Bhai Pheru Morcha, one of a series of campaigns in the Sikhs agitation in the 1920’s for the reformation of their holy places. After the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, a representative society of the Sikhs, had taken over management of some of the major shrines and mahants or priests had started voluntarily handing over gurdwaras under their control, Mahant Kishan Das, on 28 December 1922, transferred Gurdwara Bhai Pheru to the Committee. Read more…
After annexation of the areas under the Sarkar-e-Khalsa in 1849, which completed the British occupation of the entire Indian sub-continent, this movement appears to be the only serious effort made to throw the British occupation forces out of India. It is often referred to as Ghadr of 1914 – 15, and compared with Ghadr of 1857. Read more…
At Guru-ka-Bagh, twenty kilometers from Amritsar, Sikhs’ capacity for suffering and resistance was put to further trial after freeing many Gurdwaras through peaceful resistance. Sundar Das, the mahant, had by mutual negotiations made over the shrine to the Shiromani Committee, taken the Sikh baptism and parted with his mistresses except one whom he honorably married. Read more…
Jaito Morcha, was the name given to the Akali agitation for the restoration of Maharaja Ripudaman Singh of Nabha, a Sikh princely state in the Punjab, to his throne. The Maharaja had strong pro-Akali sympathies and had overtly supported the Guru ka Bagh Morcha and donned a black turban as a mark of protest against the massacre of the reformists at Nankana Sahib. Read more…
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, also known as the Amritsar Massacre, was named after the Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, where, on April 13, 1919, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. Read more…
In 1914 the Komagata Maru was an outright challenge to these exclusionist laws. The Komagata Maru was a Japanese streamliner chartered by an affluent businessman, Gurdit Singh, to bring Indian immigrants to Canada. The ship’s route departed from Hong Kong, stopped in Japan and then headed to Canada. Its passengers included 376 Indians, all Punjabis, among whom 340 were Sikhs, 12 Hindus, and 24 Muslims. Read more…
After the fall of kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, there were several attempts to raise the old glory of the Khalsa. Several movements to reform the Sikhism were started. First one being Namdhari movement, which was started by Baba Ram Singh Namdhari after Anglo Sikh wars. He was a soldier in Khalsa army. Read more…
This even marks a dramatic episode in the Sikhs’ agitation in the early 1920’s for reforming the management of their places of worship. The Golden Temple at Amritsar, which had a government-nominated sarbrah or controller to manage it since 1849, came under Akali control in October 1920. Read more…
In October 1920 A.D., a congregation was held at Dharowal, District Sheikhupura for reform in Gurdwara Nankana Sahib in which the leaders revealed to the gathering of devotees, the misdeeds being committed inside the Gurdwara. At meeting, it was unanimously resolved that the Mahant be asked to mend his ways. Read more…
The pleas of Purbias were so hollow and incongruous with their earlier conduct, that they fell on deaf ears of the aggrieved Punjabi Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims whose independence they had helped the British to rule. Besides, it is a well-accepted view that the risings in 1857 were just revolts by the princes to regain their feudal or territorial rights. Read more…
This event marked culmination of the tussle between Sikh and Muslim communities in the Punjab for the possession of a sacred site in Lahore upon which stood Gurdwara Shahidganj (shahid = martyr, ganj = hoard, treasure) in memory of Sikh martyrs of the eighteenth century and which the Muslims claimed as having been the location of an historic Islamic site. Read more…
The British government, who took the part. of the priests, eventually relented under popular pressure and passed, in the first instance, Sikh Gurdwaras and Shrines Act, 1922, which envisaged a committee nominated by the government to take over control of the gurdwaras. This, however, was not acceptable to the Akali leaders and remained for this reason a dead letter. Read more…
The society described itself as Singh Sabha, founded in Amritsar 1872, it set out to protect the Sikhism from invading interests. The Singh Sabha held meeting and led protest marches against the Hindu ‘anti-Sikh’ orators. The group organized meeting to educate Sikhs of the values of Sikhism which had been dented and neglected , to reveal the teachings of the Guru’s. Read more…