Karam Singh, Bhai
One of the Nankana Sahib Martyrs (1891-1921)
Was born on 5 Assu 1948 Bk/19 September 1891, the son of Bhai Hakam Singh and Mai Kisso of Lahuke village in Amritsar district. The family had migrated to the Lower Chenab Canal Colony and settled in Chakk 75 Lahuke in 1895. Karam Singh learnt to read Gurmukhi in the village gurdwara. He took the pahul of the Khalsa at the age of 15 and engaged himself in agriculture.
In 1913 he enlisted in the 47th Sikh Battalion. After some time his elder brother Sadhu Singh died, and as he came on leave to attend the obsequies, he, under pressure from his family and other relatives, married his brother’s widow, Bibi Harnam Kaur, by the custom of chadar andazi, i.e. by tying the conjugal knot. In 1915 he resigned from the army and returned to his village.
As the Gurdwara Reform movement got under way, he registered his name as a volunteer with the jatha of Bhai Lachhman Singh. And when the final call came on 19 February 1921, he along with some others from his village marched to Nankana Sahib, and fell a martyr outside the walled compound of Gurdwara Janam Asthan, the following morning.
Bhai Karam Singh was survived by his mother, wife and four minor children. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee settled upon the family a pension of Rs 240 per annum and discharged the small debt it had incurred.
Source: TheSikhEncyclopedia.Com