MORCHA, in Persian murchah or murchal meaning entrenchments, fortification or battlefront, has, apart from its usage in military strategy, entered Indian political vocabulary via the Gurdwara Reform or Akali movement of the early 1920`s. In that prolonged agitation for the liberation of Sikh historical shrines from the control of a

SUNDAR SINGH LYALLPURI, MASTER (1885-1969), teacher, journalist and politician, was born on 4 April 1885, the son of Lakhmir Singh Kamboj and Ram Kaur, of the village of Bahorii, 12 km south of Amritsar. The family later moved to the canal colony in Sheikhupura district where they founded a

UDHAM SINGH NAGOKE (1894-1966), one of the village triumvirate which grew in importance and influence with the years and left its decisive imprint on the modern period of the Majha country. It shared with two others its name. The trio were Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke, Mohan Singh Nagoke (1896-1969)

ARJAN SINGH GARGAJJ (1905-1963), revolutionary and journalist, was born the son of Sundar Singh Ramgarhia, an artisan of Tarn Taran, in Amritsar district of the Punjab, in 1905. In 1919, when he was studying in class VI, young Arjan Singh was expelled from school for refusing to salute the

CHANNAN SINGH, SANT (1907-1972), elected president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, successively from 1962 till his death in 1972, was born in 1907 to Tarlok Singh and Prem Kaur, a peasant couple of modest means, belonging to the village of Mullanpur, in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. As

GOPAL SINGH (1883-1941), an Akali reformer, was born in November 1883 at the village of Sagari, in Rawalpindi district, now in Pakistan. His father, Sundar Singh (d. 1895) was a small shopkeeper. Within three years of Gopal Singh`s father`s death, his two elder brothers also passed away and the

JAITO (30°26`N, 74°53`E), now a flourishing market town in Faridkot district, became in 1923 the scene of a longdrawn agitation launched by the Shiromani Akali Dal roused by the forced abdication of the Sikh Maharaja of Nabha. The campaign followed the interruption by the Nabha state authorities of the

MOHAN SINGH TUR, JATHEDAR (1915-1979), cminest Akali politician, was born at village Tur in Tarn Taran tahsil of Amritsar in 1915, the son of Jagat Singh, an Akali activist of the Akali Lahir (Gurdwara Reform movement) of the early 1920`s and a member of the first Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak