PREM SINGH HOTI, BABA (1882-1954), historian and biographer, was born on 2 November 1882 at Hoti, near Mardan, in North-West Frontier Province, now part of Pakistan. His father Ganda Singh, a man of means, traced his ancestry back to Bhalla family of Goindval, in Amritsar district, to which noted Sikh savant Bhai Gurdas belonged. One of his ancestors, Baba Kahn Singh, had moved to the western frontier during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had granted jdgirs to his soldiers in that turbulent Pathan territory. When this northwestern region was finally annexed by the British in 1849, the jdgir which Baba Prem Singh`s father had inherited from his forefathers was confiscated.
RANG DAS, BHAI. a Bhandari Khatri of Gharuan, an old village in Ropar district of the Punjab, was a prominent Sikh of the time of Guru Amar Das. He had been a follower of Bairagi sddhus until he met Bhai Paro, whose example led him to embrace the Sikh faith. Bhai Rang Das is also said to have held charge of a manji or preaching district.
SIKH GURDWARAS ACT, 1925, legislation passed by the Punjab Legislative Council which marked the culmination of the struggle of the Sikh people from 1920-1925 to wrest control of their places of worship from the mab-ants or priests into whose hands they had passed during the eighteenth century when the Khalsa were driven from their homes to seek safety in remote hills and deserts. When they later established their sway in Punjab, the Sikhs rebuilt their shrines endowing them with large jagirs and estates.The management, however, remained with the priests, belonging mainly to the Udasi sect, who, after the advent of the British in 1849, began to consider the shrines and lands attached to them as their personal properties and to appropriating the income accruing from them to their private use. Some of them alienated or sold gurdwara properties at will.
SINGHPURA, a village 5 km south of Baramula (34"13`N, 74"23`E) in Kashmir valley, claims a historical shrine, Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahl Tharha Sahib, dedicated to Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), whose visit it commemorates. According to local tradition, a Muslim Faqir, Bahlol, served the Guru here and received his blessing. A memorial platform (tharha, in Punjabi) established here was later developed into a gurdwara.