CHALI MUKTE, lit. forty (chalf) liberated ones (mukte), is how a band of 40 brave Sikhs who laid down their lives fighting near the dhab or lake of Khidrana, also called Isharsar, on 29 December 1705 against a Mughal force in chase of Guru Gobind Singh are remembered in Sikh history and daily in the Sikh ardas or supplicatory prayer offered individually or at gatherings at the end of all religious services. Guru Gobind Singh, who had watched the battle from a nearby mound praised the martyrs` valour and blessed them as Chali Mukte, the Forty Immortals. After them Khidrana became Muktsar the Pool of Liberation.
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DALIP SINGH (1907-1926), the youngest of the Babar Akali martyrs was born in 1907 at Dhamiari Kalari, a village in Hoshiarpur district. Dalip Singh was barely 14, when a group of peaceful Akali reformers was massacred in the Sikh shrine at Nankana Sahib by the men of the local mahant or custodian. Dalip Singh`s young mind was filled with anger against the British who, he thought, were really responsible for the tragedy. He started attending the Babar Akali divans at which violence was preached. A meeting with one of the Babar leaders, Babu Santa Singh, led to his enlisting in the party in April 1923.
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GHULLA SINGH, BHAI (d. 1924), one of the martyrs of Jaito, was born around 1896, the son of Bhai Narain Singh and Mat Kishan Kaur, a Jatt Sikh couple of the village of Bhalur, near Bagha Purana, in present day Faridkot district of the Punjab. Tall and heavily built, Ghulla Singh helped his father and two elder brothers at tilling the family acre. He had received no formal education and was not yet married when the Akali agitation at Jaito protesting the forced abdication of the Sikh ruler of Nabha was gathering momentum. Ghulla Singh received the vows of the Khalsa at the hands of Sant Sundar Singh Bhindrarivale and became an Akali activist.
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