Giani Achhar Singh

Giani Achhar Singh was twice Jathedar of the Akal Takht, a gurdwara official and an Akali politician. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born on 18 January 1892 at Ghanieke in Lahore district, the youngest son of Hukam Singh and Gangi, and went to Burma at 15. He enlisted in the Burmese military police, served about three years in Mesopotamia in the First World War, and was a havildar by 1920. The news of the Nankana Sahib massacre of 20 February 1921 shocked him; he left the army, visited Nankana Sahib, joined the Central Majha Khalsa Diwan and threw himself into the agitation for gurdwara reform.

Key moments

• 10 February 1924: appointed Jathedar of the Akal Takht on the arrest of Udham Singh Nagoke. The SGPC and the Akali Dal had been outlawed on 12 October 1923, as the Jaito campaign began, and arrests across Punjab had already taken the earlier Jathedar, Teja Singh Akarpuri.
• 7 May 1924: arrested and sentenced to a year and a half in jail. After his release from Mianwali Central Jail at the end of 1925 he resumed the office, which he kept until Teja Singh Akarpuri was freed in September 1926.
• He then served 14 years as a granthi at Gurdwara Dehra Sahib in Lahore, and from 1940 as a granthi at the Harimandar in Amritsar until he resigned in 1962.
• 1955 to 1962: Jathedar of the Akal Takht a second time. He was arrested at the Darbar Sahib on 4 July 1955, during the Punjabi Suba agitation, and released two days later.
• 29 November 1961: he headed the five Panj Piare named to judge whether Master Tara Singh had broken the vow he took at the Akal Takht before his fast. The Encyclopaedia says the five pronounced Master Tara Singh guilty of going back on his pledge and gave him a severer penance, and laid a penance on Sant Fateh Singh for acquiescing in the breaking of the fast. Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles says Giani Achhar Singh announced the punishment, which included an Akhand Path, extra prayers, five days of cleaning the congregation's utensils and shoes, and Karah Prashad.
• November 1962: resigned as head of the Akal Takht to join Master Tara Singh's faction when the Akali Dal split, and was elected its president. Gurmit Singh says that as president of the Akali Dal (Master) he and Gurnam Singh tried to unite the two factions and failed, and that he later resigned and Giani Bhupinder Singh succeeded him as president; the book does not date the resignation.
• 7 December 1963: presided over the 15th All-India Akali Conference at Karnal and pleaded for unity between the two Akali factions.

He died in the civil hospital at Amritsar on 6 August 1976 after a long illness. He is remembered as the Jathedar who headed the Panj Piare's judgment on Master Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh in 1961.