Bhai Maharaj Singh

The first action he took is an attempted assassination of Henry Lawrence and additional pro-British members of the Lahore durbar (court) of the Sikh Empire.[2] This is known as the 'Prema conspiracy case' or 'Prema plot' and it occurred in 1847.[2][10]

After word of mouth about Maharaj Singh's role in the conspiracy, he started to earn mass-appeal amongst the people of Punjab.[3] Sher Singh Attariwala and other Sikh figures would invoke the name of Maharaj Singh when they made efforts to enlist Sikhs for their insurrectionist cause:[3]

On behalf of Baba Maharaj Singh Ji, the undersigned declare that time has arrived when we must get ready to fight the foreign invaders (the British) who with great cunning and deception are succeeding to usurp the Khalsa Raj. It is therefore the sacred duty of every citizen to join this holy struggle and get ready to sacrifice everything in order to free our motherland.

— invocation of Maharaj Singh in a recruitment message

The British tried to restrict his movement to Naurangabad, thus he started working in secret with around 600 of his acolytes.[2][10] His properties in Amritsar were seized and a recompense was declared for his arrest.[2] At one point, the British tried to promote a rumour that had sprung-up Maharaj Singh had drowned after falling off of his famed black horse whilst crossing the Jhelum River, seemingly in-order to demoralize the Sikh masses who looked up him and saw him as their leader.[5] However, after three days the averment came out to be untrue and Maharaj Singh was alive and well.[5] He had built a vast web of interconnections between various sections of Punjabi and Sikh society at the time, which he worked hard to maintain by traveling a lot to visit people.[5]

When Maharaj Singh got word of the rebellion launched by Diwan Mulraj Chopra in Multan in April 1848, he escalated his anti-British activities.[2] He left for Multan accompanied with a force of 400 horsemen to assist the Sikh governor in his insurrection against the British.[2] However, disagreements would emerge between the two leaders which led to Maharaj Singh making leave for Hazara in June 1848 to meet-up with Chattar Singh Attariwala and petition for his assistance in his anti-British scheme.[2]

In November 1848, he partook in the Battle of Ramnagar alongside Sher Singh Attariwala.[2] He rode a black horse in the battle and attempted to raise the moral of the Sikh forces at-battle, requesting them to put their lives on the line for the defence of their nation.[2] He also was present at the battles of Chillianwala and Gujrat.[2]

In the aftermath of the Battle of Gujrat, he escaped to Rawalpindi and tried again and again to request the Sikh chiefs to fight another battle against the British, either at Rawalpindi or at Panja Sahib.[8] However, his petition fell upon deaf ears as the Sikh leaders at that time were not in-favour of his plan.[8]

James Broun-Ramsay (Lord Dalhousie) recognized that the Sikhs did not want to free only Punjab but rather the entire Indian subcontinent:[3]

... these battles (Chilianvala and Gujrat) were fought by the Sikhs directly against the English people. The purpose was to destroy the influence of the British from not only Punjab but the entire Indian sub-continent.

— James Broun-Ramsay (Lord Dalhousie), governor general of India

After the surrender of Sher Singh Attariwala to the British forces on 14 March 1849 at Rawalpindi, he decided to continue his struggle against the British alone.[2]

Maharaj Singh would make the following communication to his fellow Sikhs in-response to the surrender of Sikh military and political power to the British:[3]

You own large estates now which you want to save by surrendering to the British. But let me tell you, even by accepting all the conditions of the British you may not be able to save your estates because you will be on the mercy of the conquerors and will have to accept whatever crumbs they throw towards you. It would be better if you fight and get martyrdom rather than live a wretched life of a slave.

— Maharaj Singh's appeal to surrendering Sikhs

Henry Lawrence would make the following remark:[10]

Bhai Maharaj Singh, a Sikh priest of reputed sanctity, and of great influence, the first man who raised the standards of rebellion beyond the confines of Multan in 1848, and the only leader of note who did not lay down his arms to Sir Walter Gilberts at Rawalpindi.

— Henry Lawrence

Bikram Singh Bedi, a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, and Colonel Richhpal Singh Purbia, were the only two of the prominent Sikhs who agreed with Maharaj Singh and decided to accompany him to continue the struggle.[3] The Sikh Empire was annexed by the British East India Company on 29 March 1849.[3]

Handwritten Gurmukhi manuscript from the Bhai Maharaj Singh Collection, circa 1840s

He retreated to Jammu and secretly made Dev Batala his new base of operations.[2] He wanted to engender a new war in-which all Punjabis would rise-up against their British overlords on a fixed date as a united fighting force.[8] He later relocated to Chambi, a location that was even more difficult to access and secluded.[8] From this location, he would send secret messages to the various former subjects of the Sikh Empire, pressing them to reignite the fight against the British and push them out of Punjab.[8]

