Sardar Mangal Singh

Sardar Mangal Singh was an Akali journalist and politician who presided over the ad hoc Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) while the SGPC and the Akali Dal were banned, took part in the talks that led to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925, and chaired the first meeting of the Gurdwara Central Board in September 1926. The SGPC's list gives his term as president as 27 April 1925 to 2 October 1926.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born on 6 June 1892 at Gill, near Ludhiana, the son of Zaildar Kapur Singh, and that his father was granted land in the Lyallpur canal colony in 1898. Khushwant Singh gives his year of birth as 1896. After matriculating in 1911 he joined Khalsa College, Amritsar, served in Mesopotamia and then Europe in the First World War, and was awarded an honorary degree. Nominated a tahsildar, he left the training to join the Punjabi daily Akali, launched from Lahore in May 1920 by Master Sundar Singh and Harchand Singh.

Key moments

• After 1920: the Encyclopaedia says he was prosecuted for his anti-government writings and sentenced to jail; Khushwant Singh's note says he served five years for seditious writing.
• 1925: on his release he found the SGPC and the Akali Dal declared unlawful, and was chosen president of the ad hoc SGPC. The SGPC's list shows him taking over from Sardar Bahadur Mehtab Singh on 27 April 1925.
• 1925: he took part in the deliberations and negotiations that led to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, which created the Gurdwara Central Board, later renamed the SGPC.
• 4 September 1926: he presided over the first meeting of the Gurdwara Central Board.
• 2 October 1926: he acted as pro-tem president of the meeting at which Baba Kharak Singh was elected president and Master Tara Singh vice-president. The SGPC's list ends his term that day and begins Baba Kharak Singh's second term. The Encyclopaedia adds that he was elected a member of the executive.
• 1928: he represented the Sikhs on the Motilal Nehru Committee. Khushwant Singh, citing an interview with him, says he first insisted that if the Muslims were given separate rights the Sikhs would ask for one-third of the seats in the Punjab and 5 per cent at the centre, and that the committee finally gave up all communal representation.
• 1935 to 1945: member of the Central Legislative Assembly as a nominee of the Indian National Congress; he was re-elected in 1945 as a candidate of the Shiromani Akali Dal.
• 1960 to 1987: the Encyclopaedia says he withdrew from active politics in 1960 for reasons of health. He died at Chandigarh on 16 June 1987.

He is remembered as the journalist who led the SGPC through its months under a ban, helped bring about the Gurdwaras Act, and handed the chair of the new Board to Baba Kharak Singh.