Bhai Bhag Singh of Vancouver

Bhai Bhag Singh was a leader of the Sikh community of Vancouver in the years when Canada closed its doors to Indians. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography calls him the president of the Vancouver temple society, and Khushwant Singh calls him the president of the Vancouver gurdwara in 1912, with Balwant Singh as its priest. The Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada calls Bhag Singh himself the gurdwara's granthi, or priest. The sources do not settle which office he held.

Canadian Sikh Heritage says Bhag Singh, the President of the Khalsa Diwan Society, went to India to pressure the government to take action, without giving a date. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says that in 1909 Indian immigrants in Canada formed the Hindustan Association under the presidentship of Bhai Bhag Singh Bhikkhiwind. In a note on the new leaders who came to the fore among the immigrants, Khushwant Singh names men such as Bhag Singh as their representatives in British Columbia.

Key moments

• Early 1912: Khushwant Singh writes that Bhag Singh and Balwant Singh returned to British Columbia with their families. The men were allowed to re-enter, but their wives were ordered deported. Indians appealed, and before the Supreme Court could rule the Immigration Department let the women and children stay, quoting the House of Commons debates of 1912, "as an act of Grace, without establishing a precedent".
• May to July 1914: Wikipedia names a Bhag Singh Bhikiwind among the leaders of the "Shore Committee" of local Indians formed for the Komagata Maru passengers.
• July 1914: the Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Mewa Singh went to Sumas, Washington, with Bhag Singh and Balwant Singh, where they bought several revolvers and boxes of shells in a hardware store. The Americans detained Bhag Singh and Balwant Singh but eventually released them.
• 5 September 1914: Bela Singh, one of the immigration inspector William Hopkinson's informants, fired into a funeral gathering at the Vancouver temple. The Dictionary says he wounded eight or nine, two of them fatally, Bhag Singh and another man. The Sikh Heritage Museum describes the dead man as the gurdwara's granthi.
• 21 October 1914: Mewa Singh shot Hopkinson dead. According to Mewa Singh, the Dictionary reports, Bela Singh's desecration of the temple decided him to kill Hopkinson. He was hanged at New Westminster on 11 January 1915.

Remembered for: being the community leader shot dead inside the Vancouver temple. Both killings appear in the Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada's timeline of Sikh history in Canada.