| Religion: | Sikhism |
| Maharaj Singh | |
| Honorific Prefix: | Bhai |
| Known For: |
|
| Lineage: | Dera of Bhai Bir Singh Naurangabad |
| Death Cause: | Throat cancer |
| Death Place: | Outram Prison, Singapore |
| Death Date: | 5 July 1856 |
| Birthname: | Nihal Singh |
| Office1: | Mahant of the Naurangabad Dera |
| Term1: | 1844 – ? |
| Predecessor: | Bhai Bir Singh Naurangabad |
| Dharma Name: | Bhagvan Singh |
| Birth Place: | Rabbon Uchi, Ludhiana district, Punjab |
| Children: | Nanak Singh (son) |
Bhai Maharaj Singh (disputed – 5 July 1856) was a prominent Sikh saint-soldier (sant-sipahi) turned revolutionary anti-colonial resistance fighter of the early British colonial establishment in the Punjab.[1] [2] [3] [4] He is also remembered as the first Sikh in Singapore on record, having been exiled there as punishment in the latter part of his life.
His birth name was Nihal Singh. His Khalsa name after undergoing the Amrit Sanchar ceremony was Bhagvan Singh. His sobriquet was Maharaj Singh. He was also known as the "Karniwala" (miracle worker) or "Guru" (spiritual leader; often spelt as Gooroo archaically). Posthumously, he became known as Karam Singh amongst the local Singaporeans, theorized to derive from the Karniwala appellation as a diminutive form.
He was born as Nihal Singh in Rabbon Uchi village (Raboo, Nagar Maloud; located in present-day Ludhiana district) in the latter half of the 18th century.[5] His exact day of birth has been claimed to have been 3 January 1770 or 13 January 1780 amongst different sources.[6] His father's name has been identified as either being Kesar Singh or Gurmukh Singh. Maharaj Singh had two brothers, named Gurdial Singh and Gurbakhash Singh, respectively.
He was a religiously inclined individual with a patient demeanor.[7] His father would send him to a Sikh seminary so that he would be instructed on Gurbani and Gurmukhi. However, the teacher at the seminary saw promise in the young Maharaj Singh so he advised that he should be sent to the Dera of Bhai Tota Singh Thikriwala.
He was educated in the Dera (sanctuary) of Bhai Tota Singh in Thikriwala during his formative years. At that dera, he learnt about Sikh history, scripture, and philosophy (including traditional Sikh political philosophies). The deras of his era would produce Sikh saint-warriors through their educational methodologies. According to some sources, he may have taken Amrit during his time at Bhai Tota Singh Thikriwala's dera. He would immerse himself in Naam Simran meditation as a daily routine. He studied the Vedas and the Sikh primary canon, the Guru Granth Sahib.
Whilst he was a student at the dera of Bhai Tota Singh, a Sikh saint known as Bhai Bir Singh of Naurangabad would hold a katha (discourse) session in the village Maharaj Singh was living in at the time. Maharaj Singh was present at this discourse given by Bir Singh. After the meeting with Bir Singh, he became impressed by the religious leader's doctrines. He eventually came to know about Bir Singh of Naurangabad's dera and set-off to join it. His interest in Bir Singh's dera was elicited due to discovering how concepts of Sikh statecraft, Sikh vows, and seva, were heavily mentored there.
He eventually became associated with the Dera set-up by Bhai Bir Singh, located in Naurangabad (located in present-day Tarn Taran district). His time at the dera was occupied by seva and serving in the langar (communal kitchen). Thousands of devotees would visit the dera and Maharaj Singh was responsible for cooking food to provide the langar meals for all of these people, a responsibility he undertook as the head chef. Local resident, Gurpratap Singh, claim he served as a volunteer in the langar kitchen full of pyaar. After undergoing the Pahul ceremony, he was rechristened with the Khalsa name of Bhagvan Singh.[8] He rose-up to eventually becoming one of the most entrusted disciples of Bir Singh.
His master, Bir Singh, gave him the following words of advice during his Amrit Sanchar ceremony:
He started to become known as "Maharaj Singh" because he had a habit of referring to everyone, no matter who they wore and their status, as maharaj, in-order to humble himself, which ironically earned the appellation for himself in the mouths of others.[9] Eventually his prior names of Nihal and Bhagvan were forgotten and people just referred to him as Maharaj. Every time he would give food to a pilgrim, he would say "take maharaj".
