Master Tara Singh was born on 24 June 1885, in the village of Haryal in the Rawalpindi district. His father, Bakshi Gopi Chand, was a village Patwari. From his very childhood Master Tara Singh admired the teachings of the Sikh Gurus and embraced Sikhism in 1902 at the age of seventeen. He passed the Matriculation examination from the Mission High School, Rawalpindi, and did his B.A. in 1903 form the Khalsa College, Amritsar.

During his college days he had developed anti-British feelings and he was one of the leaders of the students when a hostile demonstration was staged against Sir Charles Riwaz, Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab. He took his diploma in teaching from the Training College, Lahore, and he helped establish the Khalsa High School at Lyallpur where he offered to serve as the Headmaster of the school at a nominal salary of Rs. 15/- per month. Since then he was known as ‘Master’.

In the year 1913 a deputation of Indian emigrants visited the Punjab to seek Government help for their claims for equal rights with the other British subjects in Canada. Master Tara Singh invited them to Lyallpur and organised meetings in their support. This made the Government of India look upon him with suspicion. In the Rikabganj agitation of 1914 Mater Tara Singh offered to join a volunteers’ jatha to Delhi.

During the Gurdwara reform movement Master Tara Singh came to the forefront and emerged as one of its leaders. He played a significant role in Sikh politics for about four decades and was imprisoned many times in connection with different movements. The Akali agitation was a movement of non-violent civil disobedience and it brought about great political awakening in the country. With the passage of the Gurdwara Bill in 1925, there was a split in the Akali leadership, with Tara Singh as the leader of the dissenting group opposed to Sardar Mehtab Singh and Gyani Sher Singh.

In 1927 the British Government announced that a Commission under Sir John Simon would be sent to India to review the working of the Government of India Act of 1919. As no Indian was associated with the Commission, the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress boycotted it. An All-Parties Conference deputed Pandit Motilal Nehru to draw up, with the help of a Committee, a Constitution for India. But the Report of the Committee, know as the Nehru Report, was rejected by the Sikhs-Master Tara Singh being the most vocal against it-on the ground that it failed to solve the problem of the minorities, particualrly the Sikhs.

Tara Singh, however, continued his association with the Congress in its struggle for independence and fully identified himself with the “Complete Independence” resolution passed at the Lahore session of the Congress on 31 December 1929.

With the spread of Mahatma Gandhi’s Civil Desobedience Movement to the North-West Frontier Province, the people of the Province had to undergo great sufferings at the hands of the police and the Army. This very much hurt Master Tara Singh and he set out from Amritsar for the North-West frontier Province with a jatha of 100 volunteers. But he was not allowed to proceed further than Lohore where he was arrested. In the

Master Tara Singh stood in opposition to the Unionist Ministry in the Punjab, and his lieutenants, Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke, Isher Singh Majhel and Sohan Singh Jalal-Usman, organised a Kisan movement against it. The opposition of the Master to the Punjab Ministry, however, came to an end with the inclusion therein of Sardar Baldev Singh through a political pact in 1941 with the Chief Minister, Sir Kikander Hyat Khan.

When the Japanese armies were hovering over the Indian borders during World War II, Sir Stafford Cripps came to India in 1942 to seek her increased co-operation in the war efforts promising political concessions after the war. Master Tara Singh, Sardar Ujjal Singh and Baldev Singh represented the Sikh community. Master Tara Singh rejected outright Sir Stafford Cripps’s proposals as they seemed to provide for the partition of the country. He also bitterly criticised C. Rajagopalachari’s proposal that the Muslim demand for a separate state should be conceded.

Cripps’s proposals gave considerable encouragement to the separation-seeking Muslim League. It was also felt that the Congress was veering around to the Azad Punjab, with the river Chenab on the north-west and the Jamuna on the south-east. This was only a cou7nterblast to check the Muslim League’s demand for the inclusion of the entire Punjab in Pakistan.

After India became independent, Master Tara Singh headed the movement for the establishment of a Punjabi-speaking State on the lines of some other similar State in the country. To press his demand for it, he undertook a fast-unto-death on 15 August 1961, which was broken after forty-three days. This hastened the end of his political career and his own nominee Sant Fateh Singh supplanted him. Forlorn and frustrated Master Tara Singh died on 22 November 1967, in a hospital at Chandigarh. He is survived by his wife, one daughter, Rajinder Kaur, and two sons-Mohan Singh and Jaswant Singh.

Besides politics, Master Tara Singh also took an active interest in constructive work of a more lasting nature. He played a decisive role in establishing the Khalso College at Bombay and Guru Nanak Engineering College at Ludhiana, the institutions which have benefited students belonging to all communities. Master Ytara Singh was also a forceful jounalist and a man of letters. He was the Editor of the Akali the Pardesi for many years. He was the author of ‘Baba Tega Singh’, ‘Prem Lagan’ and ‘Meri Yad’-the last being his political memoir.