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Amritsar, Punjab: A Professor in a US university, Rajinder Singh Ranu, also a descendant of a martyr of the famous Saragarhi battle, has set out on a mission to trace the kins of other 20 martyrs of the historic battle. He has instituted a permanent Saragarhi Shahidan Scholarship fund at Khalsa College and sought contributions from Punjabis for perpetuating the memories of the brave hearts who made the land and its people proud. His maternal grandfather, Nand Singh, a sepoy in the British Indian Army, was one of the martyrs out of the 21 who had sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. All of them belonged to the 36th Sikh Regiment, currently the 4th Sikh Regiment. They were awarded the Indian Order of Merit Class III (posthumously), considered equivalent to the present day Vir Chakra.
Ranu, a Professor of Plant Pathology and Cell and Molecular Biology in Colorado State University, said he had contacted the district administration, Ferozepur, where a memorial in the memory of the gallant 21 soldiers was erected by the then Maharaja of Faridkot, for identifying the names of their villages. Besides, he was trying to explore archives and books written on the battle to search for the names of villages of these soldiers. He also made an appeal to the descendants of these soldiers to register their names and addresses with Khalsa College here.
Born and brought up at Jallan village in Sangrur district, Professor Ranu went on to acquire a PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He said the Saragarhi Shahidan Scholarship fund would finance the studies of deserving descendants of all soldiers. In case of absence of descendants or deserving candidates in the families, the scholarship would go to deserving candidates of their villages.
Earlier, Professor Ranu had donated over Rs 2 lakh to Khalsa College for creating a permanent fund last year under which scholarships to its two students were awarded annually. The Principal of the college, Dr Daljit Singh Dhillon, said the Havildar Ishar Singh scholarship was granted to Mahinder Singh, a student of Bachelor of Food and Science Technology and Sepoy Nand Singh scholarship to Kanwardeep Singh, a student of BSc (Bio-technology).
Source: TNS
yes brother Nand singh 1221 is my great grandfather.
Its sad that these martyrs have not been given their rightful place in the pages of history books………I went to the top schools in India………Welhams, Dehra Dun and Mayo College Ajmer………anand whilst there was a chapter on the Afghan wars, there was nothing about Saragarhi……a very sad testimony to the sacrifice and memory of these heroes.
there was another Nand Singh amongst the 21 sikhs who fought and i am a descendant of him, he was from attowal district hoshiarpur, punjab. there is even a memorial place to do prayers set up on the way to the pind from the city for more information on this anyone can contact tact me at
judgejatt82@hotmail.com
i am currently living in brampton ontario, canada
Can somebody email me Prof Rajinder Singh’s email address at jsbedi60@yahoo.com.
I am in the media and based in Los Angeles and would like to be involved in this project.
Every year I observe their anniversary with an article in my newspaper ( India Post) and this year it would be great to feature Prof Rajinder Singh Ranu……JS Bedi
IT is a very good thing that the 21 soldiers who faught for British at Saragarhi, one of which Nand Singh’s grandson s. Rajinder Singh Ranu, who is now at US on very good job has decided to search out the descendant of other 20 soldiers. My request is that either SGPC or DGPC or some other organisation search out the possible descendants of great Gursikhs who fought for Sikhism. Sat Sri Akal.