His secretive emissaries were mostly "discharged soldiers of the Khalsa Army, the Jagirdars and chiefs who had been dispossessed of their estates of pension by the British authorities and also the holders of religious estates, particularly the Gosains in the Kangra hills, who could help him finance the freedom struggle."[10]

Maharaj Singh had developed a "five-point plan" to defeat the British and win back sovereignty, the five goals were as follows:[3]

1. To liberate Maharaja Dalip Singh from the Lahore Fort and bring him back to the Panjab Hills and to refresh the freedom fight under his name before the British could succeed in taking him abroad out of India as they desired.[3]
2. To arrange a united fighting force of all the groups who had suffered due to the British antics, including jagirdars, veterans (ex-military), the Rajput chiefs of the Hills, amid others.[3]
3. To counter-act the British scheme of divide-and-conquer, by using local Muslims against Sikh interests and pitting the two groups against one another, by creating an alliance with Pashtun rebels of the northwest regions of the subcontinent and Afghanistan, the Emir of Afghanistan, and local Punjabi Muslims.[3]
4. Establish contact and win-over the support of paramount Sikh and Hindu clergy and saintly figures due to their ample resources, land-holdings (jagirs), and large number of patrons and supporters.[3] They would canvass regions ranging from Kandhar in Afghanistan to Malwa in the Cis-Sutlej region for these individuals that could help their objectives.[3]
5. Sabotage the British administrative system operating in the Punjab through guerilla tactics and asymmetric warfare (surprise raids and promoting insurgency amongst the people).[3] They also sought to win over the Sikhs employed in the colonial military forces of the British to their cause.[3]

"Dhileep Singh's (Maharaja Duleep Singh) House, the Castle, Mussoorie", photographed by Robert C. Tytler & Harriet C. Tytler, ca.1857–1858, printed 1859

Maharaj Singh came to learn about the British plan to remove Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, from the Punjab by sending him abroad to England.[8] Maharaj Singh perceived this as a major blow to the freedom struggle and therefore he sent six of his loyal followers on a mission to Lahore where they would be intercepted by Mian Ganesh, who was planned to aid them in their undertaking.[8] They had designed to somehow bring Maharaja Duleep Singh to their headquarters in the Jammu Hills, where they would lead a more general rebellion against the British from.[8] Thus, five or six persons from the mission would always reside near the palace walls where Duleep Singh was kept at with the goal of abducting him and taking him back to fulfill their ultimate plan.[8]

The British caught wind of a conspiracy and decided to move Duleep Singh to Mussorie.[10][3] They also urged members of the Muslim community to seek out the whereabouts of Maharaj Singh by promising them a hefty reward.[10] They further tried to frame him as a mere religious leader to diminish his aura as a military and political figure.[10] They kept trying to capture Maharaj Singh but kept-on failing to do so as he kept evading them.[3] As a result, Maharaj Singh became known as Karnivala (meaning 'the wonder worker') by the people since he kept on eluding the British.[3]

Thus, Maharaj Singh would need to undertake necessary preparations to set the plan into motion.[8] He decided to reside at Sajuwal (located in present-day Batala district) from where he planned to launch offensives against the cantonments at Hoshiarpur, Hajipur, and Jalandhar.[8][10][3] He needed funds and manpower for his upcoming plan and therefore decided to elicit the help of the common people.[8] He sent agents to faraway places, such as Kabul and Kandahar, to advance his plan.[8]

Contact was established with Afghan rulers Amir Dost Mohammad Khan and Sultan Mohammad Khan.[8][3] The Afghans straight-up refused to give any help to Maharaj Singh and his retinue.[10][3] He also solicited the help of the Maharaja of Bikaner and Gulab Singh of Kashmir.[10][3] However, none of these states would offer him assistance.[10]

Bikram Singh Bedi (died 1863). Calotype by Dr. John McCosh, Lahore, November 1849. Held by the National Army Museum.

Prominent Sikh figures, such Bikram Singh Bedi of the Punjab Hills, son of the well-respected Sahib Singh Bedi and a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, decided to assist Maharaj Singh in his endeavor.[8] A progeny of the Kangra State's royalty and other important families of the day had committed to supplying the resistance forces with 1,000 matchlockmen, 10,000–20,000 rupees, and nearly 10,000 maunds of grain for the affair.[8]

These activities had piqued the interest of the Attariwala chiefs, Dewan Hakim Rai, and the Majithia family.[10] However, these aforementioned groups could not be of much help because their movement had been confined to their native villages as per the orders of the British authorities.[10] Fakirs and Brahmins who had worked as couriers of Jind Kaur and the Sikh chiefs during the pre-annexation period began to pay visits to the residences of former rebel leaders, prominent chiefs, and other influential members of the native society.[10] The British cautiously realized that these chiefs were working in unison with Maharaj Singh in-order to launch a rebellion.[10]

