Sardar Sundar Singh Majithia

Sundar Singh Majithia was born on 17 February 1872 at Majitha, near Amritsar, the younger son of Raja Surat Singh. He studied at Aitchison College and Government College, Lahore, and became the best-known Sikh of the early twentieth-century loyalist current, a builder of Sikh institutions who worked inside British rule. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls the Chief Khalsa Diwan he led moderate, pro-government and elitist.

Key moments

• 1894: becomes secretary of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Amritsar, affiliated to the Khalsa Diwan, Amritsar; the Encyclopaedia gives no end year. He joins the council of Khalsa College in 1895 and is its secretary from 1902 to 1912.
• 30 October 1902: the Chief Khalsa Diwan is founded. He is secretary from 1902 to 1920 and again from 1934 to 1937, and acting president in 1932 and 1933.
• 1909: nominated to the Viceroy's Legislative Council, where he steers the Anand Marriage Bill introduced by his predecessor the year before. The Encyclopaedia, without a date, credits him with getting the ban on carrying the kirpan in India and Burma lifted.
• 1913 to 1914: in the Rakabganj wall dispute at Delhi he backs the government's plan to replace the demolished wall with an iron railing. Scroll says he used all his resources to gather support for the plan and issued a pamphlet defending it. Sikhs denounced the Diwan's stand as a stab in the back of the community. In March 1920 the government gave way and agreed to rebuild the wall.
• Ghadar Party: Wikipedia, citing Mansingh's Historical Dictionary of India, says he supported British rule and opposed the party's activities.
• 12 December 1920: the Encyclopaedia's entry on the SGPC says he is elected the first president at its inaugural meeting at Sri Akal Takht Sahib. His own Encyclopaedia entry dates his election to 16 November 1920, the second day of the Sikh assembly that chose the 175-member committee. He resigns early in 1921 to join the government, and Baba Kharak Singh is elected in his place.
• 1921: the Encyclopaedia says he is elected to the Punjab Legislative Council and appointed an executive councillor and revenue minister. Wikipedia says he was Revenue Member in the first and second legislative councils (1921 and 1926).
• 1936 and 1937: he is elected from Batala in 1936 for the Khalsa National Party, which he co-founded with Sir Jogendra Singh (Wikipedia calls it conservative and loyalist). On 1 April 1937 he joins the Unionist ministry of Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan as revenue minister and holds the post until he dies.
• 1 to 2 April 1941: dies at Lahore. He had been made a Sardar Bahadur in 1911, a C.I.E. in 1920 and a knight in 1926.

What he is remembered for. He was a founder-member of the Sikh Educational Conference in 1908, founded the Punjab and Sind Bank at Amritsar the same year, and presided over the Khalsa College council from 1920 until his death. He is also remembered as the face of cooperation with the government. The Encyclopaedia says the Chief Khalsa Diwan lost much of its influence after the SGPC took over the major shrines.