Sardar Bahadur, Sir

Sobha Singh
Born1890 (unknown)
Hadali, Khushab, Sargodha, British Raj (now Pakistan)
Died18 April 1978
Delhi, India
NationalityBritish Indian, Indian
Occupation(s)Contractor, real estate developer
Organization(s)Council of States
New Delhi Municipal Council
Sobha Singh Trust
Sir Sobha Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd
Known forBuilding most of Lutyens' Delhi.
TitleSardar Bahadur, Sir.
RelativesSardar Inder Singh (grandfather)
Sardar Sujan Singh (father)
Lakshmi Devi (mother)
Sardar Ujjal Singh (brother)
Sardar Bahadur Mehtab Singh (first cousin)
Sardarni Vira Bai (spouse)
Sir Teja Singh Malik (brother-in-law)
Bhagwant Singh (son)
Khushwant Singh (son)
Brigadier Gurbux Singh (son)
Daljit Singh (son)
Mohinder Kaur (daughter)
Rukhsana Sultana (relative)
Amrita Singh (relative)
Major General Mohinder Singh Chopra (relative)
Pushpinder Singh Chopra (relative)
HonoursOrder of the British Empire

Sardar Bahadur, Sir Sobha Singh, OBE (1890 – 18 April 1978) was an Indian civil contractor, prominent builder and real estate developer of the modern day Delhi.[1]

Not only a builder, but he was also a subordinate architect and the first Indian President of the New Delhi Municipal Council and was a part of the Council of States laying the foundation of development schemes in Lyallpur, Kalka, Kasauli, Nagpur and most of all Delhi.[2] He came to be described as "Adhi Dilli ka Malik" (the God of half of Delhi) as he virtually owned half of Lutyens' Delhi.[2][3] He played the largest part in early industrial construction in Delhi in the 1920s and 1930s along with being a main participant in the Westernization and modernist collective Indian identity.[3] He was a proficient developer and a Sikh business icon.[3]

Early life and Family

Sir Sobha Singh was born in 1890, in the village of Hadali in Khushab, Shahpur District – then part of British India (now Pakistan).[2] He was the elder of the two sons of Sardar Sujan Singh and Lakshmi Devi, the younger one being Sardar Ujjal Singh,[4] who was a member of Parliament in India along with the governor of Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

His father, Sardar Sujan Singh, constructed many buildings in Sargodha and Multan.[5] He was of a landowning family in the Montgomery and Multan districts of Punjab.[6] Sobha Singh joined his father's business of civil construction dealing in the laying of railway tracks and the digging of tunnels, the 22-year-old Sobha Singh shifted his base to Delhi as building contractors when Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, announced the plan to shift to British Indian capital city.[7]

Career

In Lyallpur and Multan

They owned a large tract of land between Mian Channu and Khanewal along with Jaranwala which was canal area.[8] The railway station near Khanewal was named after his father called Kot Sujan Singh.[9] He put cotton ginning and spinning mills along with oil pressing in the area.[9] Sardar Ujjal Singh was put in charge of the land in Punjab and became a very profitable businessman.[10] Sir Sobha Singh and his father were present for the Coronation of the King and Queen near Delhi in 1911 as guests due to their work in the field of canal irrigation, development and construction of roads and rail tracks, invited by Malcom Hailey.[11]

Due to World War I Sir Sobha Singh, Sardar Sujan Singh and his family shifted near Sabzi Mandi in Delhi and worked in the textile industry, in a cotton mill.[11] It was originally called Jumna Mill but then he changed the name to Khalsa Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills.[11] The mill was not successful and often had to shut down due to lack of money and they were on the verge of bankruptcy.[11] In 1919 a fire swallowed the mill and turned it to ashes. Sobha Singh was then given the job of constructing the Kalka-Simla Railroad after their reputation in Multan grew.[11] Sujan Singh also passed away in his sixties in Mian Channu.[11]

