Baba Jawala Singh

Baba Jawala Singh (also spelled Jwala Singh, Thathian or Thatthian) was a Punjabi Sikh pioneer in California who turned the wealth of a potato farm into a gurdwara, scholarships and the Ghadar movement. He was born in 1866 in the village of Thathian in Amritsar district to a small farming family. He left the village in 1905 and reached San Francisco in 1908 by way of Panama and Mexico.

With Wasakha Singh he took over a 500-acre ranch at Holt, near Stockton, which they worked mainly for potatoes. His success earned him the name Potato King, and the ranch, which gave free langar and a bed to Punjabi workers, became known as Bhaian da Dera, the Home of Brothers.

Key moments

• 1 January 1912: he announced the Sri Guru Gobind Singh Educational Scholarships for Indian students at the University of California, open to any community. The 1912 holders were one Christian, one Sikh, one Muslim and three Hindus.
• 1912: with Wasakha Singh he founded the Stockton gurdwara through the Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society. The University of California, Davis archive names the two as its founders, and he served as its first granthi.
• 31 December 1913: elected first Vice-President of the Ghadar Party at its Sacramento conference. He and Wasakha Singh later gave their farm property to the party.
• 29 August 1914: he sailed for India with other Ghadar leaders and reached Calcutta on 29 October. He was arrested on arrival and taken to Ludhiana for trial.
• Sentence: one biographer says life imprisonment, with 18 years served at Montgomery jail and release in 1933. Wikipedia says fourteen years. Both give release in 1933.
• After release he worked for the Desh Bhagat Pariwar Sahaik Committee, which helped the families of freedom fighters, and was first president of the Punjab Kisan Sabha and a leader of the Nili Bar peasant movement. He was jailed again in 1935 for a year.
• 8 May 1938: he died when the bus taking him to the All-India Kisan Conference crashed in Bengal.

Remembered for: the pattern of diaspora giving that the Stockton gurdwara represents, honest farm earnings put into a place of worship, education and the freedom struggle. The Tribune calls the Stockton gurdwara the first in the United States.