BELA, pronounced bella, means, in Punjabi usage, a jungle of tall grasses, reeds and assorted shrubbery along the banks of rivers and streams. The word also received a different connotation when an Udasi saint and preacher, Banakhandi, established in AD 1818 a preaching centre on an Island in the River Indus near Sakkhar in Sindh (now in Pakistan) and named it Shri Sadhubela Tirath. This created a new vogue and several other Udasi centres adopted the name Sadhu Bela although they were nowhere near a river.
BHAG SINGH, BHAI (1872-1914), one of the leaders of the Punjabi immigrants in Canada, was born at the village of Bhikhivind, in Amritsar district. His father`s name was Narain Singh and mother`s Man Kaur. Bhag Singh joined the British Indian cavalry at the age of twenty, receiving a discharge certificate of meritorious service when he resigned. Thereafter he served in the municipal police at Hankow, China, for about three years, resigning from the service to go to Canada, where he settled in Vancouver.
BHAN SINGH (d. 1917), a Ghadr activist, was the son of Savan Singh, of the village of Sunet, in Ludhiana district of the Punjab. As a young man, Bhan Singh migrated to Shanghai and then moved to America where he started taking interest in Ghadr activity. He was among those who returned to India to make Ghadr or armed revolution in the country. Travelling by the Tosa Maru he reached Calcutta on 19 October 1914, but was arrested and interned in Montgomery jail.
BUDDHA SINGH (b. 1891), a Ghadr revolutionary, was son of Ishar Singh of the village of Sursingh, now in Amritsar district. He served in the Mule Battery at Bareilly but deserted and went to Shanghai, where he became a night watchman. He returned to India to take part in the armed revolution planned by the Ghadr Party and arrived in Calcutta aboard the S.S. Namsang on 13 October 1914.
