CENTRAL SIKH LEAGUE, political organization of the Sikhs which guided their affairs until the Shiromani Akali Dal emerged as a mass force. The inaugural session of the Central Sikh League was held at Amritsar on 29 December 1919, coinciding with the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress and the

DESH BHAGAT PARIVAR SAHAIK COMMITTEE, originally named Sikh Desh Bhagat Parivar Sahaik Committee, to help the families of patriots, was set up in October 1920 under the chairmanship of Baba Vasakha Singh, a Ghadr revolutionary who had been sentenced to transportation for life, but was released from the Cellular Jail,

GARGAJJ AKALI JATHA (gargajj = rever beratingly thunderous) was the name given a dynamic group (jathd) of Akali reformers, especially active in Majha region of the Punjab. The Jatha came into being on 19 April 1921, splintering from the parent body Central Majha Khalsa Diwan. Teja Singh Bhuchchar, Jathedar

GHADR MOVEMENT. Ghadr, commonly translated as "mutiny," was the name given to the newspaper edited and published for the Hindustani Association of the Pacific Goast which was founded at Portland, United States of America, in 1912. The movement this Association gave rise to for revolutionary activity in India also came

KHALSA CENTRAL COUNCIL, a society formed in Lahore in 1933 to safeguard the interests of the Sikhs, had a very short career. The occasion for the formation of the Council arose when Giani Sher Singh and Master Tara Singh, two prominent Sikh leaders of pre-partition Punjab, openly confronted each other

KHALSA DARBAR, an organization representing different Sikh parties established on 27 September 1932 at Lahore to resist the operation of what had come to be known as the Communal Award announced by the British Government on 16 August 1932. Earlier, anticipating these proposals, an all party Sikh conference convened on

KHALSA DEFENCE OF INDIA LEAGUE was formed on 19 January 1941 at Lahore with the object of launching a movement among the Sikh masses for increased military enlistment for the defence of the country during the critical years of World War II and for maintaining and strengthening the special position

AKALI, a term now appropriated by members of the dominant Sikh political party, the Shiromani Akali Dal, founded in 1920, and groups splitting from it from time to time, was earlier used for Nihangs (q.v.), an order of armed religious zealots among the baptized Sikhs. The word Nihang is

KHALSA NATIONAL PARTY was founded in 1936 by two Sikh aristocrats, Sir Sundar Singh Majithta and Sir Jogendra Singh, with a view primarily to contesting legislative elections in the Punjab under the new scheme of reforms introduced by the British Inder the Government of India Act, 1935. According to the

AKALI DAL, CENTRAL, a political organization of the Sikhs set up in March 1934 as a parallel body to the Shiromani Akali Dal. The latter was formed on 14 December 1920 to assist the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in its campaign for the reformation of the management of the

MANJI, derived from the Sanskrit mancha and manchaka meaning a stage, platform, raised seat, dais, throne, beadstead, or a couch, has a special connotation in Sikh tradition. Ordinarily, a manji, in Punjabi, means a cot, especially of the simple, stringed variety. Social manner in India requires that when more than