After these reassurances, Maharaj Singh decided it was time to leave Sajuwal and make way to Hoshiarpur in December 1849, where he had established correspondence with influential families of the locality and attempted to garner the support of the Sikh regiments there.[8][2] The Hoshiarpur residential families had guarnteed to him that preparations were made to plunder the British government treasury located at Bajwara and after launch an attack upon the New Hoshiarpur cantonment.[8]

Maharaj Singh also paid visits to figures within the regiment, such as Prem Singh, Sukha Singh, Fateh Singh, Zai Singh Havildar, amid others.[8] Around this time, he received intel that designs had been finished for the gathering of almost 4,000 men at Datarpur (located near Hajipur) and similar actions were also finalized in Majha, Malwa and Hazara.[8]

They had set the date of the attacks upon the cantonments of Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar as 3 January 1850, the beginning of a "National War".[8][3] This date was set at a meeting at Sham Chaurasi (located in Hoshiarpur district) of all the involved people.[10][3] As this date approached, Maharaj Singh made hasty visits to areas within the Jalandhar Doab, where his secret operatives had been working.[8]

However, after three years of solitary confinement he had gone blind due to cataracts.[8][2][3] He further suffered from rheumatic pains, suffered agony in his feet and ankles, and was emaciated and starved into a breathing skeleton figure.[8][10] Maharaj Singh eventually developed oral cancer affecting his tongue.[10] Due to his poor health, the civil surgeon made a request that Maharaj Singh be allowed to occasional walks in the open environment, but this suggestion was turned down by the authorities citing "security reasons" for the reason for declining.[8] Thus, Maharaj Singh's condition worsened further.[8] Two months prior to his death his condition deteriorated to such a degree that his tongue and neck swelled to such an extent which made eating difficult due to trouble swallowing.[10]

Newspaper snippet reporting the death of Bhai Maharaj Singh in Singapore. From the 'Strait Times and Singapore Journal of Commerce', Monday 8 July 1856.

He remained imprisoned until his death of throat cancer on 5 July 1856.[1][6][2]

G. M. Blundel, Governor of the Straits Settlements, sent the following message reporting the death to the colonial office of British India:[3]

I have the honour to report to you for the information of the Right Hon’ble the Governor General of India-in-Council, that the State Prisoner, “Bhaie Maharaj Singh” died on the 5th instant.

— G. M. Blundel, Governor of the Straits Settlements, Document # 86, 12 July 1856

His remains were cremated outside of the prison by his trusted follower and inmate, Khurruck Singh.[10] Khurruck Singh himself would suffer a similar fate: he was also imprisoned in Singapore at the same jail but would later be transferred to a prison in Penang, Malaya, where he would also die at.[10]

Maharaj Singh was succeeded as leader of the Naurangabad Dera by Suraj Singh.[9]

It appears to be certain that the Bhai [Maharaj Singh] was in some respects a very remarkable man. He possessed very great sagacity and self-reliance.

— Donald McLeod, commissioner of Jalandhar division

Photograph of the Samadhi of Bhai Maharaj Singh (then referred to as 'Baba Karam Singh') on the grounds of Singapore General Hospital

Many admirers, including non-Sikhs such as local Tamils, ethnic Chinese, and Malays, would make visits to his grave-site.[1][10][3] The Tamils would revere the spot and mark it with stones.[10][3] Sikhs and Muslim visitors would leave flowers out of respect.[10][3] Eventually, local Sikhs would erect a permanent samadhi structure at the spot.[10][3] Sikh and non-Sikh visitors alike would make offerings to the shrine, including the leaving of valuable goods.[10]

In the period after World War II, devotee numbers visiting the samadhi kept on increasing.[5] During the 1940s, the samadhi (tombstone) location was shifted from Outram Prison to the location of the Singapore General Hospital due to development plans.[5] The new location of the samadhi was chosen in the small, green field where apparitions of Maharaj Singh had been reported to disappear into.[5] Regular prayers were being convened at the location.[5] However, the local Singaporeans named the saint whom the samadhi was dedicated to as 'Karam Singh', the name 'Maharaj Singh' was unknown to the local worshippers.[5] This new name is theorized to have been derived from karmiwala, which Maharaj Singh had alternatively been known by.[5] 'Karam Singh' formed as a shortened or diminutive form of this appellation overtime.[5] Most of the locals who visited the shrine hailed from the Kampong Bahru and Silat Road neighbourhoods of Singapore.[5] A South Indian man was responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of the sanctum and would clean it regularly.[5] In 1961, a Sikh police officer decided to install a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib permanently at the samadhi after believing a wish of his came true from visiting the shrine.[5] This led to even larger numbers of visitors, which started interfering with the operations of the hospital as the crowds were hindering the ambulances' movement.[5] Thus, an agreement was reached between the Sikh community and the Singapore government that the shrine be relocated to the grounds of the Silat Road Sikh Temple.[1][5][10][3] The work to relocate the shrine began on 12 October 1966 at around 7 p.m.[5][10][3][1] The transportation of the samadhi was a community-led effort, with the local Sikhs carrying pieces of it personally to the new location.[5]

