Jathedar Jiwan Singh Umranangal

Jathedar Jiwan Singh Umranangal was a senior Akali Dal leader and a former Punjab Revenue Minister. The Tribune's obituary says he was born on 1 October 1914 at Dhaliwal Bet in Kapurthala district, rose from sarpanch and nambardar of his village, entered active politics in 1952 as a worker of the Shiromani Akali Dal, and became the party's general secretary and later its vice-president. It adds that he won the SGPC elections three times and served twelve years on its executive committee.

Key moments

• 23 May 1960: Gurmit Singh says Sant Fateh Singh, Harcharan Singh Hudiara and Jiwan Singh Umranangal escaped the arrests of that night in the Punjabi Suba agitation and reached the Golden Temple.
• 15 to 23 November 1961: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he notified Master Tara Singh on 15 November to vacate the presidencies of the Akali Dal and the SGPC, listing ten charges against him, and began a fast on 21 November in front of the SGPC offices. A settlement two days later ended the fast and withdrew the suspension orders against him. Gurmit Singh says Tara Singh expelled him and Lachhman Singh Gill, and that the five Panj Piare examined Umranangal among those who knew the background of the fasts.
• July 1962: the Encyclopaedia calls him and Gill supporters of Sant Fateh Singh and says Tara Singh suspended them for indiscipline on 4 July and the Working Committee ratified the expulsions on 16 July. Gurmit Singh dates the expulsion 8 July. Sant Fateh Singh then called the convention at Mullanpur on 22 July that began a parallel Akali Dal.
• 11 December 1972: the Encyclopaedia names him as one of the twelve members of the sub-committee the Akali Dal appointed to draft the policy programme later known as the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. The members included Surjit Singh Barnala and Gurcharan Singh Tohra.
• 1968 and 1977: The Tribune says he was Revenue Minister in the ministries of Gurnam Singh and Parkash Singh Badal.
• 1979: he won the SGPC election against Amrik Singh, the president of the All India Sikh Students Federation, whom The Tribune describes as a candidate of the Damdami Taksal headed by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
• 1986 to 1998: The Tribune says his opposition to what it calls "militancy" began in 1978 and peaked in 1986, when he began a three-year door-to-door campaign in the Majha region, and that his son Sukhdev Singh was killed in 1987, by "terrorists" in the paper's words. He received the Padma Bhushan in 1991. In 1992 he left the Akali Dal over what the paper calls its ambiguous stand on violence and founded the Jagat Akali Dal, then rejoined the party on the eve of the February 1998 Lok Sabha election. He died in a hospital at Beas on 7 November 1998, aged 84.

He is remembered as the Akali leader who challenged Master Tara Singh in 1961, helped draft the policy programme behind the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, and beat the Taksal's candidate in the SGPC poll of 1979.