Afterwards Sobha Singh heard rumors of a shift in the capital and decided to buy lots of land near Old Delhi, which was later used for the construction of Delhi- mainly Raisina Hill.[9]

Construction Plans

Sobha Singh’s first job was to relocate the foundation stones from where the King and Queen had laid them, in Kingsway. Under cover of darkness (so it would not be taken as a bad omen), he moved them to the new site 11kms away on Raisina Hill.[12] Sobha Singh was accepted as a senior-grade contractor.[13] Plans for the new city were drawn immediately after the Coronation Durbar.[13] Liaquat Ali Khan [then finance minister] started an income tax enquiry commission against people who supposedly made money during World War I and hadn’t paid taxes, he had to spend three years answering to that commission.[13] For the South Block and War Memorial Arch (now India Gate), Sir Sobha was the sole builder.[14] He also worked on some parts of the Viceregal House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) and Vijay Chowk. He bought several extensive sites at as little as Rs 2 per square yard, freehold.[15] He hired around 6,000 Bagadi laborers from Rajasthan and dozens of supervisors, clerks and accountants with stone imported from Dholpur. The laborers had very low wages- 80 paisa for men and 60 paisa for women per day.[11]

He constructed many residential and commercial buildings, including the Connaught Place market complex,[16] as well as the Chelmsford Club, A.I.F.A.C.'s Hall, Broadcasting House (All India Radio), the National Museum, Dyal Singh College, T.B. Hospital, Modern School, Deaf and Dumb School, St. Columba's School, Red Cross Buildings and Baroda House. Outside Delhi, he built the High Court and Government Medical College at Nagpur and the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli.[13]

The South Block in New Delhi for which Sir Sobha Singh was the sole contractor.

Sir Sobha Singh was a person of modest education but his success as a builder made him one of the wealthiest persons of Delhi; also, a prominent member of the social elite. He also became the first Indian president of the New Delhi Municipal Council and held the post four times, in 1938, 1942, and 1945-46.[17] Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1938 Birthday Honours, he was subsequently appointed a member of the Council of State[18] He was knighted in the 1944 Birthday Honours.[19] He also built Sujan Singh Park, near Khan Market New Delhi, New Delhi's first apartment complex, which only had bungalows till then, in 1945, designed by Walter Sykes George and named after his father.[20]

"Sobha Singh didn’t have time to worry about politics (or architecture). He just kept constructing and building and making money.”

— Brigadier Gurbux Singh

Post New Delhi

Picture of Sir Sobha Singh in the 1950s

He was a part of what was nicknamed the Panj Pyare of Delhi, five Sikhs who built modern Delhi. The top five builders were Sir Sobha Singh, Basakha Singh, Ranjit Singh, Mohan Singh and Dharam Singh Sethi.[20] Later Sir Teja Singh Malik, Ram Singh Kabli and the President of "U.S.D.", (Uttam Singh Duggal) also built lots of Delhi.[13] He then became the first Indian President of the New Delhi Municipal Council and started developing the roads and infrastructure of Delhi and was a member of the Central Legislative Assembly, but opposed and desisted from any sort of politics. He did, although, give support to Sir Jogendra Singh, Sardar Ujjal Singh and Sir Sundar Singh Majithia of the Khalsa National Party.

Although post-independence none of them were honored and no roundabouts, roads or monuments were named after any of them, Khushwant Singh stated, "it appeared like anti-Sikh communal prejudice."

Testimony against Bhagat Singh

Sobha Singh's public image was marred by his sketchy testimony against Bhagat Singh after Delhi was constructed.[21][22]

"They took their seats in the Visitors’ gallery. So did my father. The debate going on was very boring; so he started reading a newspaper he had brought with him. His attention was distracted by firing of pistols and explosion of bombs. Others in the visitors’ gallery fled leaving my father and the two revolutionaries, one was Shaheed Bhagat Singh. They did not put up any resistance when the police arrested them, and my father identified them in court since he was one of the three who testified," stated Khushwant Singh.[23]

The other two were Mahatma Gandhi and Ajaib Singh Kokri.[24][25]