He learnt about the Sikh concepts of miri-piri during his time at the Naurangabad Dera. He was personally mentored by Bir Singh. Harjinder Singh describes the Naurangabad Dera as a "seminary-like space" and as a "theo-political training center where the culture of Nam prevailed".
Maharaj Singh would bring Bir Singh water during the hours of amrit vela at 3:00 a.m. for Ishnan (holy bath) everyday.[10] He also volunteered his labour preparing and cooking meals for the langar of the Dera, which would feel thousands of visitors daily.
Bir Singh would later send Maharaj Singh to Amritsar, where he make a base of operations at Samdu Ka Talab. There he would be joined by Ram Singh (later Guru of the Namdhari sect), another aspiring disciple of Bir Singh. Both of them would travel around Punjab and raise awareness about the plight of Sikh sovereignty and the danger of losing it. They wanted to protect the future of the Sikh Empire, which had been embroiled in a precarious state. Maharaj Singh would train his disciples by enacting artificial warfare and field training exercises, similar to what occurs at the Hola Mohalla festivals of the present-day.
When Bir Singh died on 7 May 1844, after being killed in an attack on his dera led by the Dogra faction of the Lahore Durbar, Maharaj Singh became the next mahant (leader) of the group due to his high-repute among members of the dera. Amardeep Madra argues that the death of his master in this attack may have influenced Maharaj Singh's direction in life towards revolution and confrontation of those he perceived as enemies of the survival of the Sikh state. At-first the council of the dera had decided to pass on the mantle of leadership to another member named Khuda Singh, but Khuda was full of humility and was humble and therefore suggested that the next leader should be Maharaj Singh. Many Sikh chiefs and courtly officials, including of the Lahore Durbar, held him in high-regard as well.
He was the founder of the Hoti Mardan Valli Sant Khalsa Sampardai order.
By the 1840s, the Sikh Empire remained the last truly independent state of India, the rest having been colonized by European powers. Maharaj Singh is claimed to be the earliest noteworthy Indian who put up a resistance to the colonial British establishment. Amandeep Madra believes that in the early 1840s, he was one of the few, if any, Sikhs who understood the danger the British posed to the Sikh state and the risk of colonization. His insurrectionary activities began in the aftermath of the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1846, just prior to the complete annexation of the Sikh Empire by the British East India Company.
He had kept in contact with Maharani Jind Kaur, widow of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, assisting her when the need arose. In 1847, the British decided to deport Jind Kaur out of the Punjab and attempted to stifle her influence. Maharaj Singh would later be involved in the Prema plot as a result of this news.
Sikhs would welcome the taking up of arms against the British with the words "Ah Wo Maharaj".
The first action he took is an attempted assassination of Henry Lawrence and additional pro-British members of the Lahore durbar (court) of the Sikh Empire. This is known as the 'Prema conspiracy case' or 'Prema plot' and it occurred in 1847.
After word of mouth about Maharaj Singh's role in the conspiracy, he started to earn mass-appeal amongst the people of Punjab. Sher Singh Attariwala and other Sikh figures would invoke the name of Maharaj Singh when they made efforts to enlist Sikhs for their insurrectionist cause:
The British tried to restrict his movement to Naurangabad, thus he started working in secret with around 600 of his acolytes. His properties in Amritsar were seized and a recompense was declared for his arrest. At one point, the British tried to promote a rumour that had sprung-up Maharaj Singh had drowned after falling off of his famed black horse whilst crossing the Jhelum River, seemingly in-order to demoralize the Sikh masses who looked up him and saw him as their leader. However, after three days the averment came out to be untrue and Maharaj Singh was alive and well. He had built a vast web of interconnections between various sections of Punjabi and Sikh society at the time, which he worked hard to maintain by traveling a lot to visit people.
When Maharaj Singh got word of the rebellion launched by Diwan Mulraj Chopra in Multan in April 1848, he escalated his anti-British activities. He left for Multan accompanied with a force of 400 horsemen to assist the Sikh governor in his insurrection against the British. However, disagreements would emerge between the two leaders which led to Maharaj Singh making leave for Hazara in June 1848 to meet-up with Chattar Singh Attariwala and petition for his assistance in his anti-British scheme.
