DARSHAN SINGH PHERUMAN (1885-1969), political leader and martyr, was born at the village of Pheruman, in present day Amritsar district, on 1 August 1885. His father`s name was Chanda Singh and his mother`s Raj Kaur. After passing his high school examination, he joined in 1912 the Indian army as a sepoy. Two years later, he resigned from the army and set up as a contractor at Hissar. He was doing well as a contractor, when a taunt from his mother, who was deeply religious, led him to give up his business and plunge into the Akali movement for the reform of Gurdwara management.
DINA NATH, PANDIT (b. 1888), active supporter of and participant in the Sikh Gurdwara reform movement 1920-25, was born in 1888, the son of Pandit Bal Krishan of Amritsar. In the wake of the agrarian protest in the Punjab in 1907, he joined the Indian National Congress. He was secretary of the Amritsar District Congress Committee when the Gurdwara reform or AkaIi movement got under way with the establishment in November 1920 of a representative Sikh body, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Pandit Dina Nath was in sympathy with the movement and joined the Akali agitation for the restoration of the keys of the to shakhana or treasury of the Darbar Sahib, which had been taken away by the British Deputy Commissioner on 7 November 1921.
