BABAR AKALI MOVEMENT, a radical outgrowth of the Akali movement for the reform of Sikh places of worship during the early 1920\'s. The latter, aiming to have the shrines released from the control of priests who had become lax and effete over the generations, was peaceful in its character and strategy. In the course of the prolonged campaign, Akalis true to their vows patiently suffered physical injury and violence at the hands of the priests as well as of government authority.
BACHITTAR SINGH, BHAI (d. 1921), was a granthi (officiant) at the gurdwara in Chakk No. 85 Dalla Chanda Singhvala in Sheikhupura, in the newly colonized irrigation district in western Punjab. Nothing is known about his parentage or the date and place of his birth. He had arrived at the village in the company of a Nanga sadhu as a boy of 10 or 12 years and had stayed on in the local gurdwara. He had learnt to read Gurmukhi and the holy text from the granthi whom he replaced after the latter had left.
BECHINT SINGH, BHAI (1872-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the son of Bhai Sundar Singh and Mat Sahib Kaur, a peasant couple of the village of Pharala in Jalandhar district. The family migrated to Chakk No. 258 Pharala in the newly colonized district of Lyallpur in 1892. In 1907, while returning from Haridvar after immersing in the River Ganga the ashes of his deceased wife, Bechint Singh stayed for a couple of months at Amritsar where he came in contact with a holy man, Sant Kirpal Singh, at whose hands he took the pahul of the Khalsa.
BHAGVAN SINGH, BHAI (1881-1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was son of Bhai Lahina Singh and Mat Tabo of village Nizampur, in Amritsar district. He lost his mother at the age of three. On the opening of the Lower Chenab Canal Colony during the last decade of the 19th century, the family father and son migrated to Chakk No. 38 Deva Singhvala in Sheikhupura district where young Bhagvan Singh assisted his father carrying errands. When he grew up, he went abroad to China in search of fortune, but came back after three years, and received the rites of Khalsa initiation at Sri Akal Takht Sahib. He attended the Akali conference at Dharovali on 13 October 1920 and joined Bhai Lachhman Singh`s jatha of Akali reformists. He shared the Jatha`s fate at Nankana Sahib on 20 February 1921. See NANKANA SAHIB MASSACRE
CHARAN SINGH. BHAI (d. 1921), one of the Nankana Sahib martyrs, was the son of Bhai Gokal Singh and Mai Lachhman Kaur of Diriga village, in Gujrat district. He lost his mother during infancy. His old grandmother looked after him for about five years and was then sent to live with his maternal aunt in a village in Lyallpur district where a childless neighbour Bhai Piara Singh adopted him as his son. He took the vows of the Khalsa at the age of 15. He adopted tattooing as a profession.
CHARAN SINGH, BHAI (1902-1921), son of Bhai Gurdit Singh and Mai Sada Kaur of the village of Kotla Santa Singh in Sheikhupura district, now in Pakistan, was born on 12 Maghar 1959 Bk/26 November 1902. His original name was Karnail Singh and he was renamed Charan Singh when he received the vows of the Khalsa. He attended the village primary school. He had a musical voice and got up a dhadi jatha (band of preachers singing heroic ballads from Sikh history to the accompaniment of small tambourines called dhads and a sarangi, a stringed instrument). He himself played the sarangi.
DHERA SINGH, BHAI (1890-1921), was born on 29 August 1890, the son of Bhai Jaimal Singh and Mai Jivan Kaur, a peasant couple of Pandori NiJjarari, in Jalandhar district. On the opening of the Lower Chenab Canal Colony in West Punjab, the family settled in Chakk No. 91 Dhannuana in Lyallpur district. Dhera Singh, though illiterate, was an anointed Singh. He never married and led a simple life of honest hard labour until his martyrdom as a member of the jatha that was massacred in the walled compound of Gurdwara Janam Asthan at Nankana Sahib on the morning of 20 February 1921. See NANKANA SAHIB MASSACRE
DURLI JATHA was an impromptu band of Sikh volunteers active during the Jaito agitation, 1923-24, to force their way through in contrast to the AkaliJ`at has vowed to a nonviolent and passive course. Durii is a meaningless word: whatever sense it possesses is communicated on omatopoetically. At Jaito, on 14 September 1923, an akhandpath (nonstop end to end recital of the Guru Granth Sahib) being said for the Sikh princely ruler of Nabha state, Maharaja Ripudaman Singh, who had been deposed by the British, was interrupted which, according to the Sikh tradition, amounted to sacrilege, and the sangat had been held captive, no one being allowed to go out or come in, not even to fetch food or rations for those inside. Jathedar Dulla Moga tahsfl, then in Firozpur district, organized a small band of desperadoes, naming it Durii Jatha, who collected the required rations and managed to smuggle these in through feint or force.
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