Sobha Singh (builder)

Sir Sobha Singh was born in 1888, in the village of Hadali in Khushab, Shahpur District – then part of British India (now Pakistan). He was pulled out of school before giving his final exams, as his father believed that to make money one only needed was addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and how to calculate simple and compound interest, although he wanted to learn English, he could not till much later. He was married at the age of 17 to a 13-year-old girl from a village named Mitha Tiwana neighboring Hadali, her name was Varyam Kaur- but to others she was known as Lady Sobha Singh. Sobha Singh's father, Bhai Sujan Singh Hadaliwale, constructed many buildings in Sargodha and Multan. == Early career ==

Sujan Singh and Sobha Singh were called to the Central Public Works Department to start plans for the construction of New Delhi. Under cover of darkness (so it would not be taken as a bad omen), he moved them to the new site 11 kilometers away on Raisina Hill, and was only given 16 rupees for the job. Sobha Singh was accepted as a senior-grade contractor in the Construction of New Delhi. He lived in his fathers house on the Old Mill Road now known as Rafi Marg. == World War I ==

While Sujan Singh toured Shahpur, Hadali and Mian Channu to recruit soldiers for World War I, Sobha Singh stayed in Delhi and tried his prospects in the textile industry and Ujjal Singh managed the properties in Punjab. 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. It was originally called Jumna Mill but then he changed the name to Khalsa Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills. The mill was not successful and often had to shut down due to lack of money and they were on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1919 a fire swallowed the mill and turned it to ashes. They were very concerned that the English may lose the war and New Delhi would have never been built, but that did not happen. He then learned English to communicate with the Englishmen during this time. == Contracting career ==

Construction of Delhi He was a member of the Delhi Municipal Committee, the Improvement Trust which was planning New Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Committee. Kingsway Development Sir Malcom Hailey allowed Sobha Singh to buy several extensive sites like the Rashtrapati Bhavan, India Gate, Vijay Chowk and other sites at as little as Rs 2 per square yard, freehold as a reward for their service in the First World War. He bought the land of Connaught Place in 1921 and was given the title of 'Sardar Sahib' in the 1922 birthday celebrations. He hired around 6,000 Bagadi laborers 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. Later he had built the National Museum as well which houses India's famous Dancing Girl. St. Columba's School was also constructed by him. On 23 December 1931 the Irwins came by train for the inaugural ceremony, Sobha Singh was one of the dignitaries to receive them at the platform. A bomb on the tracks was set off, and missed Sobha Singh, along with the Irwins as it blew up the compartment next to them. The entire complex was raised to house British and American military and civilian officers during World War II to help in the war effort. In the early 1940s, Sobha Singh got the contract from the chief engineer of Delhi, Bahadur Suleman Khan, who himself migrated to Karachi after the Partition of India. It was known as Delhi's "drawing room". All of Sir Sobha Singh's descendants live in the colony today. Many famed personalities including Teji Bachchan, Khushwant Singh, K.P. Bhanumathi, Meenakshi Chettur, Capt. Amarinder Singh, Pushpindar Singh Chopra, Danial Latifi, Badruddin Tyabji, Reeta Devi and many others have lived in the Sujan Singh Park complex. Development of Other Sites He contracted the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Hall on Old Mill Road (Rafi Marg) on his own cost, Baroda House on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Dyal Singh College in Delhi, the Government Medical College in Nagpur, designed by D.G. Karajgaonkar and the Bombay High Court, Nagpur Branch. Sobha Singh contracted the Central Research Institute in Kasauli too. Sir Sobha Singh was a founder-contractor of Chelmsford Club on Parliament Street. He also contracted the Broadcasting House (All India Radio) which remains one of the most iconic figures of radio television across Asia. Bhakra-Nangal Dam Project Bhakra Nangal Dam was designed by an American, Harvey Slocum and was executed by Sir Sobha Singh. When lack of funding from investors and the government had forced Harvey Slocum to almost abandon the project, Sir Sobha Singh arrived and funded it with his own money and with the help of Kamani Engineering, he also helped in engineer parts of the project where it was unfeasible, along with many other engineers. The Bhakra Nangal Dam was built over thirteen years (1949-1963) and Sir Sobha Singh steered the project through rough storms. The tiles that he had bought, if landed in a straight line, would be seven times the length of the Equator, it is the largest multipurpose river valley project in India and was the only dam in Asia which could produce 1500 MW of power- a beacon to India's new economic progress despite the setbacks and newly achieved freedom. == Political and social career ==

