Sardar Hardit Singh Malik

Hardit Singh Malik was a Sikh from Rawalpindi who was the first Indian commissioned as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, served in the Indian Civil Service, was Prime Minister of the princely state of Patiala from 1944 to 1947, and was independent India's first High Commissioner to Canada and later its Ambassador to France. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born on 23 November 1894 and was one of the very few Sikh boys who attended British schools and colleges with uncut hair and a turban.

Key moments

• Early life: sent to England at 14, he went to Eastbourne and then Balliol College, Oxford, taking a degree in Modern History in 1915 and captaining the cricket teams of both.
• 1916 to 1917: ambulance driver with the French Red Cross in 1916; in early 1917 he was admitted to the Royal Flying Corps as a fighter pilot, "the first-ever Indian pilot to be commissioned", the Encyclopaedia says.
• 1922 to the mid-1930s: after passing the Indian Civil Service examination in England, he served in Sheikhupura district, then as a trade commissioner in London and Hamburg and in the Commerce Department in Delhi.
• Late 1930s to 1944: India's trade commissioner in Canada and then, for five years, in the United States, the Encyclopaedia says.
• 1944 to 1947: Prime Minister of Patiala under Maharaja Yadavindra Singh.
• May 1948: South Asian Canadian Heritage says he took up his post in Ottawa as India's first High Commissioner to Canada. The Encyclopaedia says that during his two years there he succeeded in having full citizenship rights granted to Indian settlers in Canada, most of them Punjabis and largely Sikhs.
• From about 1950 to 1957: Ambassador to France until he retired, the Encyclopaedia says.
• September to October 1961: Gurmit Singh writes that on 30 September 1961, as talks to end Master Tara Singh's fast turned to a proposed High Powered Commission, Malik met Nehru. On 30 October 1961 Malik went with Master Tara Singh to see Nehru, again about the Commission. Master Tara Singh had ended his fast on 1 October.
• 26 August 1965: he wrote to the editor of the Hindustan Times that Nehru had asked him to tell the fasting Master Tara Singh that the principle of linguistic redistribution applied to other provinces would be applied to Punjab, and had then backed out of his word, Gurmit Singh records.
• 31 October 1985: he died in Delhi after a year-long illness.

Gurmit Singh also quotes from an article by Malik headed "Khalistan: let us keep our cool", in which Malik says that when the British decided to quit India and it became clear that Jinnah would get his Pakistan, the Sikhs were offered a homeland and refused it. That is Malik's claim, and this page does not test it.

Remembered for: his firsts, as a pilot and as High Commissioner to Canada, and for his part in the mediation that followed Master Tara Singh's fast of 1961.