Modern figure
Master Tara Singh
ਮਾਸਟਰ ਤਾਰਾ ਸਿੰਘماسٹر تارا سنگھ
Leader of the Akali Dal for four decades, through the gurdwara reform movement, Partition and the campaign for a Punjabi-speaking state.
Master Tara Singh was born in 1885 at Haryal near Rawalpindi into a Hindu family and became a Sikh as a schoolboy. He was a schoolmaster before he joined the gurdwara reform movement.
He led the Akali Dal for some four decades, from the gurdwara agitations of the 1920s through Partition, when he opposed the creation of Pakistan and is remembered for drawing his kirpan outside the Punjab Assembly in Lahore in March 1947, to the campaign for a Punjabi-speaking state. He went on several fasts for the Punjabi Suba.
He died in 1967, a year after the Punjabi Suba was created.