ਭਾਈ ਮਹਾਰਾਜ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀਭਾਈ ਮਹਾਰਾਜ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ

ਭਾਈ ਮਹਾਰਾਜ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ (ਦੇਹਾਂਤ 5 ਜੁਲਾਈ 1856) ਸਿੱਖ ਸੰਤ ਸਿਪਾਹੀ ਸਨ, ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੇ ਐਂਗਲੋ-ਸਿੱਖ ਜੰਗਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿੱਚ ਅੰਗਰੇਜ਼ੀ ਹਕੂਮਤ ਵਿਰੁੱਧ ਸੰਘਰਸ਼ ਦੀ ਅਗਵਾਈ ਕੀਤੀ। ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦਾ ਜਨਮ ਨਿਹਾਲ ਸਿੰਘ ਵਜੋਂ ਲੁਧਿਆਣਾ ਜ਼ਿਲ੍ਹੇ ਦੇ ਪਿੰਡ ਰੱਬੋਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੋਇਆ ਸੀ। ਉਹ 1844 ਤੋਂ ਨੌਰੰਗਾਬਾਦ ਡੇਰੇ ਦੇ ਮੁਖੀ ਸਨ ਅਤੇ 1849 ਵਿੱਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਕਬਜ਼ੇ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਵੀ ਹਥਿਆਰ ਨਹੀਂ ਸੁੱਟੇ। ਉਸੇ ਸਾਲ ਦਸੰਬਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਆਦਮਪੁਰ ਤੋਂ ਗ੍ਰਿਫ਼ਤਾਰ ਹੋ ਕੇ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਸਿੰਗਾਪੁਰ ਜਲਾਵਤਨ ਕਰ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਗਿਆ, ਜਿੱਥੇ ਆਊਟਰਮ ਜੇਲ੍ਹ ਵਿੱਚ ਇਕਾਂਤਵਾਸ ਵਿੱਚ ਉਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦਾ ਦੇਹਾਂਤ ਹੋ ਗਿਆ।

Early life and the Naurangabad dera

He was born Nihal Singh at Rabbon, also called Rabbon Uchi, a village near Malaud in Ludhiana district, in the latter half of the 18th century. The sources do not agree on the year: 3 January 1770 and 13 January 1780 are both given, and no record settles the question. He was religiously inclined from childhood. His father sent him to a Sikh seminary to learn Gurbani and Gurmukhi, and his teacher sent him on to the dera of Bhai Tota Singh at Thikriwala, a Nirmala ascetic, where he studied Sikh history, scripture and philosophy.

While he was a student there, Baba Bir Singh of Naurangabad came to give katha in the village where he lived. Maharaj Singh was present at the discourse, was deeply impressed by Bir Singh's teaching, and set off to join his dera at Naurangabad, now in Tarn Taran district. His days at the dera were spent in seva and in serving langar. He cooked for the thousands of devotees who visited, as head chef of the kitchen, and rose to become one of Bir Singh's most trusted disciples. On taking Amrit he was given the Khalsa name Bhagvan Singh. He addressed everyone, whatever their rank, as Maharaj, a word of great respect, and in time people called him Maharaj Singh instead, forgetting his earlier names.

At Naurangabad he learned the Sikh teaching of miri-piri, the joining of spiritual life and temporal responsibility. Bir Singh later sent him to Amritsar, where he made his base at Samdu Ka Talab. From there he toured Punjab with Baba Ram Singh, another disciple of Bir Singh, raising awareness of the danger to Sikh sovereignty as British power pressed in on the Lahore court.

Head of the dera after 1844

In 1844 Hira Singh Dogra, the prime minister of Punjab, attacked the Naurangabad dera with 20,000 troops and 50 cannons. Several hundred Sikhs were killed, among them General Attar Singh Sandhawalia, Prince Kashmira Singh and Bhai Bir Singh himself, who died on 7 May 1844. Maharaj Singh, who was present when his master was killed, succeeded him as head of the dera and of the Bhai Daya Singh Ji Samparda, the order founded by Bhai Daya Singh Ji, one of the five Panj Piare. He was held in high esteem by a vast following, including most Sikh chiefs and courtiers.

The dera was at once a seminary and a centre of political training, where the culture of Naam prevailed. It kept 1,200 musketeers and 3,000 horsemen and sheltered political refugees. After the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-46, as British influence at the Lahore court grew, Maharaj Singh's message stayed uncompromising: the Sikh kingdom must not pass under foreign rule.

The fight against British rule

In 1847 he was implicated in the Prema conspiracy, a plot to assassinate Henry Lawrence, the British Resident at Lahore, and other pro-British officers of the Lahore Darbar. The plot was uncovered. His property was confiscated, his movements were restricted to Naurangabad, and he went underground with 600 followers. Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, put a price of 10,000 rupees on his head.

