Bhai Maharaj Singh

Bhai Maharaj Singh was born Nihal Singh and later known as Bhagvan Singh. The Sikh Research Institute (SikhRI) places his birth in 1780 at Rabbon in Ludhiana district, and says he was called “Maharaj” for the humility with which he treated everyone. He was a disciple of Baba Bir Singh at the Naurangabad dera, which SikhRI describes as a training centre for spiritual and political life, with reportedly 1,200 musketeers and 3,000 horsemen. After the fall of the Sikh kingdom he was one of the leaders who kept up armed resistance to the British.

Key moments

• 1844: the dera at Naurangabad was attacked by troops of Hira Singh Dogra, who according to SikhRI came with 20,000 men and 50 cannon. Baba Bir Singh was killed and Bhagvan Singh became head of the dera.
• 1847: after a failed plot against Henry Lawrence, the Resident, SikhRI says the British declared him an outlaw and put Rs 10,000 on his head.
• 1848 to 1849: SikhRI says he led about 600 Sikhs and fought at Ramnagar, Chillianwala and Rawalpindi, and did not surrender when Raja Sher Singh did. The Tribune adds that after the defeat at Gujrat he went with the army to Rawalpindi and urged one more battle, but most of the chiefs refused.
• 29 March 1849: the Punjab was annexed. From July to October he stayed at Sajuwal near Batala, planning attacks on the Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar cantonments for 3 January 1850, and sent men to Lahore to try to bring Maharaja Duleep Singh to the Jammu hills (The Tribune).
• 28 December 1849: arrested at Adampur, in a sugarcane field, with 21 followers, by Henry Vansittart, Deputy Commissioner of Jalandhar, after an informer reported him.
• 23 March 1850: Governor-General Dalhousie ordered his deportation. He left Calcutta on 15 May 1850 and reached Singapore in mid-1850 (SikhRI gives 9 July, The Tribune 14 June). He was held in solitary confinement in the New Jail on Outram Road, went blind from cataracts by 1853, and was refused even occasional fresh air for security reasons.
• 5 July 1856: he died in the jail.

What he is remembered for: The Tribune calls him the first Indian freedom fighter sent to Singapore jail. His struggle, from the outlawing of 1847 to his arrest, lasted about two years and ended in the last week of 1849, six days before the rising he had planned. SikhRI says local devotees began to revere the site in Singapore, and records that his samadh was moved to the Silat Road Gurdwara in 1966, an official memorial was put up in 1996, and Singapore’s National Heritage Board designated it a historical site in 1999.