Baba Kharak Singh
First president of the SGPC, who led the 'Keys Affair' of 1921 forcing the British to return the keys of the Harmandir Sahib treasury.
Kharak Singh was born in 1867 in Sialkot, one of the first graduates of Punjab University, and became a businessman and a leader of the Sikh community.
In 1921 he was elected the first president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. When the British government seized the keys of the Toshakhana of the Harmandir Sahib, he led the 'Keys Affair' agitation, and in January 1922 the government gave the keys back to him; Gandhi telegraphed that the first decisive battle for India's freedom had been won.
He was jailed repeatedly, refused to wear a cap in jail instead of a turban, and spent years in prison. He opposed Partition and died in Delhi in 1963 at ninety-six.