BHAGVAN SINGH LAUNGOVALIA (d. 1944), patriot, Akali activist and one of the founders of the Praja Mandal, a platform meant to provide voice to the people of Indian states ruled by Indian princes during British times to ventilate their grievances and protest against the oppression, misrule and extravagances of

RIYASTI AKALI DAL, representing Sikhs living in the princely states of Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Faridkot and Malerkotla, was set up in 1939 as a political forum parallel to the Riyasti Praja Mandal which had been in existence since 1928 and which had till then represented the people living mainly in

BHAGWAN SINGH GYANEE (d. 1962). prominent Ghadr leader, was born the son of Sarmukh Singh of the village of Varing, 15 km east of Tarn Taran in Amritsar district of the Punjab. Their ancestors, Kashmir! Brahmans, had migrated to the Punjab during the seventeenth century. Bhagwan Singh learnt Urdu

SIKHS` RELATIONS WITH HILL STATES lying between the Ganga and the Chenab rivers from the time of the Gurus to the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh fluctuated from guarded friendship to open hostility. Guru Nanak (1469-1539) and later his son, Baba Sri Chand, had preached the Sikh tenets in the

BHIM CHAND, ruler of Kahlur (Bilaspur), a princely state in the Sivaliks, from 1665-92. The family claimed descent from Chandel Rajputs of Bundelkhand. Bhim Chand`s father, Dip Chand, was a tributary of the Mughals and he was allowed to exercise nominal authority over twenty-two states in the hills including

SOHAN SINGH BHAKNA, BABA (1870-1968), founder president of the Ghadr party in the U.S.A., was the only son of Bhai Karam Singh, a Shergill Jatt of the village of Bhakna, 16 km southwest of Amritsar. He was born in January 1870 at Khutrai Khurd, parental home of his mother,

BHUPINDER SINGH, LIEUTENANTGENERAL MAHARAJA SIR (1891-1931), Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire, Knight of the Order of the British Empire, ruler of the Sikh state of Patiala, was one of the most colourful and

UDHAM SINGH (1882-1926), revolutionary and Ghadr leader, was born on 15 March 1882 at the village of Kasel in Amritsar district. His father`s name was Meva Singh and mother`s Hukam Kaur. He passed his early years in his village grazing cattle and working on the family`s small farm. He

DHARAM ARTH BOARD, a body representing different sections of the Sikh community constituted in May 1949 by Maharaja Yadavinder Singh, Rajpramukh of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), to manage the major Sikh shrines within the new state which had come into being in consequence of the amalgamation

YADAVINDER SINGH, LIEUTENANT GENERAL MAHARAJA (1913-1974), Grand Commander of the Indian Empire, Companion of the British Empire, Doctor of Laws from Banaras and Panjab Universities, was the last hereditary ruler of the east while Indian princely state of Patiala. Born on 7 January 1913 during the high noon of

KEHAR SINGH, a Ghadr leader, was the son of Nihal Singh of the village of Marhana in Amritsar district. Like many other farmers from his district, he left home to seek his fortune in the United States of America. Responding to the call of the Ghadr Party to make

ZAIL SINGH, GIANI (1916-1994), the first Punjabi to become President of the Republic of India, was born on 5 May 1916, the son of Bhai Kishan Singh and Mata Ind Kaur, a Ramgarhia couple of a small village, Sandhvan, near Kot Kapura, in the princely state of Faridkot. Kishan