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

BARATH, a village 8 km southwest of Pathankot (32° 15`N, 75° 32`E) in Gurdaspur district of the Punjab, has a historical shrine, Gurdwara Tap Asthan Baba Sri Chand Ji, popularly called Gurdwara Barath Sahib. Baba Sri Chand, the elder son of Guru Nanak, chose for himself the life of

Baba Bolda Hai (The Old Man Speaks Out) of Gursham Singh is a play dealing with the 1984 riots in Delhi. Gursharan Singh points to the people responsible for this ghastly act and criticises main the political leaders who, in his view, were the real culprits. The common man is

GARHIA, BHAI, a devout Sikh who received blessing from Guru Hargobind. The Guru sent him to preach in Kashmir on a special request from the sahgat of that area. Bhai Garhia met on the way a Muslim divine, Shah Daula, near Gujrat, now in Pakistan, and engaged in a

JAVALA SINGH, BHAI SAHIB (1872-1952), a renowned exponent of the Sikh devotional music, was born in 1872 at the village of  Saidpur in Kapurthala district of the Punjab. His father, Bhai Deva Singh and grandfather, Parijab Singh were in their day celebrated rdgis or musicians who recited Sikh kirtan

KUKAS or NAMDHARIS, the name given to the members of a sectarian group that arose among the Sikhs towards the close of the nineteenth century. Kuk, in Punjabi, means a scream or shout. While chanting the sacred hymns at their religious congregations, the adherents of the new order broke into

RAM SINGH, BABA (1816-1885), leader of the Namdhari or Kuka movement in the Punjab, was born on 3 February 1816, in the village of Bhaini Araiari, in Ludhiana district. Ram Singh was the eldest among the four children of Jassa Singh and his wife, Sada Kaur. Ram Singh was

UNA, a district town in Himachal Pradesh on NangalAmb road, is sacred to Guru Hargobind in whose memory a small domed room stands in a walled compound southeast of the town on the main road. It is under the control of the descendants of Baba Sahib Singh Bedi(1765-1834), who

ALMAST, BHAI (1553-1643), Sikh preacher and head of a dhuari or branch of the Udasi sect, was born in a Gaur Brahman family of Srinagar (Kashmir) on 26 August 1553. He was the son of Bhai Hardatt and Mai Prabha, and was the elder brother of Balu Hasna, another

BASARKE GILLAN, village 12 km southwest of Amritsar (31° 38`N, 74° 52`E) on the ChhehartaJhabal link road, is sacred to Guru Amar Das, Nanak III, who was born here on 5 May 1479. There are three historical shrines in the village. GURDWARA JANAM ASTHAN, a small shrine privately managed,

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