Master Sundar Singh Lyallpuri

Master Sundar Singh Lyallpuri was a Sikh teacher, journalist and agitator of the Akali movement, best known as the founder and editor of the daily Akali. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives his birth as 4 April 1885 at Bahowal near Amritsar and his death as 5 January 1969; Wikipedia gives 1878 and 3 March 1969, so the exact dates are not settled. Wikipedia calls him a founding father of the Akali movement and the Shiromani Akali Dal, but the Encyclopaedia names Sarmukh Singh Jhabal, not Lyallpuri, as the first jathedar (president) of the Dal, formed on 14 December 1920.

Key moments

• 1908: after a B.A. (Honours) at Khalsa College and a B.T. at Lahore, he joined Master Tara Singh teaching at Khalsa High School, Lyallpur, for about 15 rupees a month.
• 1909: he published a pamphlet criticising government control of Khalsa College and started the Punjabi paper Sachcha Dhandora, which was prosecuted and suppressed.
• 21 May 1920: he launched the daily Akali at Lahore, which argued for democratic control of Sikh shrines and Khalsa College. In July 1922 it merged with Pardesi Khalsa as Akali te Pardesi, published from Amritsar. In 1924 he restarted Akali in Urdu and launched the Hindustan Times from Delhi; both closed soon after his arrest.
• 26 November 1921: arrested at Ajnala during the agitation over the Golden Temple treasury keys and sentenced to six months and a fine of 4,000 rupees.
• 1923: he opposed the SGPC taking up the agitation for the Nabha Maharaja's reinstatement, arguing that a religious body should not enter politics and that the Central Sikh League should handle it.
• Later he was among the Akali detenus who refused release on the condition of implementing the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925. After a failed business in Bombay, he received a pension and land in Hissar district after Independence.

Remembered for: the daily Akali, and the prosecutions and jail terms it brought him.