Master Tara Singh was born at Haryal in Rawalpindi district in 1885 into a Hindu family and became a Sikh as a student. He taught at Lyallpur, which is where the title Master comes from, and led Sikh politics for forty years.
He was central to the Gurdwara Reform Movement, the Akali Dal and the SGPC. In 1947 he was one of the principal Sikh negotiators, and his position, that the Sikhs could accept neither Pakistan nor an undivided Punjab under a Muslim League government, was one of the factors that made partition of the province rather than of the country the outcome for Punjab.
After 1947 he led the Punjabi Suba campaign. He undertook a fast in 1961 which he broke without achieving the demand, and his standing never recovered. Sant Fateh Singh displaced him.
The Punjabi Suba was granted in 1966, five years after his fast and a year before his death.
He is a difficult figure and he is treated as one in Punjab. He held Sikh politics together for four decades and he is blamed by some for 1947 and by others for the delay in 1966.
He led the Akali Dal for most of three decades, from the gurdwara movement through the negotiations over partition to the Punjabi Suba campaign.
He is remembered for a decision and a demand: the rejection of a separate Sikh state in the 1940s, and the campaign for a Punjabi speaking state that succeeded after he had lost the leadership.
He broke a fast in 1961 without the demand being met and never recovered his position. He had been a schoolteacher, which is where the title came from.