Sardar Ujjal Singh

Sardar Ujjal Singh (27 December 1895 to 15 February 1983) was a Sikh legislator, minister and Governor. He spoke for the Sikhs at the Round Table Conferences in London, sat in the Punjab Legislative Council for thirty years, served as Finance Minister of East Punjab, and was Governor of Punjab in the months when the Punjabi Suba demand was conceded.

Early life. He was born at Hadali village in the Sindh-Sagar Doab (now in Pakistan), the younger son of Sujan Singh and Lakshmi Devi. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the family traced its descent to Bhai Sangat Singh, who died at Chamkaur Sahib in 1705. He studied at the Khalsa Collegiate School in Amritsar and took an MA in history at Government College, Lahore, where he played hockey.

The Panth's spokesman in London. He was a member of the first Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council in 1926. With Sampuran Singh he represented the Sikhs at the first Round Table Conference (November 1930) and the second (7 September to 1 December 1931). In the second session the Sikh demands included 30 percent of the seats in the Punjab Assembly and one-third of Cabinet posts. The Communal Award of 16 August 1932 gave the Sikhs 19 percent in the Punjab and reserved 51.4 percent for Muslims, a permanent statutory majority. Ujjal Singh resigned from the Viceroy's Consultative Committee on Reforms in August 1932 in protest, and both Sikh delegates left the Conference and its sub-committees.

Office. He was Parliamentary Secretary (Home) in the Unionist ministry of the Punjab from 1937 to 1942 and resigned during the Quit India movement. In March 1942 he was one of the Sikh delegation that gave a memorandum to Sir Stafford Cripps, and in 1945 one of India's delegates to the United Nations food and agriculture conference in Canada. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946. After Partition he lost his estates in Pakistan and came to India as a refugee. In East Punjab he was Minister of Industries and Civil Supplies and then Finance and Industries Minister from 1949 to 1956, and he sat on the Second Finance Commission (June 1956 to September 1957) and the Punjabi University Commission (1960).

Key moments

• 1930 and 1931: Sikh delegate at the first and second Round Table Conferences.
• August 1932: resigns from the Viceroy's Consultative Committee over the Communal Award.
• 1937 to 1942: Parliamentary Secretary (Home), Punjab.
• 1949 to 1956: Finance and Industries Minister, East Punjab.
• 1 September 1965 to 27 June 1966: Governor of Punjab, then Governor of Tamil Nadu until May 1971.

What he is remembered for. A tribute on SikhNet by Tarlochan Singh credits him with helping the talks that led to separate Punjab and Haryana states while he was Governor, with helping to set up Punjabi University, Patiala, and with building Bhai Vir Sadan in Delhi. The author says the article gives his personal views. He died at his New Delhi residence.