Sardar Jassa Singh Ramgarhia: the fort of Ram Rauni and the Ramgarhia Bunga

This day celebrates the birth of Sardar Jassa Singh Ramgarhia, one of the great leaders of the Khalsa in the eighteenth century and the head of the Ramgarhia Misl, whose twin towers still stand beside Sri Harmandir Sahib.

Early life

Jassa Singh was born in 1723 at Ichogil, near Lahore, into a family of carpenters, the son of Giani Bhagwan Singh. He grew up in the years when the Mughal governors of Lahore hunted the Sikhs, and joined the Khalsa as a young man, fighting under Nawab Kapur Singh.

Ram Rauni

In 1748 the Khalsa built a mud fort near Amritsar called Ram Rauni, after Sri Guru Ram Das Ji, and were besieged in it. Jassa Singh, then serving with the Mughal side, changed sides and helped the besieged Sikhs. He later rebuilt the fort, renamed it Ramgarh, and took charge of it, and from it he and his followers took the name Ramgarhia. His misl came to hold lands around Batala and in the hills.

Delhi and the Bunga

In 1783 he rode with Sardar Baghel Singh and Sardar Jassa Singh Ahluwalia into Delhi, and tradition remembers that he carried back to Amritsar a slab of stone from the Mughal court, which is kept at the Ramgarhia Bunga. The Bunga, a fortified residence with two tall towers in the Sri Harmandir Sahib complex, was built by his misl to guard the shrine. He passed away in 1803.

How the day is observed

Sangats remember him with kirtan and Ardas, and the Ramgarhia community holds gatherings in his memory in Punjab and around the world.