1984

Prof. Harbans Singh. The Sikh Review, June 1994

June 7, 1984, was the commencement day at Harvard University like what a convocation is at our universities. My son was receiving his Ph.D. degree on that day. As is the custom at Harvard, there was, after the commencement ceremonies, a champagne party laid on for parents, guests, students and faculty which for the likes of us means plain lunch.

Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith, world-famous theologian of Comparative Religion, beckoned us to join him and Mrs Smith at the meal. There could scarcely be a greater privilege for anyone than to be so picked out from among a crowd by a man of his distinction.

As food was being served, a former Harvard colleague came up to me. She whispered into my ears the direst words I was ever to hear. “The Golden Temple has been attacked and Bhindranwale killed.” I was stunned. “India will not be the same after this.” Words to this effect automatically exploded in my brain. “Sikhs could perhaps absorb the shock in their historical memory, but not India.” Professor Smith, like many other intellectuals in the US and Canada, had been keeping his ears close to the ground. The worst they were fearing had happened. I could eat no more, nor could any one else at our table.

In the Punjab the entire countryside was seething with anger. The young Maharaja of Patiala, Amarinder Singh, a rising force in Indian polity, felt most perplexed and sore. He had been playing golf at Naldera, in the Himalayan hills, when he picked the news from a transistor radio hanging from the bicycle of a cowherd. He forthwith wrapped up his kit and drove back to Simla; thence to Patiala. In Patiala he halted at the university gate to share with me the pain of his heart. Learning that I was absent from the campus, he drove on to his palace in the city. He was a sitting member of Parliament and a very influential constituent of the ruling Congress Party. He threw up both his membership of Parliament as well as of the Congress Party. He joined the ever-enlarging mass of remonstrators milling around the precincts of the local Gurdwara, Dukh Nivaran Sahib. Most of them were looking for transport for travel to Amritsar. All vehicular traffic in that direction had been sealed by police.

There was a long queue of Sikhs wanting to throw up in protest all their public honours and awards. The most talked-about was the renouncement by Khushwant Singh, journalist and author, of his Padma Bhushan, Dr Ganda Singh, the historian too gave up his Padma Bhushan, Dr Dhanwant Singh, the famous eye surgeon, surrendered his Padma Shri. The Punjabi editor, Sadhu Singh Hamdard, gave up his Padma Shri, and so on. Dr Harbhajan Singh Deol relinquished his prestigious position as a member of the State Public Service Commission.

The busiest man in Patiala collecting “trophies" to be returned to government was Dr Bhagat Singh, a graduate from Cornell and a former Vice-Chancellor of the Punjabi University.

The Punjabi Suba or Punjabi-speaking state, won by the Akalis after a hard, long-drawn battle, had left many rough edges. Issues such as the allocation of the city of Chandigarh and of some other Punjabi-speaking areas denied to the Punjab by the commission set up by the Government of India to demarcate geographical limits of the new state remained subjects of dispute. The creation of the new state did bring about a change in the power structure in the Punjab.

The Akalis, who had never enjoyed power here before, formed their government after the first elections in the new state. That was in fact the first non-Congress government in the Punjab. The state government formed on March 8, 1967, by the Akali leader, Gurnam Singh, with the support of some willing political partners, fell on November 24, 1967, owing to intra-party intrigue. The successor government with the break-away leader Lachman Singh Gill, as chief minister, had to pay the price of the ramshackle and purely opportunistic outfit it was, surrendering office on August 21, 1968. A spell of President’ s rule was followed by a mid-term poll which led to the return of Gurnam Singh as chief minister of the Punjab. But the seesaw of Akali politics continued and Gurnam Singh had to bow out again on March 27, 1970. This led to the emergence of a younger and more energetic and durable leader as head of the Akali government, Parkash Singh Badal, who came into office on March 27, 1970, and who was emotionally closer to the Punjab peasantry. Yet his regime was not exempt from pressure and intrigue. But the ultimate and lethal challenge to Akali power came from a totally different quarter, the Sant Nirankaris.

