Jangir Singh Joga , was the Son of Sardar Uttam Singh Chahal, he was born on I1th October, 1908 in village Joga, District Bhatinda. After completing Primary education at his village school he joind the Rajindra High School, Bhatinda. Just when his Matriculation examination was two months off, he left his studies and joined the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi. He and 25 of his companions were tried on the charge of picketing foreign cloth shors and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in the Lahore Central jail. After his release he joind the Akali movement which was then in full swing. He played a leading role in the Jaitomorcha and soon grew prominent enough to become General Secretary of the AkaliJatha, Patiala State. Later when a vigorous agitation started in the Punjab States against the continued detention of Sewa Singh Thikriwala, he became a leading participant in that. He was one of the four delegates of the Punjab States (others being Bhagwan Singh Longowalia, Hira Singh Bhathal, and Sant Ram Nabha) who attended the Calcutta sessions of the Indian National Congress. There they moved, after consulting fellows-delegates from other Indian States, a non-official resolution demanding of the Congress to extend its activities to the Indian States, but the resolution could not be adopted. All the same, they successfully persuaded Mahatma Gandhi to set up a Congress sub-committee to assist the people of the States to form a separate organization of their own. Thus was born in 1928 the Praja Mandal which held its first session at Bombay the same year.
On the eve of the Simon Commission’s visit to Patiala in 1929, a big meeting was held at Thikriwala to chalk out a programme for the boycott of the Commission. The meeting was declared unlawful and Jangir Singh with eight other leaders was arrested and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. On the same occasion he was deprived of his office of numberdarship (headship of village). When he was released after a year, he found the country being swayed by the Civil Disobedience movement. He together with many of his erstwhile companions, such as Harnam Singh Dharmgarh (Patiala) Shamsher Singh Langri (Jind), Chanan Singh Dangarh (Nabha), Kartar Singh Kalsan, Bhagat Singh Tatogal (Dhuri) and Hari Singh Margind was rearrested and detained for one year more for participating in the movement. As soon as he secured his release, he found another trial waiting for him on the charge of leading a band of Satyagrahis. The result was another term of one year’s imprisonment. Back from jail, he brought out in 1933 from Amritsar a weekly newspaper caliedDeshDardi with a view to consolidating the Praja Mandal movement in the Punjab States. The paper lost its security deposit twice and once its Editor, Jangir Singh Joga, was awarded three months’imprisonment for writing an ‘objectionable’ editorial note.
The paper had to be closed after 5 years. But Jangir Singh never stopped his political activities. Up to 1946 he had to go to jail as many as fifteen times. He was in jail even when the country was celebrating Independence in 1947. During the period ending with 1947, he adorned the offices of General Secretary and President of the Punjab States Peoples’ Conference on several occasions. In 1948 he resigned his membership of the Congress on account of his differences with Sardar Patel, the Union Home Minister of those days, and became a member of Communist Party of India. Ever since he has been participating in all agitations launced by this party and consequently has served several more terms of imprisonment in Punjab jails. In 1953 while in jail he was elected to the Pepsu Legislative Assembly in absentia. In 1957 he won his first election to the Punjab Legislative Assembly and since then has been member of this august body without any break.
In course of his participation in the struggle for freedom he had to pay, on various occasions, a total fine of Rs. 15,000, besides the confiscation of his personal property.
References :-
- Eminent Freedom Fighters Of Punjab by Fauja Singh (1972)