When Diwan Mul Raj raised the standard of revolt at Multan in April 1848, Maharaj Singh rode there with 400 horsemen to join him. Differences soon arose, and in June 1848 he left Multan for Hazara to seek Chattar Singh Attariwala's help. In November 1848 he joined Raja Sher Singh's forces at Ramnagar and was seen on the battlefield riding his black mare, urging the Sikh soldiers to lay down their lives for their country. He fought at Ramnagar, Chillianwala and Gujrat.

When Raja Sher Singh surrendered at Rawalpindi on 14 March 1849, Maharaj Singh resolved to carry on the fight alone. He escaped to Jammu and made Dev Batala his secret headquarters. In the jungles and ravines of the Chumb Valley he drew up a five-point plan: to rescue the young Maharaja Dalip Singh from Lahore Fort, to organise a united front of all who had suffered under the British, to ally with the Pathans and the Amir of Kabul, to win the support of priests and saints, and to disrupt British rule with surprise attacks on treasuries and cantonments.

In November 1849 he completed his preparations for attacking the cantonments of the Jalandhar Doab. At a public gathering at Sham Chaurasi in Hoshiarpur district he declared 3 January 1850, the 20th of Posh, as the date for a general rising, saying there would be another national war. He had already raided around Hoshiarpur, Hajipur and Jalandhar and looted the government treasury at Bajvara.

Arrest at Adampur and exile to Singapore

With the help of an informant, the British arrested him on 28 December 1849 at Adampur, in a sugarcane field, along with 21 unarmed followers. Henry Vansittart, the deputy commissioner of Jalandhar, made the arrest. Vansittart wrote of him: 'The Guru is no ordinary man. He is to the natives what Jesus is to the most zealous of Christians. His miracles were seen by tens of thousands and are more implicitly believed than those worked by the ancient prophets.'

Crowds came daily to Jalandhar Civil Jail to pay homage to him, and the British feared his presence would spark another rising. He was moved to Allahabad fort prison and then to Fort William in Calcutta. The government decided it was too risky to put him on trial in India. On 23 March 1850 the governor-general ordered him deported to Singapore with his companion Kharak Singh, to be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.

They sailed from Calcutta on 15 May 1850 on the Muhammad Shah and reached Singapore on 9 July 1850. He was taken to the New Jail on Outram Road, Pearl's Hill Prison, and kept in solitary confinement in a cell 14 feet by 15 feet, its windows walled up. In 1853 a cataract blinded him, and he developed cancer of the tongue, with rheumatic swellings in his feet and ankles.

Death and the Singapore memorial

Bhai Maharaj Singh Ji died in the jail on 5 July 1856. He was cremated on a plot of land outside the prison, presumably by Kharak Singh, who was later transferred to Penang and also died in prison. Local Tamil Hindus began to revere the cremation spot, marking it with stones, and flowers and offerings appeared there. Sikhs and Muslims joined in, and the Sikhs built a small shrine on the spot.

The spot lay within the grounds of the Singapore General Hospital. In 1966 the samadh was moved to the Silat Road Gurdwara, and in 1995 a seven-storey memorial, the Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial, was opened beside the gurdwara. In 1999 the National Heritage Board of Singapore declared the Silat Road Sikh Temple a historic site. He is remembered as the first Sikh in Singapore on record, and large numbers of Sikhs and non-Sikhs still visit the samadh.

His personal belongings, confiscated at his arrest, are preserved in the British Library in London: two plain steel bracelets, a miniature dagger, a needle and thread, a conch shell, and a seal ring inscribed in reverse Gurmukhi script, "Akal sahai Maharaj Singh ji", meaning "The Immortal One protects Maharaj Singh Ji". Four of his handwritten Gurmukhi manuscripts are held with them. They reached the British Museum in the 1920s as a gift from a descendant of Henry Vansittart, the officer who arrested him.

Why is Bhai Maharaj Singh Ji remembered?

He is remembered as a saint soldier in the line of ਗੁਰੂ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਿੰਘ ਜੀ: a man of prayer who took up arms when he believed the Sikh kingdom was in danger, and who did not lay down his arms when others surrendered. The Times of London noted in his lifetime that his influence was unbounded among the Sikh chieftains and the whole population of Punjab, and that he was generally the prime mover in the revolts against British rule.

He is also remembered as head of the Hoti Mardan Vali Sant Khalsa Sampardai, the order founded by Bhai Daya Singh Ji, later led by Sant Karam Singh Ji of Hoti Mardan and Sant Isher Singh Ji. His successor at the dera was his close aide Baba Ram Singh Ji Virakt of Naurangabad. For Sikhs in Singapore, his samadh at Silat Road is a place of pilgrimage and a reminder that the first Sikh to reach the island came as a prisoner of the British. His life shows the sant sipahi ideal in practice: prayer and service first, and resistance when the community's freedom was at stake.