He was appointed member of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1938 and Member of Council of States on 18 February 1939. He did not make many speeches, and was not an active participant in the colonial politics at the time. William Birdwood had clearly stated that the Sikh prisoners kept in Rasina Hill after the Jaito Morcha and Akali Movement should have been kept in custody. He wrote a letter congratulating Sir Sunder Singh Majithia and wished his success in the Akali Movement, though Sir Sobha Singh was against Sikhs (or Indians) demanding independence from the British Raj. This was following an incident where the Delhi Police had cordoned a procession of Sikhs and trampled over two children. One of Sobha Singh's famous speeches was about a Sikh Gurdwaras and Religious Endowments Bill, which led him to become the brainchild of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. Most of his speeches were about Sikh rights, he also wished to create a separate Anand Marriage Act, but the British and Indian Nationalists both pressed him, hence he was on the Committee for the Hindu Law (Marriage) Bill. He also asked to increase the representation of Hindus in the Council of Sind, since Non-Muslims were not getting enough seats in the Sind province. Bhagat Singh Court Case The story of Sir Sobha Singh's involvement in the Bhagat Singh issue was that first Sobha Singh came late and arrived when the division bell rang on the Trade Disputes Bill. Some friends of his were seated near the Ladies’ gallery and he looked towards them when the President announced the result of voting. Misconception of Sobha Singh's role Bhagat Singh was hanged later, not for the bomb thrown in the Legislative Assembly, but for the murder of Saunders in Lahore, in which Sobha Singh had no role to play. It was years after Sir Sobha Singh's death in 1997 that public attention was drawn to the incident by an article titled, 'Khushwant Singh's Father was Main Witness in Bhagat Singh's Trial' by Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich of The Indian Express, which was erroneous and politically motivated in nature. Great Bengal Famine Sir Sobha Singh said in parliament that the Bengal famine of 1943 had exposed the constitutional defects inherent in the Government of India Act 1935. By becoming autonomous units, the provincial Governments had become self-sufficient and insular in their outlook, regardless of the good of the country. While Lord Wavell had sent the army divisions and air force for relief work along the countryside, Sir Sobha Singh was tasked with improving railways and roads, which is why he was put on the Central Advisory Council for Railways, the Food Department for producing Bajra, Jowar, Millet, Rice and Wheat instead of Jute plantations in the East Bengal region, the Committee for Agriculture and Forests so that he could help in the food scarcity situation and provide wood which was lacking in areas like Odisha's coastal area. He was also put on the Committee for the Labour Department to solve the rampant unemployment which was occurring in the area at the time. For his services he was proclaimed the "Feeder of Bengal" by Rabindranath Tagore. Interim Government of India Govind Ballabh Pant had created a team of people for Evacuee Property transactions after the Partition of India, Dr. Zakir Husain, Sir Sobha Singh and Raghunandan Saran were all in the team to restore Muslim properties in Delhi and give them to the migrant populations, mainly from Sindh and from West Punjab. They were able to restore most of the properties but the population influx had changed the overall demographics, to such an extent that there were not enough houses for the Sikhs and Hindus who arrived. He was given the position of chairman of the Delhi unit of the Swatantra Party in 1960, taking over from Sardar Bahadur Lal Singh in 1960. The manager (Hans Raj Pasricha) and Sir Sobha Singh did not get along well with each other, as the manager's ideology leaned to leftism, whereas Sir Sobha Singh's to the right. == Business career ==

