SĀDHŪ SIṄGH BHAURĀ,JATHEDĀR (1905-1984), Sikh missionary who rose to be the Jathedār or high priest of Srī Akāl Takht, Amritsar, was born the son of Bhāī Raṇ Siṅgh and Māī Ātam Kaur, on 6 June 1905 at Chakk No. 7, a village in Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan). After matriculating from Khālsā High School, Lyallpur (where Master Tārā Siṅgh, later a leading figure in Sikh politics, was the headmaster), he joined police service and served at Quetta from 1923 to 1925 before resigning to take part in the Akālī agitation for Gurdwārā reform. From 1926 to 1928, he studied at the Shahīd Sikh Missionary College, Amritsar, to train as a missionary. From 1928 to 1964, he headed the Sikh preaching centres at Alīgaṛh and Hāpuṛ, in Uttar Pradesh, where he is said to have initiated nearly half a million persons according to Sikh rites, among them mostly Vaṇjārā Sikhs of Uttar Pradesh and Rājasthan. He was a member of the executive committee of the Shiromaṇī Akālī Dal from 1955 to 1960 and took part in several of the political agitations launched by the party. He was Jathedār of Takht Srī Kesgaṛh, Anandpur Sāhib, from 1961 to 1964. In 1964, he was elevated to the position of Jathedār of Srī Akāl Takht, the highest seat of religious authority and legislation for the Sikhs. He attracted wide public notice when, on 10 June 1978, he issued a hukamnāmā or edict calling upon all Sikhs to boycott socially the neo-Niraṅkārī sect. In 1980, Jathedār Sādhū Siṅgh Bhaurā, in an effort to avert a vertical split in the Akālī Dal, formed a 7-member committee of senior party leaders to function as collegiate executive, but soon after himself resigned on health grounds and retired to live with his sons in Jalandhar where he died on 7 March 1984.