In November 1848, he partook in the Battle of Ramnagar alongside Sher Singh Attariwala. He rode a black horse in the battle and attempted to raise the moral of the Sikh forces at-battle, requesting them to put their lives on the line for the defence of their nation. He also was present at the battles of Chillianwala and Gujrat.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Gujrat, he escaped to Rawalpindi and tried again and again to request the Sikh chiefs to fight another battle against the British, either at Rawalpindi or at Panja Sahib. However, his petition fell upon deaf ears as the Sikh leaders at that time were not in-favour of his plan.
James Broun-Ramsay (Lord Dalhousie) recognized that the Sikhs did not want to free only Punjab but rather the entire Indian subcontinent:
After the surrender of Sher Singh Attariwala to the British forces on 14 March 1849 at Rawalpindi, he decided to continue his struggle against the British alone.
Maharaj Singh would make the following communication to his fellow Sikhs in-response to the surrender of Sikh military and political power to the British:
Henry Lawrence would make the following remark:
Bikram Singh Bedi, a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, and Colonel Richhpal Singh Purbia, were the only two of the prominent Sikhs who agreed with Maharaj Singh and decided to accompany him to continue the struggle. The Sikh Empire was annexed by the British East India Company on 29 March 1849.
He retreated to Jammu and secretly made Dev Batala his new base of operations. He wanted to engender a new war in-which all Punjabis would rise-up against their British overlords on a fixed date as a united fighting force. He later relocated to Chambi, a location that was even more difficult to access and secluded. From this location, he would send secret messages to the various former subjects of the Sikh Empire, pressing them to reignite the fight against the British and push them out of Punjab.
His secretive emissaries were mostly "discharged soldiers of the Khalsa Army, the Jagirdars and chiefs who had been dispossessed of their estates of pension by the British authorities and also the holders of religious estates, particularly the Gosains in the Kangra hills, who could help him finance the freedom struggle."
Maharaj Singh had developed a "five-point plan" to defeat the British and win back sovereignty, the five goals were as follows:
Maharaj Singh came to learn about the British plan to remove Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, from the Punjab by sending him abroad to England. Maharaj Singh perceived this as a major blow to the freedom struggle and therefore he sent six of his loyal followers on a mission to Lahore where they would be intercepted by Mian Ganesh, who was planned to aid them in their undertaking. They had designed to somehow bring Maharaja Duleep Singh to their headquarters in the Jammu Hills, where they would lead a more general rebellion against the British from. Thus, five or six persons from the mission would always reside near the palace walls where Duleep Singh was kept at with the goal of abducting him and taking him back to fulfill their ultimate plan.
The British caught wind of a conspiracy and decided to move Duleep Singh to Mussorie. They also urged members of the Muslim community to seek out the whereabouts of Maharaj Singh by promising them a hefty reward. They further tried to frame him as a mere religious leader to diminish his aura as a military and political figure. They kept trying to capture Maharaj Singh but kept-on failing to do so as he kept evading them. As a result, Maharaj Singh became known as Karnivala (meaning 'the wonder worker') by the people since he kept on eluding the British.
Thus, Maharaj Singh would need to undertake necessary preparations to set the plan into motion. He decided to reside at Sajuwal (located in present-day Batala district) from where he planned to launch offensives against the cantonments at Hoshiarpur, Hajipur, and Jalandhar. He needed funds and manpower for his upcoming plan and therefore decided to elicit the help of the common people. He sent agents to faraway places, such as Kabul and Kandahar, to advance his plan.
Contact was established with Afghan rulers Amir Dost Mohammad Khan and Sultan Mohammad Khan. The Afghans straight-up refused to give any help to Maharaj Singh and his retinue. He also solicited the help of the Maharaja of Bikaner and Gulab Singh of Kashmir. However, none of these states would offer him assistance.Prominent Sikh figures, such Bikram Singh Bedi of the Punjab Hills, son of the well-respected Sahib Singh Bedi and a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, decided to assist Maharaj Singh in his endeavor. A progeny of the Kangra State's royalty and other important families of the day had committed to supplying the resistance forces with 1,000 matchlockmen, 10,000–20,000 rupees, and nearly 10,000 maunds of grain for the affair.
