Baba Gurdit Singh

His grandfather, Sardar Rattan Singh was a high-ranking military officer in the Khalsa Army and had fought against the British during the Anglo-Sikh wars. He declined the British offer of a jagir after the annexation of the Punjab. Later on, his father Sardar Hukam Singh went to Malaya where he settled down as a contractor.

Though he himself was a well-to-do fisherman in Singapore, Gurdit Singh chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, in 1914 to go to Canada, with the aim of helping his compatriots whose journeys to Canada were being blocked. The government of Canada had put restrictions on the entry of Indians.

The ship had a total of 376 passengers out of whom 351 were Sikhs and 21 Punjabi Muslims. The ship sailed from Hong Kong to Vancouver on 3 April 1914. The obstructions put up by the alien authorities and the hardships faced by its passengers turned them into staunch nationalists.[1] The ship reached Vancouver on 22 May 1914, it was not allowed to anchor and was attacked by the police at night. The attack was repulsed by the passengers and it created a great stir among the Indians in Canada.[1] This is known as the Komagata Maru incident.

An agreement was reached and the ship sailed back to India. It reached Calcutta on 29 September 1914. However, the passengers were not allowed to enter Calcutta; they were rather ordered to board a Punjab-bound train especially arranged for the purpose. They refused to do so and many of the passengers were killed, though a great many escaped.

Gurdit Singh was aware of the problems that Punjabis were facing in getting to Canada due to exclusion laws. He was apparently also aware of the January 1914 regulations when he chartered the Komagata Maru, with the purported goal of challenging the continuous journey regulation and opening the door for immigration from India to Canada.[3] He believed he could circumvent this law by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver.

At the same time, in January 1914, he publicly espoused the Ghadarite cause while in Hong Kong.[4] The Ghadar Party was an organisation founded by Indians of the United States and Canada in June 1913 with the aim of liberating India from British rule. It was also known as the Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast.

Baba Gurdit Singh escaped and remained underground for many years until 1920 when, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, he made a voluntary surrender at Nankana Sahib[1] and was imprisoned for five years.

In 1937, Pratap Singh Kairon, the future Chief Minister Punjab and then an Akali nominee, entered the Punjab Legislative Assembly, defeating the Congress candidate, none other than Baba Gurdit Singh of Sarhali.

Baba Gurdit Singh had one son, Baba Balwant Singh. Baba Balwant Singh had two sons, Ajit Singh & Jaswant Singh, and five daughters: Harbhajan Kaur, Sawant Kaur, Amarjit Kaur, Balbir Kaur & Dalbir Kaur. His sons both died in late seventies and early eighties. He has two paternal grandsons, one of them lives in Zira and the other (Tejpal Singh Sandhu) lives in Canada while their mother (his daughter-in-law) is settled in the US. His grandson, living in Zira, died in 2014 in a car accident near Sarhali. Later, he settled in Calcutta. He died on 24 July, 1954, in Amritsar and was cremated at his native village Sarhali Kalan, Tarn taran.