Bhai Gurmukh Singh

Bhai Gurmukh Singh (15 April 1849 to 24 September 1898) was one of the founders of the Singh Sabha movement and the leading figure of its Lahore wing, the Tat Khalsa side of the movement.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born at Kapurthala, where his father Basava Singh was a cook in the royal household. He finished school there and entered Government College, Lahore. In 1873, when the Singh Sabha was set up at Amritsar, he left without graduating to work for reform. In 1877 he helped get Punjabi added to the curriculum of the Oriental College, Lahore, and became its first lecturer. He later taught Punjabi and Mathematics at Punjab University College.

Key moments

• 2 November 1879: the Lahore Singh Sabha was set up with Diwan Buta Singh as president and Gurmukh Singh as secretary. The Encyclopaedia describes him as a progressive reformer who held that Sikhism is a separate religion with equality among believers.
• 1883 onward: he was the first chief secretary of the Khalsa Diwan at Amritsar. Differences between Baba Khem Singh Bedi, president of the Singh Sabha General at Amritsar, and Gurmukh Singh split the movement. The Lahore Khalsa Diwan was formed on 10 to 11 April 1886, with Gurmukh Singh as its secretary, and it came to have most of the Singh Sabhas.
• 1886: with Jhanda Singh and Giani Ditt Singh he set up the Khalsa Press at Lahore and the weekly Khalsa Akhbar, the organ of the Lahore Khalsa Diwan, first published on 13 June 1886. A libel suit brought by the Amritsar party over the play Swapan paused the paper in 1889 (Wikipedia).
• April 1887: the Amritsar faction passed a resolution, under the seal of the Golden Temple, to excommunicate him. The Lahore Khalsa Diwan ignored it and he stayed in office. The Encyclopaedia does not say the resolution was ever revoked.
• He brought Bhai Jawahir Singh and Giani Ditt Singh back from the Arya Samaj, and the three worked as a close team.

He died of a heart attack at Kasauli on 24 September 1898, where he had gone to seek a donation from the Maharaja of Dhaulpur for Khalsa College, Amritsar. The college's foundation stone had been laid on 5 March 1892, after wrangling over its location that the Amritsar side won.

He is remembered as the organiser of the Lahore Singh Sabha, the Khalsa press and the Lahore Khalsa Diwan, and as the Singh Sabha leader whom the Amritsar establishment tried to put out of the Panth for opposing its leadership.