The Sant Nirankaris are a recent phenomenon and they have nothing in common with the Nirankari sect of the Sikhs, except for the name. They are not even a schism split from it, although the founder, Buta Singh (1883-1944), was once a member of the Nirankari Durbar at Rawalpindi. Upon being asked to quit the Durbar for a misdemeanour, he raised a group of his own. He was succeeded by Avtar Singh, who after the partition of India, 1947, migrated to Delhi and set up a centre there. Over the years, he recruited a considerable following from among Sikhs, Hindus and others. He was followed by his son, Gurbachan Singh. Gurbachan Singh’ s son, Hardev Singh, is now the leader of the Nirankaris.

These Nirankaris have no affiliation with any of the known religious traditions. In any case, they have nothing in common with Sikh religion and own no connection with it. They welcome to their fold people from all religions. In this way, they form a freemasonry of faiths held together by the person of the leader, who is believed by the faithful to be the incarnation of God. As Gurbachan Singh once proclaimed : “The responsibilities assigned from time to time to prophets like Noah, Rama, Krishna, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, Kabir, Nanak, and Dayal have now been put on shoulders by my predecessor Baba Avtar Singh.” In Nirankari writings, he was claimed to be the Deity, the creator of this entire universe, its sustainer and master.

It is not for anyone to controvert such claims. Least of all for Sikhs, who do not regard truth as the monopoly of any single group or faith. Their history and culture are witness to their liberal outlook. Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621-75), Nanak IX, laid down his life to secure the people the liberty of conscience. His martyrdom was for the protection of the right of everyone to practise his religion unhindered. He protested against the State’ s interference with the individual’ s duty towards his faith. It was a declaration that any attempt to create a unitary, monolithic society must be resisted. It was a reiteration of the Sikh belief in an open and ethical social order and of the Sikh principles of tolerance and acceptance of diversity of faith and practice. This lesson is part of the Sikh experience and teaching and no follower of the faith may contravene it.

The Sikhs would have no quarrel with the Sant Nirankaris about their beliefs or ways of worship, but there are certain aspects of their system which cause abrasion. Although the Sikhs form a small percentage of their following, the Nirankari leaders have always preached their faith through the vocabulary and symbols of Sikhism. But with their native bias, they never cease from attempting to disfigure and distort many of its cherished ideals and institutions. Imitation breeds obliquity. The word Nirankari itself is borrowed from the Sikh chroniclers. The Founder, Guru Nanak, was by them referred to as Nanak Nirankari - believer in God, the Formless. “Nirankari Baba" is the title the Nirankari leader has appropriated unto himself. He retains his Sikh form, as did his predecessors. In imitation of Guru Gobind Singh’ s Panj Piare (the Five Beloved of Sikh history), he has created his Sat Sitare (Seven Stars). The names of venerable Sikh personages from history are assigned to members of the leader’ s family and his followers. Among them : Mata Sulakkhani (Guru Nanak’ s wife), Bibi Nanaki (Guru Nanak’ s sister), and Bhai Buddha and Bhai Gurdas, two primal figures of Sikhism, both regarded highly in Sikh piety. Peculiarly Sikh terms, such as Satguru, Sangat and Sachcha Padshah, the title which the Sikh history came to be used for the Gurus, in contrast with Padshah and Badshah representing secular emperors, have been appropriated by the Nirankaris. Their religious book, a collection of Punjabi verse, incipient and elementary in character, by Avtar Singh, with little literary grace and spiritual content, is designated Avtar Bani in the manner of gurbani, i.e. the Sikh Gurus’ utterance. In Nirankari congregations gurbani is frequently and copiously quoted, but with a deliberate slant. The purpose invariably is disapprobation of the Sikh way of life. Sikh Scriptures are quoted and expounded openly to suit the Nirankari bias. In their monthly journal, Sant Nirankari, articles were published on gurbani and its interpretation. These articles appeared under title such as “Vichar Sri Sachche Patshah" (Thoughts of, or Interpretations by, the True Lord, i.e. the Nirankari leader), and “Gurbani ki Hai" (What really is gurbani?). Meanings contrary to Sikh understanding and tradition were propounded.

