Gurdit Singh, Baba, son of Hukam Singh, Jat, Village Sirhali, District Amritsar. When twelve years of age he went to Farming in the F. M. S., where his father was a police officer, Constable. In 1909 he returned home and again in 1913 he went back to Singapore where on arrival he took an active part in the agitation for the removal of the restrictions on the immigration of Asiatics into Canada. He was reported to be a leader among his compatriots whom he impregnated with sedition, being styled "Bengal ka Kaptan". In January 1914 he went to Hong Kong and chartered the "Komagata Maru" through a German shipping agent and conveyed a number of. Indians from Hong Kong and other places to Canada in defiance of the Canadian Immigration laws. On the arrival of the ship at Vancouver on 21st May 1914 the Canadian authorities refused the passengers of granting permission to land and an affray ensued resulting in injuries to 22 Police officers. Eventually Gurdit Singh had to give way and the "Komagata Maru" left Vancouver on its return voyage on the 23rd July 1914. During both the outward and return voyages Gurdit Singh posed openly as a revolutionary leader. Literature issued by the Ghadr Party in America was circulated on board, and the passengers were incited to raise the standard of revolt against the British Government on them return to India. When the ship reached Calcutta in September the passengers were asked to land at Budge Budge and proceed to the Punjab in a special train and on their refusal to obey, a riot took place in which fire-arms were freely used with fatal effects. Gurdit Singh escaped and a reward of Rs. 1,000 was offered for his arrest. Gurdit Singh knew from the beginning that his passengers would not be allowed to land in Canada and his venture was chiefly to make money. It is likely also that he was instigated by some persons who wished to focus attention on the Canadian Immigration restrictions and thereby cause disaffection in India. Gurdit Singh remained in hiding for about seven years. In November 1921 he reappeared at Nankana in the Sheikhupura district and accompanied by a huge crowd of Akalis gave himself up to the police. After a short period of internment under the Ingress into India Ordinance he was released at the end of February 1922. Thereafter he took to preaching the boycott of British goods and the doctrine of non-co- operation, and issued an account of the "Komagata Maru's" voyage the publication of which was prohibited. On the 6th of March 1922 he made a seditious speech at Amritsar for which he was sentenced to five years' transportation. In May 1925, while still in jail he tried to recover the value of his property in the "Komagata Maru" which, he complained, had been seized by the Government. He was released in January 1926 before the expiry of his sentence and in February joined the extremist party among the Sikhs headed by Mangal Singh, B. A. In April he presided over the fifth session of the Central Sikh League at Lahore. He was one of the signatories to an appeal issued by the Sikh League for financial aid to the relatives of the executed and imprisoned Akalis and in May 1926 was elected President of the Shiromani Akali Dal. Thereafter he made Calcutta his headquarters and took an active part in the local Sikh and Congress movements. In 1927 he collected funds in Calcutta for the Kirti and in October of that year was reported to be in active communication with revolutionaries abroad. On the anniversary celebration of Guru Nanak on the 12th of November 1927 he spoke in denunciation of the British rule in India. In 1928 he was President of the All-Bengal Sikh League and on the 16th of March of that year he was arrested for sedition in connection with a speech delivered at Mirzapore Park on the 3rd of March but was subsequently released. On the 24th of July 1929 he was bound down at Jamshedpur under Section 107 Criminal Procedure Code to keep the peace for a period of six months and on the 26th of August he remarked at a meeting held at Golmuri (Bihar) in connection with the Tin Plate Strike, that in the event of failure hartals would be organized in the Burma Oil Co.'s Depots at Bombay, Karachi and Madras. He issued a Gurmukhi poster entitled "Preparations for going to America" in which he disclosed his scheme of taking a number of Sikh emigrants to settle down as cultivators in Brazil and mentioned therein that if 1,000 Sikhs volunteered to accompany him, arrangements would be made to charter an Indian ship. He presided over a meeting organized by the pro-Congress party of the Central Sikh League at Lyallpur on 11th October 1929 on the occasion of the 11th session of the Central Sikh League and made a speech opposing the boycott of Congress and appealing to the Sikhs to sink their differences and wipe out the stain of 1857. He attended the 2nd All-Punjab Students' Conference held at Lahore on 19th October 1929 and made a speech advising the youths to learn how to die. On the 16th November he was co-opted a member of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. In October and November 1929, he carried on Congress propaganda in various districts in the Punjab and attended the States Subjects Conference held at Lahore on 27th and 28th December 1929. In the second open session of the Congress held at Lahore on 31st December 1929, he opposed the resolution deploring the attempt to wreck the Viceroy's train and congratulating the Viceroy and his party on them narrow escape. He was arrested at Calcutta on the 15th of April 1930 for being connected with an unlawful assembly which tried to create disturbances protesting against the conviction of Pt. Jawahir Lal Nehru and others and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment which was subsequently reduced to six months. In 1931 he was active in urging the Calcutta Sikhs to accept the lead of the Congress and also in delivering objectionable speeches in the Punjab. He presided over the Punjab Provincial Political Conference held at Jhang on 26th and 27th September 1931. Gurdit Singh is a man of little intelligence, and he suffers from an inflated idea of his own importance and that of his "Komagata Maru" venture, but his lurid past has given him a position among Sikhs extremists. He is an irreconcilable opponent of Government and more or less involved in every form of extremist agitation in the Punjab.

Description : Age about 65 years (1932); medium height; strong build. Wheat complexion; white beard; wears khaddar clothes and a black pagh.