These activities had piqued the interest of the Attariwala chiefs, Dewan Hakim Rai, and the Majithia family. However, these aforementioned groups could not be of much help because their movement had been confined to their native villages as per the orders of the British authorities. Fakirs and Brahmins who had worked as couriers of Jind Kaur and the Sikh chiefs during the pre-annexation period began to pay visits to the residences of former rebel leaders, prominent chiefs, and other influential members of the native society. The British cautiously realized that these chiefs were working in unison with Maharaj Singh in-order to launch a rebellion.
After these reassurances, Maharaj Singh decided it was time to leave Sajuwal and make way to Hoshiarpur in December 1849, where he had established correspondence with influential families of the locality and attempted to garner the support of the Sikh regiments there. The Hoshiarpur residential families had guarnteed to him that preparations were made to plunder the British government treasury located at Bajwara and after launch an attack upon the New Hoshiarpur cantonment.
Maharaj Singh also paid visits to figures within the regiment, such as Prem Singh, Sukha Singh, Fateh Singh, Zai Singh Havildar, amid others. Around this time, he received intel that designs had been finished for the gathering of almost 4,000 men at Datarpur (located near Hajipur) and similar actions were also finalized in Majha, Malwa and Hazara.
They had set the date of the attacks upon the cantonments of Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar as 3 January 1850, the beginning of a "National War". This date was set at a meeting at Sham Chaurasi (located in Hoshiarpur district) of all the involved people. As this date approached, Maharaj Singh made hasty visits to areas within the Jalandhar Doab, where his secret operatives had been working.
The surveying was completed and he next decided to make way to Adampur. This would prove to be a mistake of the increasingly salient Maharaj Singh. There existed a 10,000 rupee bounty placed against Maharaj Singh, either dead or alive. This was the largest bounty reward amount for any outlaw of that period by the British. A Muslim informer reported his presence to local authorities. Amardeep Singh believes whoever turned him in probably did so for financial reasons as the reward amount was a hefty sum for that time, enough to transform someone into a rich person. He was arrested at Adampur in a sugarcane field along with 21 of his followers on 28 December 1849 as a result by Henry Vansittart.
At first he was kept at the Jalandhar jail, but due to growing masses of thousands of sympathetic Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims demanding for his release and making visits to the prison he was imprisoned in, he was relocated to Allahabad fort prison by the district magistrate to be incarcerated under military authority, accompanied by his followers, including Khurruck Singh, his most trusted follower. After a month, he was moved again but this time to Fort William in Calcutta. It was decided that a trial of Maharaj Singh in India was not in the interest of the British.
McLeod would make the following statement about Maharaj Singh:
Henry Vansittart, whom was the Jalandhar deputy commissioner, had been left with a deep impression by Maharaj Singh and thus wanted him special treatment to be granted to him. However, the British government did not want any threats to their rule around and decided to exile him to Singapore as they believed it was too risky for him to remain in India.
The governor general of India, James Broun-Ramsay, ordered him to be moved to Singapore. The order was placed on 23 March 1850. There was specific instruction that Maharaj Singh and Khurruck Singh were to be imprisoned in solitary confinement until their death.
Henry Vansittart paid the following tribute to Maharaj Singh in words:
He was exiled to Singapore in 1850 by the British authorities due to his anti-colonial, revolutionary activities in the Punjab. The ship that he was transported on to make the journey to Singapore was the Muhmed Shah or Muhammad Shah. It disembarked form the Port of Calcutta on 15 May 1850. He arrived in Singapore, alongside his most closest disciple Khurruck Singh, on 14 June 1850, being the first Indian freedom fighter to be sent there. Other sources claim his date of arrival in Singapore to be 9 July 1850. He was imprisoned in New Jail on Outram Road (also known as 'Outram Prison'), being held in solitary confinement for years. His cell was located on an upper story, with the two windows in the room walled-up, and the verandah was enforced with an impenetrable iron gate. By dimensions, the cell was 14 by 15 feet and as per British admission was: "... further rendered dark, dinghy and absolutely unhealthy" (Secret Consultation Papers, 28th Feb 1851, #52-57).During his imprisonment in Singapore, the British had bestowed him with special privileges, such as extra food provisions, the ability to send letters back home to the Punjab, and providing him with literature in the form of books. Khurruck Singh refused to cook or prepare food for the pair, therefore the British decided to hire a personal cook, who would be paid a salary of four rupees per month, for the two inmates, a very odd and unique case in that time period in-regards to the general treatment of non-European prisoners.
