It was on October 29, 1921 that the Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, or SGPC as it is commonly known, resolved to wrest control of the keys of the Golden Temple treasury. The keys were in the custody of the chief administrator appointed by the British.
During British rule, gurdwaras were managed by mahants. There were charges of defiling the sanctity of the gurdwaras as also accumulating huge amounts of money and property. The mahants were alleged to have been leading lavish lifestyles after siphoning off gurdwara funds. This led to the Akalis starting a movement advocating Sikh governance over their religious institutions.
The Sikhs launched a Chabian da morcha, or the march for keys as it were.
The movement started on November 21, 1921, and concluded within two months. Finally in January 1922, the keys were handed over to the SGPC chief in the presence of a huge gathering.
Within a few months, August 8 to be precise, another agitation took place: Guru ka Bagh Morcha. This centered around the issue of Sikhs taking wood for their community kitchen, or langar as it is commonly known. Some 20 kilometres away from Amritsar, there was land attached to the Gurdwara Guru ka bagh when the British swooped in and arrested a group of Sikhs. The Sikhs protested.
What started as a peaceful agitation, turned into a violent one when around 100 Sikhs were injured in a police lathi charge. The agitation to take wood as their right continued even as the British carried out arrests: some 5,000 Sikhs were put in jail: the Sikhs had walked the Guru ka bagh Morcha, armed only with ardas, the Sikh prayer, on their lips, seeking autonomy of their shrines.
These are stories, some faded from memory and others still fresh. And even as one narrates them, one name stands out: Teja Singh Samundri.
Today’s generation is prone to ask: Who Teja Singh? Who Samundri? What is this all about? And what has Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Taranjit Singh Sandhu got to do with all this?
The answer to all these questions is a simple one: Legacy written in bold that the L-G carries forward. The former foreign-service-officer-turned-politician, Sandhu is Samundri’s grandson. Therefore, when he addressed a huge gathering, he did in an emotion choked voice. “My grandfather did not study beyond primary, but he set up educational institutions,” Sandhu said while addressing former bureaucrats, politicians, ministers, diplomats and prominent Sikhs who had gathered at Delhi’s Rakab Ganj Sahib gurdwara to pay their tributes to the veteran leader-reformer on his 100th martyrdom anniversary.
There were others who spoke about Samundri enumerating his greatness, his religious reforms centering around gurdwaras even as appeals to Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta went out to urge her to build a memorial in Samundri’s memory. She has yet to commit to one.
As for Sandhu, he highlighted his grandfather’s role as an architect of the Gurdwara Reform Movement describing his “extraordinary life and enduring legacy”.
For the uninitiated, the Gurdwara Reform Movement started strictly as a religious movement way back in 1920. Its aim was to reform gurdwaras that had over the years ceased to follow Sikhism in letter and spirit.
It was the Akali movement that set out to restore the sanctity and correct wrongs even as they organized protests and morchas to achieve the goals of regaining control of the religious sites of Sikhs. Demanding control of gurdwaras were the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee: both formed in 1920 within a month of each other.
The reform movement mainly focused on checking the misuse of shrine funds, ending corruption and restoring the distinctiveness of religious practices of Sikhs.
One person who played a role in the Gurdwara Reform movement was Sandhu’s grandfather Samundri. He was also instrumental in initiating hundreds and thousands of people to join to protest against the proposed demolition of a wall of Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in Delhi.
Therefore, 100 years on when his contributions are being recalled in the premises of the same gurdwara, Samundri must be smiling from the heavens.
For record, the gurdwara wall was partially demolished by the British administration to make way for a road leading to the Viceroy’s Palace after the imperial capital shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.
This was resented by the Sikhs and Samundri was among those in the forefront of this agitation.
Agitations, morchas and resistance apart, there were occasions when Samundri used his own property and finances for legal battles and community initiatives. At one point in time, when the SGPC faced a financial crisis and fell short by Rs 75,000, a huge sum at that point in time, Samundri mortgaged his ancestral land to pool in money.
During his lifetime, Samundri was arrested more than once. Not only was he imprisoned for his role in the march for gurdwara keys, but was also arrested for being part of another morcha in support of Maharaja Ripudaman Singh of Nabha, who was excommunicated by the British.
Of the 59 leaders arrested, Samundri was one of them. “They were charged with conspiracy to wage war against the King and were taken to Lahore fort for trial,” to quote from Khushwant Singh’s book, A History of the Sikhs.
In the pages of history Samundri is lauded as “one of the principal architects of the Gurdwara Reform Movement, whose blend of personal sacrifice, organisational acumen and commitment to education helped shape modern Sikh institutions”.
He was also among those who was handpicked among the Panj Pyare to lead the kar seva for cleaning the Golden Temple sarovar way back in 1923. This is significant because this was the first such service carried out since 1842.
Religious reform apart, Samundri also challenged caste barriers. Back in those days, he was the one who encouraged Dalits to take water from the wells that were common to all, thus encouraging the principle of equality and breaking barriers of social and caste discrimination.
Imprisoned along with Master Tara Singh and others, Samundri died in custody on July 17, 1926, of a heart attack. Master Tara Singh had then said of him: “Samundri did not become a martyr in death; his entire life was one of martyrdom. For him, sacrifice was not an event, but a lifelong condition”. When several moderate leaders accepted conditional release from Lahore Central Jail, Samundri refused to do so. Officials sought written assurances from those detained to accept conditions imposed by the government on future political activity. True to his grit and determination, Samundri refused to compromise.
In a toss-up between his principles and freedom, Samundri stood for his principles. He remained imprisoned and died in jail in 1926: exactly 100 years ago. He was barely 43 then.
In his memory, the SGPC headquarters in the Golden Temple has a dedicated hall in his name: Teja Singh Samundri Hall.
If reformist Master Tara Singh remembered Samundri as a Sampuran Sikh, poet-scholar Bhai Vir Singh bestowed the Param Pavitra Shaheed title on him.
A century later, this is what his family and followers would like the nation to remember. That evening celebrated recently in his memory by his grandson was a testimony of his sacrifice and relentless pursuit of justice. It is also a reminder of the restoration of the sanctity of the gurdwaras in which Samundri played a significant and pivotal role. That is why when his grandson Taranjit Singh Sandhu paid an emotional and revered tribute to his late grandfather. It was befitting, given that it enlivened both history and memory.
—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator
The post The Martyr Who Reclaimed The Faith appeared first on India Legal.