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).

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

BHAI PHERU, GURDWARA (also called Gurdwara Sangat Sahib), named after its founder, the well known Udasi Sikh preacher Bhai Pherii (1640-1706), is located at Mien ki Maur, in Chuniari tahsil of Lahore district in Pakistan. During Sikh times, large endowments in land extending to about 2,750 acres were inscribed to

GOPAL SINGH (1883-1941), an Akali reformer, was born in November 1883 at the village of Sagari, in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His father, Sundar Singh (d. 1895) was a small shopkeeper. Within three years of Gopal Singh`s father`s death, his two elder brothers also passed away and the

LABH SINGH. BABU (1895-1947), Akali politician, was born in 1895 at the village of Lasara, in Jalandhar district, the son of Dula Singh. He spent his early youth at Quetta and passed his Matriculation examination from the high school there. In 1914, he took up service in the army

PHULA SINGH AKALI (1761-1823), Sikh hero and an eminent religious figure of the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was born in 1761 at the village of Shihari, now in ruins, about 5 km west of Miinak, in present day Sarigrur district of the Punjab. His father, Ishar Singh, an

SHIHAN, recorded in a Sikh chronicle as the birthplace of Akali Phula Singh, celebrated warrior of Sikh times, was village 10 km from Lahira (29forming a big shallow lake. The mound lies in the revenue limits of Dehia village, whose sangat has now established a gurdwara near the mound,

AKALI, THE, a Punjabi daily newspaper which became the central organ of the Shiromani Akali Dal, then engaged in a fierce struggle for the reformation of the management of the Sikh gurdwaras and a vehicle for the expression of nationalist political opinion in the Punjab in the wake of the

BHAI PHERU MORCHA, one of a series of campaigns in the Sikhs` agitation in the 1920`s for the reformation of their holy places. Gurdwara Sangat Sahib, located in Mien ke Maur in Lahore district, about 15 km from Chhanga Manga railway station, dedicated to the memory of Bhai Pheru (1640-1706),

GURU KA BAGH MORCHA, one of the major compaigns in the Sikhs` agitation in the early 1920`s for the reformation of their holy places. Guru ka Bagh in Ghukkevali village, about 20 km from Amritsar, has two historic gurudwaras close to each other, commemorating the visits respectively of Guru Arjan

LACHHMAN SINGH GILL (1917-1969), Akali politician and chief minister of the Punjab for a brief term, was born at Jagraon in Ludhiana district. He started life in 1937 as a government contractor. He entered politics via the Shiromani Akali Dal of which he became a member during the Punjabi

PRITAM SINGH GOJRAN, JATHEDAR (1896-1976), born into a simple rural family, rose, without advantages of education and worldly means, to the position of president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, to be distinguished from the Riydsti Akali Dal (representing only Sikhs living in the princely states of the Punjab), by