Jathedar Sampuran Singh Rama

Jathedar Sampuran Singh Rama was an Akali leader of PEPSU, the Patiala and East Punjab States Union, who took the first PEPSU jatha to the Punjabi Suba morcha at Amritsar in May 1955. The SGPC's history of the morcha, Punjabi Sube De Morche Di Twarikh, calls him a lion-hearted general of the PEPSU Union and a brave general of the Punjabi Suba movement. The pages opened for this page give no dates for his life and nothing on his later career.

The history says the Punjab and PEPSU governments tried to keep PEPSU's Sikhs out of the morcha. On 20 May Chief Minister Brish Bhan announced that PEPSU would never be allowed to become the morcha's supply base, after Punjab's Chief Minister Bhim Sen Sachar had said his government well knew what action to take if PEPSU's Sikhs joined. The press had reported that Rama would bring the first PEPSU jatha from Bathinda on 21 May. All of PEPSU's police were on alert that day, and in Bathinda every train and bus for Amritsar was searched, but, the history says, Rama threw dust in the eyes of the police and left the same day with his jatha from a place in PEPSU that it does not name, and reached Amritsar.

Key moments

• 21 May 1955: in defiance of Chief Minister Brish Bhan's declaration of 20 May that PEPSU would never be the morcha's supply base, he slips past the police and brings the first PEPSU jatha to Amritsar.
• 22 May: at the Manji Sahib divan he answers Jawaharlal Nehru, who before leaving for the Soviet Union had called the morcha "children's play", saying it is not children's play but the morcha for the honour and freedom of the Sikh Qaum.
• 25 May: on Punjabi Suba Day he takes command in Amritsar and, the history says, about 250 Singhs court arrest under him, shouting Punjabi Suba Zindabad, and go to jail.

The history says that when Rama went to jail it seemed as if the whole of PEPSU had risen into the morcha. Jabar Singh Bila, another PEPSU Akali leader, took command next, and Pritam Singh Sahoke MLA after him.