Brish Bhan

Brish Bhan was a Congress leader of the Praja Mandal tradition in the old princely states of Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), and its last Chief Minister. Wikipedia gives his birth as 9 September 1908 at Moonak and his death at Chandigarh on 29 April 1988. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls him an old Praja Mandal leader who became deputy chief minister under Raghbir Singh in 1951. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he took over as Chief Minister on Raghbir Singh's death in 1955; Wikipedia dates his term as Chief Minister from 12 January 1955 to 1 November 1956, when PEPSU was merged into Punjab. J.S. Grewal puts Raghbir Singh's death in January 1956, but the Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia say 1955, which fits the SGPC's account of Brish Bhan as Chief Minister in May 1955.

In the Punjabi Suba story he is the PEPSU Chief Minister whom Punjab's Chief Minister Bhim Sen Sachar called in to stop the Sikhs of PEPSU from joining the morcha, and a supporter of the merger of PEPSU into Punjab, according to Khushwant Singh.

Key moments

• 17 May 1955: The SGPC's history of the morcha says Sachar summoned him to Chandigarh, where a conference was held on 17 May with the police chiefs of both states present. The history says no statement was given and it was kept under wraps, but the impression was given that PEPSU's Sikhs would be strictly stopped from joining the morcha.
• 20 May 1955: back at Patiala, he declared that he would never let PEPSU become the supply base of the morcha. The history says the Akalis knew he would not take them on himself, and that on 21 May Jathedar Sampuran Singh Rama, escaping the police, set out with PEPSU's first jatha for Amritsar. It adds that Jathedar Pritam Singh Gojran of Patiala later challenged Brish Bhan to do whatever he could. This is the SGPC's own account.
• 1 November 1956: PEPSU ceases to exist as a separate state.
• 1957: Khushwant Singh writes that Brish Bhan, a supporter of the merger, lost his seat in the Punjab Assembly to Sant Harchand Singh Longowal; he gives the first name as Harcharan.
• 3 February 1966: named as a member of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee among its spokesmen who gave evidence in Chandigarh to the Parliamentary Committee on the Demand for Punjabi Suba.

Remembered for: being the PEPSU Chief Minister in the 1955 Punjabi Suba morcha, whose threat to seal PEPSU off from the morcha the SGPC's own history says failed on 21 May, and the last head of PEPSU before it merged into Punjab.