Sir Sobha Singh's businesses mostly came about after independence, he started working more on charities and business ventures. He was the Deputy President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Calcutta, one of the leading trade associations and advocacy groups. He was also the Director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. Due to his father and his work in cloth, mills and cotton spinning, he was made the Director of Delhi Cloth and General Mills. He was also a Director of Kamani Engineering Corporation Ltd as he represented them during the construction of the Bhakra-Nangal Dam. He was also a director of the Machinery Manufacturers Corporation of the Mahindra Group under Keshub Mahindra. His other business ventures were being chairman of Sterling General Insurance, Bharat Insurance, chairman of Ballarpur Industries, Bharat Carbon And Ribbon Mfg, House Owners’ Association, Delhi & New Delhi, Central Mercantile Assurance Company, New India Industries Corporation, Delhi Safe Deposit and various other businesses. Business in Bhopal He was also Director of the Bank of Bhopal (later nationalized and merged with Bank of India) which was the primary bank in Bhopal established by Nawab Hamiduallah Khan, a close friend of his. Sir Sobha Singh was heavily invested in Bhopal owning many properties. He worked from a bungalow called Aashiana near the Upper Lake, where his son Khushwant Singh wrote the famous story, Train to Pakistan. Nawab invited him to set up industries in Bhopal State, for which he was given a 36-acre at a lease for 99 years, at Rs 1 near the old railway station. He had provided the airline business with the funding that it needed during the time. His business and administrative acumen had allowed for Air India to break through into their 'Golden Age' of service in the late 1950s through the 1970s." Trade Agreements Sobha Singh was the elected chairman of the Punjab Chamber of Commerce in 1939 and was part of the Commonwealth Relations Department and External Affairs Committee, the latter of which was housed at his property of the Scindia House Block in New Delhi. During his tenure the Board of Industrial & Scientific Research was set up. He had concluded the Indo-Japanese Trade Agreement (noted as the first step in Indo-Japanese Relations) suggesting that items like silk goods, hosiery, fents and woolen piece goods should be given at lower prices, along with imports being restricted on lines similar to the quota governing import of cotton piece goods. == Charity Work and Philanthropy ==

Sardar Bahadur Sir Sobha Singh left a large part of his private estate to a charitable trust, the Sobha Singh Charitable Trust, which maintains homes and hospitals for the terminally ill and aged all over the country. He also presided over some institutions funded by it like the Deaf and Dumb School. He also became the head of the Central Public Works Department in Delhi. He donated heavily to the Tuberculosis Association of India and became a member of the Executive Committee of the Association from 1966 to 1972. He worked with the Modern School as well, and was the main contractor along with the President of the Board of Trustees from 1930 to 1977. Since Sir Sobha Singh did not name anything after himself, an award was named after his wife in the school, the Lady Sobha Singh Trust Award and one after his oldest son who worked in the school, the Bhagwant Singh Award. == Death ==

Sir Sobha Singh died at the age of 90 in Delhi on 18 April 1978. His son Khushwant Singh noted that he had died minutes after having his last sip of Scotch whisky. == Personal life and family ==

Sir Sobha Singh used to be very Anglicized, "he never wore Sherwanis or Chooridars, only two-piece suits, excepting the Tehmat he wore before sleeping." He was very hospitable, Sapru, Jayakar, Kunzru, Ayyangar, Devadoss, Nehru and Rajagopalachari all became very close to him and stayed at his grand house 'Vyukunth' in Delhi, "I often saw Mahatma Gandhi strolling in my father’s garden talking to Mr Jinnah" said Khushwant Singh. Sir Sobha Singh also spent lots of time in his Mashobra's 'Sunderban' house, which had apple and cherry trees, a cider press, a snow pit to chill beer, a billiard room, a dance hall with a grand piano and a tennis court, it originally housed the Consul for Mexico. He had four sons and a daughter: • Bhagwant Singh: Was heavily involved in Modern School and took care of his father's ancestral properties. • Daljit Singh: Freedom fighter and MLA from Safdar Jung constituency in 1951. • Khushwant Singh: Famous journalist, writer and politician in the Rajya Sabha. He received the Padma Bhushan (which he gave back in protest after Operation Blue Star), and later the Padma Vibhushan. • Mohinder Kaur: Married to Jaspal Singh Virk of Jandiala Guru. • Brigadier Gurbaksh Singh: Soldier who took part in the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Sir Sobha Singh had no favorites among his four sons, though according to Khushwant Singh he was close to being one, but he had disappointed his father by not having the conventional success he hoped for. He noted that Sir Sobha Singh favored his daughter Mohinder Kaur more, stating that he gave her an "unencumbered estate bigger than the portions he gave his sons." He was a proponent of arts and owned the first theatre in the new city- the Regal Theatre which he originally tried managing himself along with a restaurant named Standard, now Gaylord- he then bought another theatre called Rivvoli. Urban Legends and Sayings He was a part of what was nicknamed the Panj Pyare of Delhi (named after the Panj Pyare, the first 5 Khalsa Sikhs)- S.B. Sir Sobha Singh O.B.E., S.B. Basakha Singh Sandhu, S.B. Narain Singh of Akoi, S.B. Dharam Singh Sethi and Ram Singh Kabli. Famed freedom fighter, farm leader and Kisan leader Acharya N.G. Ranga referred to Sir Sobha Singh as the 'Prince of Contractors' in Parliament, it became a popular term for him. Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar had defended him in Parliament on multiple occasions. "The only man expanding while contracting" was a popular joke at the time about his business. He came to be described as "Adhi Dilli ka Malik" (the owner of half of Delhi) as he virtually owned a half of Lutyens' Delhi, before or during its construction. == Legacy ==