The British governor of the Straits Settlement went as far as personally requesting to the British authorities in Calcutta that a specific 115-year-old (at that time) manuscript of the Guru Granth Sahib from the Punjab be found and brought to the prison in-order to placate to the religious needs of the Sikh prisoner. The British went through a lot of difficulties in-order to locate this specific, old volume and bring it to Singapore to the prison Maharaj Singh was held at. The volume was transported by means of a bullock cart from Lahore to Calcutta, where it would be sent by sea aboard a ship. This may have possibly been the first Guru Granth Sahib to be present in Singapore.
The two inmates both recorded their personal thoughts, including struggles, during their time while incarcerated. Maharaj Singh reportedly felt maddened that he had gone from a well-respect rebel leader back home to a frail prisoner who needed help getting around due to poor and failing health.
However, after three years of solitary confinement he had gone blind due to cataracts. He further suffered from rheumatic pains, suffered agony in his feet and ankles, and was emaciated and starved into a breathing skeleton figure. Maharaj Singh eventually developed oral cancer affecting his tongue. Due to his poor health, the civil surgeon made a request that Maharaj Singh be allowed to occasional walks in the open environment, but this suggestion was turned down by the authorities citing "security reasons" for the reason for declining. Thus, Maharaj Singh's condition worsened further. Two months prior to his death his condition deteriorated to such a degree that his tongue and neck swelled to such an extent which made eating difficult due to trouble swallowing.He remained imprisoned until his death of throat cancer on 5 July 1856.
G. M. Blundel, Governor of the Straits Settlements, sent the following message reporting the death to the colonial office of British India:
His remains were cremated outside of the prison by his trusted follower and inmate, Khurruck Singh. Khurruck Singh himself would suffer a similar fate: he was also imprisoned in Singapore at the same jail but would later be transferred to a prison in Penang, Malaya, where he would also die at.
Many miracles are associated with Maharaj Singh. Amandeep Madra sees the origin of these miracles from the fact he was a single man rising up against the British and somehow kept escaping their capture. This elevated his image in the minds of his countrymen to that of a miracle-worker and a larger-than-life figure.
Some miracles associated with his life as relayed through the years are as follows:
Some of the British had compared him to Jesus Christ. He was skilled at "stirring up the masses".
It is noted that he did not have any self-serving aims or motivations by resisting the British colonists but rather saw it as a divine mission of his to free the Punjab. In the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the Sikh resistance against the British simmered down for a variety of reasons: the taking of Duleep Singh out of the country, Jind Kaur residing in Nepal, where she would not reliably be able to guide the rebels back home, and many pro-Sikh independence leaders and prominent figures of the Sikh Empire being held in jails or exiled by the British. Maharaj Singh is celebrated for reinvigorating the resistance movement against the British in this environment.
The Singaporean Sikh community remembers him as being the first Sikh in Singapore, albeit not through his own volition. He remains an unknown figure in wider Singaporean society despite his historical importance. Some have compared his life to that of Che Guevara. His life story remains better known in Singapore than his native India.
Sikh historian Sukhpreet Singh Udhoke stresses the importance of keeping in mind that Maharaj Singh operated under the context of a saint-soldier when historically analyzing his life. He traces the ideology of Maharaj Singh back to the concept of miri-piri established by the sixth guru of the Sikhs, Guru Hargobind. Miri-piri is the careful and delicate but necessary and vital balance of state power with spiritual power. Udhoke comes to the conclusion that Maharaj Singh transformed from a saint to a soldier, whilst his mentor, Bir Singh, had earlier transformed from a soldier to a saint yet both of them had lived the principle of miri-piri. Udhoke further asserts that Maharaj Singh strongly believed in the ideals of the Sikh state and its governance which had a positive impact on the common people, such as the high-quality of education provided for its people. He believes aspects like this is what drove him to fighting so hard to save the state and restoring it after annexation.
