settled down as a draper in Chakk No. 91 Dhannuana in Lyallpur district. Inspired by Bhai Sundar Singh Jathedar of his village, he joined die J`atha of Bhai Lachhman Singh of Dharovali and died in the firing in the compound of Gurdwara Janam Asthan on 20 February 1921. He was survived by his two minor sons Hari Singh and Jasvant Singh upon whom the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee settled a pension of Rs. 175 per annum. BIBLIOGRAPHY Shamsher, Gurbakhsh Singh, Shahidi Jivan. Nankana Sahib, 1938 G.S.G. VARYAM SINGH, BHAI (1884-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was born on 28 March 1884, the son of Bhai Balaka Singh and Mai Nand Kaur of Maryala Chatthian in Gujranwala district (now in Pakistan).

The family later shifted to Chakk No. 39 Vanotianvali in Sheikhupura district. Varyam Singh, a straight forward and hardworking farmer, received the rites of amritat the hands of Bhai Mul Singh ofGarmula in 1903. The Dharovah conference (13 October 1920) marked the beginning of his career as an Akali. From that conference he went to Sialkot for the liberation of Gurdwara Babe di Ber (5 October 1920). On 19 February 1921, he accompanied Bhai Lachhman Singh Dharovali`s band of volunteers to Nankana Sahib where the entire jatha was massacred on 20 February 1921 by the hired assassins of Mahant Narain Das, the Udasi custodian of Gurdwara Janam Asthan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Shamsher, Gurbakhsh Singh, Shahidi Jivan. Nankana Sahib, 1938 G.S.G. VARYAM SINGH, BHAI (1889-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was born on 13 January 1889, the son of Bhai Bhagvan Singh and Mai Chand Kaur of Tibbi Jai Singh, a village in Montgomery district (now Sahival) in Pakistan. He attended the village school in the neighbouring Garh to which he and his mother had shifted after the death of his father. He started life as a village shopkeeper. He took the vows of the Khalsa and observed them faithfully. When the Gurdwara Reform movement gathered momentum in 1920, Bhai Varyam Singh went to Sheikhupura and then to Gurdwara Khara Sauda, Chuharkana, where he joined the jatha of Bhai Kartar Singh Jhabbar, and served in Guru ka Langar for some time.Jathedar Jhabbar then sent him to Nankana Sahib where he, disguised as an Udasi sadhu, gathered intelligence about Mahant Narain Das` moves and reported it to the local Akali leaders such as Bhai Uttam Singh, Bhai Dalip Singh and Chaudhari Pal Singh.

On the morning of 20 February 1921, when they heard the firing upon Bhai Lachhman Singh`s jatha in Gurdwara Janam Asthan and Bhai Dalip Singh ran towards the Gurdwara in order to plead with the Mahant to stop the firing, Bhai Varyam Singh also accompanied him. While Bhai Dalip Singh was shot at by the Mahant himself, Bhai Varyam Singh was struck down by one of his hired killers. Bodies of both of them were thrown into the burning fires. BIBLIOGRAPHY Shamsher, Gurbakhsh Singh, Shahidi Jivan. Nankana Sahib, 1938

References :

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