GAJPAT SINGH, RAJA (1738-1789), founder of the Sikh state of Jind, was born on 15 April 1738, the second son of Sukhchain Singh (d. 1751), who was the younger brother of Gurdit Singh, an ancestor of the ruling family of Nabha. In 1755, at the age of seventeen, Gajpat Singh seized a large tract of country including Jind and Safidori. In 1764, he joined the Khalsa Dal under Jassa Singh Ahluvalia and took part in the conquest of Sirhind. He then overran Panipat and Karnal. In 1766, he made Jind his capital. Unlike other Sikh chiefs, he continued to acknowledge the Mughal authority in Delhi and paid revenue to the Emperor.
GOMEZ, also known as Lawrence Goniez Allard, was a Portuguese. Hejoined the Khalsa army in 1842. After the Anglo Sikh wars, he was taken by the British as adjutant in one of the police battalions raised from the disbanded Sikh soldiery. He retired in 1862.
GURBAKHSH SINGH KALSIA (d. 1785), a leading figure in the Karor Singhia misi of the Sikhs, was a Sandhu Jatt, belonging to the village of Kalsia in Lahore district. He received Sikh initiatory rites at the hands of the revered Bhai Mani Singh at Amritsar in the time of Nawab Zakariya Khan of Lahore. As a mark of mutual friendliness, he exchanged turbans with Karora Singh, the Karor Singhia misi chief, and participated in several expeditions of the Dal Khalsa At the time of the conquest of Sirhind in January 1764, he seized the parganah of Chhachhrauli, now in Jagadhari tahsll of Haryana, comprising 114 villages, and founded an independent principality called Kalsia after the name of his native village.
GURPURB, a compound of two words, i.e. guru, the spiritual preceptor, and purb, parva in Sanskrit, meaning a festival or celebration, signifies in the Sikh tradition the holy day commemorating one or another of the anniversaries related to the lives of the Gurus. Observance of such anniversaries is a conspicuous feature of the Sikh way of life. A line frequently quoted from the Guru Granth Sahib in this context reads "bdbdmd kahdmd put saput kareni it only becomes worthy progeny to remember the deeds of the ciders" (GG, 951).Among the more important gurpurbs on the Sikh calendar are the birth anniversaries of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, the martyrdom days of Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur, and of the installation of the Holy Book in the Harimandar at Amritsar on Bhadon sudi 1, 1661 Bk/16 August 1604.
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HART SINGH, BHAI (1889-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was born at Pandori Nijtjharari in Jalandhar district in November 1889, the son of Bhai Seva Singh and Mai Afar Kaur. On the opening of the Lower Chenab Canal Colony, the family migrated in 1897 to Chakk No. 91 Dhannuana in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) district, in Pakistan. Hari Singh enlisted in the 36th Sikh Battalion where he look the Khalsa pdhul and fought in the World War, 191418. A bullet wound tore apart his foot, incapacitating him. He was discharged with a pension of Rs 6 per month.
HIRA SINGH RAGI, BHAI (1879-1926), eminent exponent of Sikh devotional music, was born in 1879 at Faruka, in Shahpur district, now in Pakistan. His father`s name was Bhai Bhag Singh and mother`s Satbharai. Bhag Singh was well versed in classical music and played string instruments such as sdraizgi and tails. Hira Singh joined the middle school at Sahival, but soon left it to study the religious texts with Bhai Mahna Singh of Faruka. He learnt music from his father who performed kirtan in the village gurudwara.
ISHAR SINGH MAJHAIL (1901-1977), politician and legislator, was born in January 1901, the son of Bhai Asa Singh and Mat Basant Kaur, an agriculturist couple of Sarai Amanat Khan village, in Amritsar district. He was only about two and a half years old when his father went abroad to Indonesia in search of a better living. He died in Indonesia soon after and Ishar Singh was brought up by his widowed mother, a deeply dedicated and religious minded woman. He completed his high school by fits and starts owing to narrow financial circumstances. He graduated from school in 1922 from Malva Khalsa High School, Ludhiana.
JASSA SINGH AHLUVALTA (1718-1783), founder of the misi or chicf ship of the Ahluvalias, remnants of which lasted until recent years in the form of the princely state of Kapurthala, and commander of the Dal Khalsa, who proclaimed in 1761 the sovereignty of the Sikhs, was born the son of Badar Singh at the village ofAhlu, near Lahore, on Baisakh .wrfl PuranmashT 1775 Bk/3 May 1718. Since his father had died when he was barely five years of age, he was taken by his mother and her brother Bagh Singh to Delhi where he grew up under the care of Mata Sundari, widow of Guru Gobind Singh.
JODHA RAM (d. 1845), a Brahman of Jammu hills, was the father in law of Pandit Jalla, adviser and confidant of Raja Hira Singh Dogra, who became in 1843 the prime minister of the Sikh kingdom of Lahore. It was Jodha Ram who captured Jawahar Singh, brother of Maharani Jind Kaur, by order of Prime Minister Hira Singh. When Jawahar Singh assumed power in May 1845, he had Jodha Ram executed.
KALIAN CHAND, BABA (1440-1522), variously mentioned by chroniclers as Mahita Kalu, Kalu Rai, Kalu Chand, Kalian Rai and Kalian Chand, was the father of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikh faith. He was the elder of the two sons of Baba Shiv Ram, a Bedi Khatn, and Mata Banarasi of the village of Patthevind (no longer in existence). The village fell in what is now the Amritsar district of the Punjab. The family later shifted to Talvandi Rai Bhoi Ki, now known as Nankana Sahib, in present day Sheikliupura district of Pakistan, where Shiv Ram became the village patvdn or keeper of revenue records, a post occupied by Baba Kalian Chand after his father`s death.