In his birth village, many local girls and women continue singing traditional folk-songs invoking him.
Many admirers, including non-Sikhs such as local Tamils, ethnic Chinese, and Malays, would make visits to his grave-site. The Tamils would revere the spot and mark it with stones. Sikhs and Muslim visitors would leave flowers out of respect. Eventually, local Sikhs would erect a permanent samadhi structure at the spot. Sikh and non-Sikh visitors alike would make offerings to the shrine, including the leaving of valuable goods.
In the period after World War II, devotee numbers visiting the samadhi kept on increasing. During the 1940s, the samadhi (tombstone) location was shifted from Outram Prison to the location of the Singapore General Hospital due to development plans. The new location of the samadhi was chosen in the small, green field where apparitions of Maharaj Singh had been reported to disappear into. Regular prayers were being convened at the location. However, the local Singaporeans named the saint whom the samadhi was dedicated to as 'Karam Singh', the name 'Maharaj Singh' was unknown to the local worshippers. This new name is theorized to have been derived from karmiwala, which Maharaj Singh had alternatively been known by. 'Karam Singh' formed as a shortened or diminutive form of this appellation overtime. Most of the locals who visited the shrine hailed from the Kampong Bahru and Silat Road neighbourhoods of Singapore. A South Indian man was responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of the sanctum and would clean it regularly. In 1961, a Sikh police officer decided to install a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib permanently at the samadhi after believing a wish of his came true from visiting the shrine. This led to even larger numbers of visitors, which started interfering with the operations of the hospital as the crowds were hindering the ambulances' movement. Thus, an agreement was reached between the Sikh community and the Singapore government that the shrine be relocated to the grounds of the Silat Road Sikh Temple. The work to relocate the shrine began on 12 October 1966 at around 7 p.m. The transportation of the samadhi was a community-led effort, with the local Sikhs carrying pieces of it personally to the new location.The samadhi was located in front of the Silat Road Sikh Temple for a period of around 30 years, in the area currently occupied by the male shoe storage. A construction of a new Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial building was completed in 1994.
In 1996, the constructed of a formal memorial was finalized next to the gurdwara. In 1999, the National Heritage Board (Singapore) designated the memorial as a "historical site".
In 2006, the local Sikh community commemorated the 150th anniversary of Bhai Maharaj Singh's death, an observance known as barsi. A book was shortly published thereafter by the community documenting the life of Maharaj Singh and the temple. In 2010, the memorial building housing the samadhi was further expanded.
Prominent personalities who have paid respect at the shrine include Lee Kuan Yew, former leader of Singapore, whom was satisfied by the beautification of the memorial site. Other prominent visitors include S. R. Nathan (former president of Singapore), S. Jayakumar (former senior minister of Singapore), Tharman Shanmugaratnam (former deputy prime minister of Singapore). Even to the present-day, pilgrims and well-wishers of various ethnic backgrounds visit the location to pay their respects to Maharaj Singh, for healing, and to make wishes that they hope will come true.
At his home village, the Damdama Sahib Gurdwara was erected just outside in his memory. A monument and statue dedicated to him was unveiled in his native village of Rabbon Uchi in 2021 by then chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi.[11]
In 2019, a documentary titled Uncovering the Story of Singapore's First Sikh – The Saint Soldier
Author Nahar Singh said the following about Maharaj Singh:An article in The Times of London states:
Justice Choor Singh of Singapore in Bhai Maharaj Singh: Saint-Soldier of the Sikh Faith documentary says the following:
Relics related to Maharaj Singh, such as personal belongings, manuscripts, paintings, photographs, weaponry, clothing, and others can be found held by the private collection of his direct descendants in Amritsar. They are safeguarded by a direct descendant in the fifth generation, Gursimranpal Singh, and another descendant, Gurrajpal Singh. They claim to have inherited values such as sant-sipahi, sewa, and simran from their ancestor.
The British Library's Indian collection holds items found on Maharaj Singh after he was captured, such as a seal stamp, conch which produces a battle-cry, and personal manuscripts.