VARYAM SINGH. BHAI

VARYAM SINGH. BHAI (1870-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the second of the four sons of Bhai Bhag Singh and Mai Chand Kaur, Kamboj landowners of Nizampur village, about 8 km east of Amritsar. The family later migrated to Nizampur Chelevala in Sheikh upura district (now in Pakistan). He started his education in the village gurdwara. As he grew up, he enlisted in the Burmese army, but came back after five years of active service. He was of a religious disposition and displayed an unusually strong predilection towards the Gulabdasi sect.

He bought a piece of land and founded a habitation, which he named Khakatan Moran near Bhunnerheri, in Patiala district (then Patiala state). Pressed by local circumstances, Bhai Varyam Singh came back to Nizampur Chelevala in the Lower Chenab Canal Colony where agitation for Gurdwara reform was at its height. Dharovali political conference (13 October 1920) which he attended had an electric effect on him. He underwent the initiation rites and enlisted as an Akali volunteer for the liberation of gurdwaras under the control of hereditary custodians. He was one of the Akali volunteers who met with a fatal end inside the compound of Gurdwara Janam Asthan on 20 February 1921. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee granted a pension of Rs 175 per annum to his widow.

References :

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