Bhai Fauja Singh

Bhai Fauja Singh was a Sikh of Amritsar who was killed on 13 April 1978, Vaisakhi, in the clash at the Sant Nirankari convention in Amritsar. Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles lists him first among the thirteen Sikhs identified as killed on the spot, as the son of Surain Singh and a resident of Amritsar. J.S. Grewal calls him an agricultural inspector who was one of the Sikh dead. Wikipedia gives his birth as 17 May 1936 in Gurdaspur district and says he was baptised in 1964 at a smagam of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, a detail it leaves unsourced.

ThePrint says the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, which joined the Sikhs sent by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to protest at the convention, was led by Fauja Singh. Khushwant Singh writes that a procession led by the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and Bhindranwale's followers was allowed to march from the Golden Temple through the bazars to the venue of the convention, and that seventeen men, most of them of the Jatha, were killed in the clash that followed.

How he died is told differently. ThePrint says he was killed by Gurbachan Singh's guard. The Nirankaris say they were attacked by armed fanatics, and ThePrint notes that several reports suggest they were themselves armed. The SGPC's white paper, printed in Gurmit Singh's second volume, describes a highly devout, well-known and well-educated man who was badly wounded by bullets and then shot at close range, his attacker telling him he was a troublesome person. The white paper is an advocacy document, and its details are the SGPC's account.

Afterwards, Khushwant Singh writes, Fauja Singh's widow, Amarjit Kaur, accused Bhindranwale of cowardice. ThePrint says the reins of the Jatha passed to her, and Wikipedia says a charitable trust in his name was set up in Amritsar in 1989 to care for orphans of Sikh martyrs, which she runs. In January 1980 more than sixty Nirankaris, Gurbachan Singh among them, were acquitted; ThePrint says the court ruled that they had acted in self-defence.

Key moments

• 13 April 1978: killed at Amritsar. Gurmit Singh's list of the thirteen Sikhs who died on the spot begins with his name.
• 15 April 1978: Wikipedia says the thirteen were cremated together in front of Gurdwara Ramsar Sahib, before a congregation of some 25,000 to 30,000.
• January 1980: the Nirankari accused are acquitted.

Remembered for: being the first of the thirteen Shaheed of Vaisakhi 1978. His widow, Bibi Amarjit Kaur, carried on the Jatha, and on Wikipedia's account a charitable trust bears his name.