Sardar Bahadur Sir Sobha Singh, OBE (1890-1978) was a civil contractor and a prominent builder of Lutyens' Delhi and real estate owner of Delhi[1].
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Sobha Singh was born in 1890, in the village of Hadali in Khushab, Shahpur District - then part of British India (now Pakistan). He was the elder of the two sons of Sujan Singh and Lakshmi Devi, the younger one being Sardar Ujjal Singh[2], who was a Member of Parliament in India from the state of Punjab.{{cn}]
After a few years at school in Amritsar, he joined his father's business of civil construction dealing in the laying of railway tracks and the digging of tunnels.
When Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, announced the plan to move the British capital to Delhi was along with the Coronation Durbar for King George V and the Queen Mary, would take place in Delhi in December 1911, Sujan Singh and 22-year old Sobha Singh, who was then a contractor working on the Kalka-Shimla railroad, shifted base to Delhi as building contractors. Building contracts then being given out. Sujan Singh-Sobha Singh were accepted as senior-grade contractors. Plans for the new city were drawn immediately after the Coronation Durbar.
The Foundation stones had been laid by the King and Queen. After this the architects, Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker wanted to change the site from where the foundation stones had been laid to Raisina hill and the village of Malcha. Sobha Singh had the foundation stones removed during the night and then take them 11 km across the city and replant them on the new site. The construction of the plans were taken up after World War I (1916-18).
For the South Block and War Memorial Arch ( now India Gate), Sobha Singh was the sole builder. He also worked on some parts of the Viceregal House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) and Vijay Chowk.
Sobha Singh bought as much land in Delhi as he could. He bought several extensive sites at as little as Rs 2 per square yard, freehold. There were few other takers, and he came to be described as adhi dilli da malik (the owner of half of Delhi)[3]. He constructed many residential and commercial buildings, including the Connaught Place market complex[4], as well as the Chelmsford, 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.
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[5]. Appointed an OBE in 1938,[6] he was knighted by the government and appointed a member of the Council of States. 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.[7]
Sobha Singh identified and testified against notable freedom fighter Bhagat Singh in Lahore. Bhagat Singh was subsequently hanged to death and is known as Sheed-E-Azam Bhagat Singh. It is alleged that Sobha Singh received the kinghthood due to this act of loyalty. His son Khushwant Singh accepted that his father gave testimony against Bhagat Singh as the court proceedings are available in records, but denies that it lead to Bhagat Singh's death sentence.[8]
Sobha Singh left a large part of his private estate to a charitable trust, The Sobha Singh Trust, which maintains homes and hospices 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[9]
He also presided over some of the 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.
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[10].
The younger brother of Sobha Singh, Sardar Ujjal Singh (1895-1983), later became a parliamentarian, and Governor of Tamil Nadu (1966-71)[2][11].
Sobha Singh was married to Lady Sardarni Vira Bai (Lady Varyam Kaur). They had four sons and a daughter. Bhagwant Singh, Khushwant Singh (journalist, and author), Major Gurbakash Singh and Daljit Singh were four sons and a daughter, Mohinder Kaur, who was the mother-in-law of Rukhsana Sultana and grand-mother of Indian film actress, Amrita Singh .
Sobha Singh died in Delhi on 18 April 1978.