Death

Sir Sobha Singh died in Delhi on 18 April 1978 from age.[26]

Legacy

Sardar Bahadur Sir Sobha Singh left a large part of his private estate to a charitable trust, the Sobha Singh Trust, which maintains homes and hospitals for the terminally ill and aged all over the country, most recently it built, a Dharamsala, within the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital complex, in New Delhi in 2005.[27] He also presided over some institutions funded by it like the Deaf and Dumb School and the Modern School. Among his last grants was one for Bhagat Puran Singh's Pingalwara home for the destitute in Amritsar.[28]

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated that Connaught Place was to be renamed Sobha Singh Place although it did not happen.

In 2006, India International Centre (IIC) organized the first Sir Sobha Singh Memorial Lectures, in which the inaugural lecture titled, "My father, the builder", was given by his son, writer Khushwant Singh.[29]

References

  1. ↑ "The Tribune - Windows - Slice of history". www.tribuneindia.com. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 "SOBHA SINGH, SIR - The Sikh Encyclopedia". 19 December 2000. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 "SOBHA SINGH, SIR - The Sikh Encyclopedia". 19 December 2000. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  4. ↑ Welcome to Memorable relics
  5. ↑ Grewal, J. S. (25 July 2019). Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708): Master of the White Hawk. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-099038-1.
  6. ↑ Singh (OBE.), Ranjit (2008). Sikh Achievers. Hemkunt Press. ISBN 978-81-7010-365-3.
  7. ↑ Singh, Joginder (2010). A Short history of Namdhari Sikhs of Punjab. Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. p. 20. ISBN 978-81-7770-156-2.
  8. ↑ The Romance of Construction - I. CBS Forum. ISBN 978-81-901948-0-8.
  9. 1 2 3 Singh, Rahul (2004). Khushwant Singh in the Name of the Father. Roli Books. ISBN 978-81-7436-315-2.
  10. ↑ Sadana, Rashmi (2 February 2012). English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-95229-4.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Singh, Khushwant (14 October 2000). NOT A NICE MAN TO KNOW: The Best of Khushwant Singh. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-93-5118-278-8.
  12. ↑ "The Indians who built New Delhi". The Week. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Cole, W Owen (2004). Understanding Sikhism. Dunedin Academic Press. ISBN 9781903765159.
  14. ↑ "Builder Of Lutyens' Delhi: Sir Sobha Singh [1 min read]". Fairgaze. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  15. ↑ Who built New Delhi? Archived 2008-09-07 at the Wayback Machine www.delhilive.com, 13 February 2008.
  16. ↑ Connaught Place
  17. ↑ Ex-Presidents New Delhi Municipal Council.
  18. ↑ "No. 34518". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 June 1938. p. 3703.
  19. ↑ "No. 36544". The London Gazette (Supplement). 2 June 1944. p. 2566.
  20. 1 2 "Making history with brick and mortar". Hindustan Times. 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012.
  21. ↑ "How Bhagat Singh Was Sentenced". Outlook. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  22. ↑ "Bhagat Singh vs Sobha Singh". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  23. ↑ "Khushwant Singh accused of twisting facts to shield father in Bhagat Singh case". India Today. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  24. ↑ Nair, Neeti (2009). "Bhagat Singh as 'Satyagrahi': The Limits to Non-Violence in Late Colonial India". Modern Asian Studies. 43 (3): 649–681. ISSN 0026-749X.
  25. ↑ "OPERATION BLUESTAR: Hurt beyond heal". orissapost.com. 6 June 2015. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  26. ↑ "The Last Builder Of Delhi". outlookindia.com. 5 February 2022. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  27. ↑ Caring for the care-givers Archived 2005-04-24 at the Wayback Machine Indian Express, 10 April 2005.
  28. ↑ "Legacy on rent". business-standard.com. 29 March 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  29. ↑ Quraishi, Humra (23 July 2006). "Back to the glorious past". The Tribune.
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