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. Sir Sobha Singh did not name any places after himself, although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated that Windsor Place was to be renamed Sobha Singh Place although it did not happen. Post-independence none of the contractors, architects or engineers of New Delhi were honored and no roundabouts, roads or monuments were named after any of them, Khushwant Singh stated, "it appeared like anti-Sikh communal prejudice." According to Khushwant Singh, Sir Sobha Singh embarked his properties for charity in the form of the Sir Sobha Singh Charitable Trust, under Khushwant Singh and his younger brother Brigadier Gurbaksh Singh. These included the donation of a block to the Pingalwara in Amritsar (founded by Bhagat Puran Singh), assistance to Padma Shri Parveen Talha's Trust in her brother Osama's name in Lucknow, Missionaries of Charity hospital, a block was given to Mrs Chona's Tamanna school for special children, a block in Bapsy Nariman's clinic, the Lahori Gate Polyclinic, a hospital in rural Delhi to cater to the needs of a cluster of villages. Sir Sobha Singh's dream project was to have an accommodation near the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital for families of patients, who usually came from far away places and just hung around the staircase without proper facilities, though he asked the government multiple times to construct the site, they did not accept. It was only on 5 March 2005 (Sir Sobha Singh's birth anniversary) that they managed to build a block of flats (called the Sir Sobha Singh Dharamshala) next to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital to accommodate families of patients. List of Sites Personally Contracted Sites named after him include: • Sir Sobha Singh Block (1979) • Sir Sobha Singh Dharamshala (2005) These do not include private homes, clerks quarters and chummeries, of which innumerable were built. • Kalka-Simla Railroad (1903) • Vijay Chowk (1910) • Kerala State Government Guest House (1911) • Jaipur Column (1911) • Raisina Hill (1912) • Alipur Road (1913) • Khalsa Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills (1918) • Red Cross Buildings (1920) • Modern School, Barakhamba (1920) • Roshanara Club (1922) • Secretariat Building, North Block (1927) • Chelmsford Club (1928) • All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Hall (1928) • Regal Building (1928) • Rashtrapati Bhavan (1929) • Secretariat Building, South Block (1929) • Safdarjung Airport Aerodrome (1929) • Sujan Singh Block A (1930) • India Gate (1931) • Sujan Singh Block B (1932) • Cricket Club of India (1933) • Sujan Singh Block C (1933) • Central Research Institute (1935) • American Express Block (1935) • Baroda House (1936) • All India Radio Broadcasting House (1936) • Scindia House Block (1936) • Bombay High Court, Nagpur Branch (1936) • Nerbudda Valley Factory (1937) • The Union Academy (1939) • Rivoli Cinema (1940) • Aashiana (1940) • St. Columbus School (1941) • Sujan Singh Park (1945) • Ambassador Hotel (1945) • Government Medical College (1947) • Dera Gurudwara (1949) • National Museum (1949) • Dyal Singh College (1952) • Tuberculosis Hospital (1952) • Tilaiya Dam (1953) • Narinder Place (1954) • Konar Dam (1955) • Deaf and Dumb School (1956) • Maithon Dam (1957) • Panchet Dam (1958) • Raghubir Singh Junior Modern School (1961) • Bhakra-Nangal Dam (1963) • Modern School, Vasant Vihar (1975) == References ==