Gurdwara Sahib Silat Road in Singapore after construction was just completed in 1924

The samadhi was located in front of the Silat Road Sikh Temple for a period of around 30 years, in the area currently occupied by the male shoe storage.[5] A construction of a new Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial building was completed in 1994.[5]

In 1996, the constructed of a formal memorial was finalized next to the gurdwara.[3] In 1999, the National Heritage Board (Singapore) designated the memorial as a "historical site".[3]

In 2006, the local Sikh community commemorated the 150th anniversary of Bhai Maharaj Singh's death, an observance known as barsi.[5] A book was shortly published thereafter by the community documenting the life of Maharaj Singh and the temple.[5] In 2010, the memorial building housing the samadhi was further expanded.[5]

Prominent personalities who have paid respect at the shrine include Lee Kuan Yew, former leader of Singapore, whom was satisfied by the beautification of the memorial site.[5] Other prominent visitors include S. R. Nathan (former president of Singapore), S. Jayakumar (former senior minister of Singapore), Tharman Shanmugaratnam (former deputy prime minister of Singapore).[5] Even to the present-day, pilgrims and well-wishers of various ethnic backgrounds visit the location to pay their respects to Maharaj Singh, for healing, and to make wishes that they hope will come true.[3][5]

At his home village, the Damdama Sahib Gurdwara was erected just outside in his memory.[5] A monument and statue dedicated to him was unveiled in his native village of Rabbon Uchi in 2021 by then chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi.[6][12]

In 2019, a documentary titled 'Uncovering the Story of Singapore's First Sikh – The Saint Soldier' was produced by Singaporean Sikh, Upneet Kaur-Nagpal, on his life.[1][5] The documentary premiered on 8 September 2019 at Fort Canning.[1]

Author Nahar Singh said the following about Maharaj Singh:[3]

The fact that Bhai (Gooroo) Maharaj Singh had played a leading role in organising an armed struggle for the overthrow of the British regime in the Punjab during the years 1846 to 1850, has been known to very few scholars. He beat (Gagan Damama) Dharm Dhaunsa or battle drum in the name of religion against the British and declared that the act of driving out the Malech Farangies from the holy land of five rivers was Dharm or sacred duty and a noble deed of piety and righteousness.

— Nahar Singh, Preface of “Documents Related to Bhai Maharaj Singh” in the Rebels Against British Raj series (Volume 5; published in 1968 by the Sikh History Source Material Search Association)

An article in The Times of London states:[3][5]

It is well known in certain circles that the influence of this man is unbounded amongst the Sikh chieftains and the whole population of the Punjab; and there is little doubt but that he has generally been the prime mover in all the conspiracies and revolts which have lately caused so much of the Punjab expense and led to so much bloodshed.

— The Times of London, Cheltenham Chronicle, Thursday 28 February 1850

Justice Choor Singh of Singapore in Bhai Maharaj Singh: Saint-Soldier of the Sikh Faith documentary says the following:[3][5]

[It] must not be forgotten that Bhai Maharaj Singh was also the Head of the Religious Order, now known as Hoti Mardan Vali Sant Khalsa Sampardai, which had been established by Bhai Daya Singh, one of the five Panj Piyaras of Guru Gobind Singh … Bhai Maharaj Singh was therefore not only revolutionary fighter who tried to save the Sikh Kingdom but also a recognized religious personage of high standing, true saint of the Sikh faith, who died the death of the martyr.

— Justice Choor Singh of Singapore, Bhai Maharaj Singh: Saint-Soldier of the Sikh Faith

Photograph of Nanak Singh, son of Bhai Maharaj Singh. He can be seen posing in this photo holding the salotar (a type of sword) of Guru Gobind Singh and wearing the belt of Bhai Maharaj Singh.

Relics related to Maharaj Singh, such as personal belongings, manuscripts, paintings, photographs, weaponry, clothing, and others can be found held by the private collection of his direct descendants in Amritsar.[5] They are safeguarded by a direct descendant in the fifth generation, Gursimranpal Singh, and another descendant, Gurrajpal Singh.[5] They claim to have inherited values such as sant-sipahi, sewa, and simran from their ancestor.[5]

The British Library's Indian collection holds items found on Maharaj Singh after he was captured, such as a seal stamp, conch which produces a battle-cry, and personal manuscripts.[5]