Akali Phula Singh Ji led the Nihangs and was jathedar of the Akal Takht. He commanded the Nihang contingent under Ranjit Singh Ji at Multan in 1818, at Peshawar, and at Naushera in 1823, where he was killed leading a charge across the Landa river.
He is remembered as much for what he did at Amritsar as for what he did in the field. When Ranjit Singh Ji married the dancer Moran, and on another occasion when he was held to have breached the rehat, Akali Phula Singh Ji summoned him to the Akal Takht and pronounced a punishment on him in public, tying him to a tree and ordering a flogging.
The Maharaja presented himself and accepted the sentence. It was remitted after the sangat interceded, and he paid a fine and made an offering.
The episode is the clearest demonstration in Punjab's history that the Akal Takht's authority stood above the state's. It is quoted whenever that authority is in question, which is often.
He fought the Company's people, the Afghans and his own Maharaja, and none of them removed him.
The Nihangs he led were the standing armed order of the Khalsa, fighting as their own body under their own discipline rather than in the regular battalions the French officers were drilling. Ranjit Singh Ji put them where he needed men who would go in first and would not wait to be told twice.
At Naushera the Yusufzai held the high ground and the Sikh line would not go up it. He rode at the position with the Nihangs and it was taken. He was hit more than once on the way up and died on the ground.
Gurdwara Akal Bunga at Naushera is said to mark the cremation, and the Burj Akali Phula Singh stands at Amritsar near the Golden Temple. The Nihang dals keep his memory as their own rather than as the state's, which is a distinction they make deliberately.