Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke

Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke was a Jathedar of the Akal Takht, twice president of the SGPC, and a politician who moved from the Akali Dal to the Congress and then to the Swatantra Party. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he was born in 1894 at Nagoke in Amritsar district, the son of Bela Singh and Atar Kaur, and left the army in 1920 because its discipline irked him. He shared the village name with two other prominent men, Mohan Singh Nagoke and Giani Kartar Singh.

Key moments

• 1921 to 1922: he took part in the Akali agitation for the return of the keys of the Golden Temple treasury, was sentenced to six months and was among the last volunteers released. He also joined the Guru ka Bagh agitation and suffered severe police violence.
• 8 February 1924: as Jathedar of the Akal Takht during the Jaito agitation he was due to lead the first Shahidi Jatha, but he was arrested on the eve of its departure and spent two years in Multan Central Jail. On his release in 1926 he was appointed Jathedar again. The Encyclopaedia gives no dates for his terms. Wikipedia's list shows 13 October 1923 to 9 February 1924, and from 10 January 1926.
• 1926 to 1954: he was elected or co-opted to the SGPC, and sat on the Darbar Sahib Committee from 1930 to 1933.
• 1929 to 1942: he led a peasants' protest against higher agrarian taxes in 1929 and was jailed for a year, was elected president of the Shiromani Akali Dal in 1935, and was jailed again in the civil disobedience movement, in 1936 to 1939, in March 1942 and for three years in the Quit India movement.
• 1946 to 1960: he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1946, headed the Bharat Sevak Samaj in 1952, and sat in the Rajya Sabha from 1953 to 1960 as a Congress nominee. He was also a member of the Punjab Pradesh Congress executive.
• 1947: he kept at bay an angry mob bent on attack and arson on Amritsar.
• 28 June 1948 to 29 June 1952: the SGPC's list gives him two terms as president, from 28 June 1948 to 18 March 1950, after Jathedar Mohan Singh Nagoke, and from 26 November 1950 to 29 June 1952. On 18 March 1950 Jathedar Chanan Singh Urara took over from him, and he came back on 26 November. The Encyclopaedia says he was elected in 1948 and again in 1952.
• 1960: he joined the Swatantra Party, headed its Punjab branch in 1960 and 1961, and served a term in jail in the Punjabi Suba agitation.
• 11 January 1966: he died at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.

He is remembered as the Jathedar arrested on the eve of the first Shahidi Jatha to Jaito and as a long-serving SGPC leader.