AMAR SIṄGH WĀSŪ (1884 1932), Akālī activist and journalist, was born Gaṅga Rām at the village of Wāsū, in Gujrāt district, now in Pakistan, in 1884, the son of Ladhā Mall and Lachhmī Devī. Under the influence of the Siṅgh Sabhā movement, the family went through the Sikh initiatory rites, Gaṅgā Rām becoming Amar Siṅgh Khālsā and his father Rām Siṅgh. Amar Siṅgh matriculated from the Mission High School, Gujrāṅwālā, and joined in 1902 the Khālsā College at Amritsar, passing the intermediate examination of the Pañjāb University, Lahore, in 1904. In 1906, he went to the United States to train as a journalist, returning to India in 1908. He had vowed not to take up government service under the British. In partnership with the historian Karam Siṅgh, he set up an Ayurvedic pharmacy--the Sannyāsī Āshram--at Sargodhā in 1908. While at Sargodhā, Amar Siṅgh married Rām Kaur, daughter of Bhāī Naraiṇ Siṅgh, of Ghaṛūāṅ, a village in Paṭiālā district. It was an inter-caste marriage encouraged by Siṅgh Sabhā enthusiasts but opposed by the orthodox. When Bhāī Jodh Siṅgh, theologian and educationist, formed in 1909 a group of Jīvan Sevaks or those dedicating their lives to the service of the Sikh community, Amar Siṅgh was amongst the few who volunteered to join the new society and work for it on a small fixed honorarium for twenty years. In 1920, Amar Siṅgh, now known as Amar Siṅgh Wāsū after the name of his village, became editor of the English weekly, the Khalsa Advocate, started by the Chief Khālsā Dīwān. When this paper closed down, he took over as assistant secretary of the Chief Khālsā Dīwān. As the reformist Sikhs assumed charge of the Nankāṇā shrines after the massacre of 1921, Amar Siṅgh was appointed to administer them. At the time of Gurū kā Bāgh morchā, he was shifted to Amritsar. From 1927-30 he remained a member of the Shiromaṇī Gurdwārā Parbandhak Committee.

        Amar Siṅgh died at Sargodhā on 27 June 1932 after a prolonged illness.