Nawab Kapur Singh

Nawab Kapur Singh was the Sikh leader who gave the scattered Khalsa fighting bands their shape in the hard years after Banda Singh Bahadur, and who stood behind the founding of the Dal Khalsa in 1748. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls him an eighteenth century Sikh hero and the founder of the Dal Khalsa. He is also known as Kapur Singh Faizullapuria or Singhpuria, after the village near Amritsar that he seized and renamed Singhpura.

He was born in 1697 into a peasant family of Virks in the village of Kaloke, now in Sheikhupura district of Pakistan, the son of Dalip Singh. He was eleven when Guru Gobind Singh passed away and nineteen when Banda Singh Bahadur and his companions were put to death in Delhi. In 1721, at a large gathering at Amritsar on Diwali, Bhai Mani Singh gave him the vows of the Khalsa.

Key moments

• After Zakariya Khan became governor of Lahore in 1726 and pressed the Sikhs hard, Kapur Singh organised a band that raided government treasuries and caravans to feed companions sheltering in the hills and forests.
• 1733: the government offered the Sikhs a jagir and the title of Nawab for their leader, and the Khalsa chose Kapur Singh. The Encyclopaedia says he accepted reluctantly and laid the robe of honour at the feet of five revered Sikhs before putting it on.
• He divided the Khalsa into the Buddha Dal, the army of the elderly, which looked after the holy places, preached and gave the vows of the Khalsa, and the Taruna Dal, the army of the young, which fought. He further split the Taruna Dal into five jathas, each with its own banner and drum.
• 1735: Zakariya Khan ended the peace and occupied the jagir, and the Buddha Dal was driven towards the Malwa. There Kapur Singh took Sunam and gave it to Ala Singh of the Phulkian family.
• 1739: he fell on the rearguard of Nadir Shah near Akhnur on the Chenab and rescued girls being carried off, returning them to their parents.
• 29 March 1748: at his urging, the Sikh bands gathered at Amritsar on Baisakhi, by then sixty-five of them, were united by a gurmata into the Dal Khalsa, in eleven misls under one supreme command. His own Singhpuria misl was one of the eleven. The Encyclopaedia's entries differ on what followed. Its entry on him says he surrendered charge to Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, chosen supreme commander at his suggestion. Its entry on the Buddha Dal says Jassa Singh was in joint command while Kapur Singh continued to be acknowledged as supreme commander, and that before his death Kapur Singh nominated Jassa Singh supreme commander, which the Sarbat Khalsa ratified on Baisakhi, 10 April 1754.

Kapur Singh died at Amritsar on 7 October 1753 and was cremated at Gurdwara Baba Atal. His nephew Khushal Singh took charge of the misl.