One Labh Singh, writing under the title of “Yug Purush", in Sant Nirankari for June 1984, said, “Guru Granth Sahib means the Granth of the Guru.” The implication is that the Guru Granth is not - and cannot - be the Guru, as the Sikhs believe. This is a view openly preached by the Nirankari leader and his followers. This contradicts the Sikhs’ cherished article of faith. Their belief is that, after Guru Gobind Singh, the word enshrined in the Holy Scripture, the Guru Granth, is the Guru for them. It is for them the perpetual authority spiritual as well as historical. they have lived their religion in light of this conviction all these generations. They feel hurt when this belief of theirs is assailed and ridiculed. The Nirankaris might well believe their leader to be God Incarnate, but the Sikhs feel they have no right to attack their time-honoured tenets. It would be unfair and inappropriate for one religious group to interpret the sacred texts of the other from its own viewpoint. Such transgressions will violate the basic postulates of inter-religious living and understanding. The commonly accepted law is that no one has the right to expound the canon or custom of another faith except with the attitude of empathy and reverence. Religious freedom is indivisible. This is the principle by which we live in religiously plural society. Injuring the religious susceptibilities of any section will be an offence again it.

The Sampuran Avtar Bani, published by the Sant Nirankari Colony, New Delhi, 1976 edition, contains versification in the name of Avtar Singh as well as in the names of some of his followers. This is in imitation of the example of the Guru Granth, which, besides the compositions of the Gurus, contains hymns by several of the medieval Indian saints and sufis, collectively known as Bhagat Bani. In the “Sant Bani" section of Avtar Bani, each of the followers relates his personal experiences - how he was grovelling in darkness until he came in touch with the Nirankari leader. Those reared as Sikhs invariably refer to their Sikh past, their birth in Sikh families and their initial adherence to Sikh forms of piety and belief. For instance, Mahadev Singh (pp.195-97) recounts how he was born in a family who had faith in Guru Nanak; who visited the Gurdwaras to offer obeisance; who read and heard Gurbani and had akhand paths (end-to-end, full length and unbroken readings of the Guru Granth) recited; who followed the tenets of the Sikh faith; and who willingly served the Panth. He himself, as he declares, followed the family tradition. He learnt the Rahiras and the Sukhmani (texts from the Guru Granth) and he went to the Gurdwara as a religious duty. He was in love with Gurbani. He carried the Sikh symbols and received the rites of amrit (Sikh initiation) in the Gurdwara. All this, he says, was ignorance and perversion. He was rid of these by Avtar Guru who came into this world to supersede superstition. This is the tone and thrust of most of the contributors to Avtar Bani.

Another contributor, Santokh Singh (pp.198-99), says, “By seva and ardas my mind was not cleansed. Nor could the water of the pool at Amritsar wash the dirt of my heart. I swam in the pool at Tarn Taran, but did not thereby cut across the worldly ocean. I read the Sukhmani (Sikh text, meaning the Psalm of Peace), but had no solace from it. My soul was not pacified. “Seva, self-giving service in the cause of the community, is a virtue prized most in the Sikh system. Ardas, or supplicatory prayer, is an integral part of Sikh devotion. Amritsar and Tarn Taran, holy places of Sikh pilgrimage, hold sanctity for all Sikhs. Disparaging Sikh holy places and Sikh customs in this manner is a grave insult to the Sikhs. To quote Sardar Singh (p. 247), “For thirty-eight years, I churned the water of nitnem. I went to the Gurdwara. I was initiated into Sikh amrit. I became an Akali. I complied with the injunctions of the Sikh faith.... I contributed to the langar.” For Sikhs all these are crucially important symbols and institutions - Gurdwara, Akali, langar or the community kitchen, nitnem, a Sikh’ s daily regimen of religious prayers, and amrit. To speak of them pejoratively and to suggest that by discarding these alone could one realize the Truth amounts to denouncing a whole system. The quotations given are from the authentic religious book of the Nirankaris, and these could be multiplied. To convert their Sikh constituents, the Nirankari leaders belittle Sikh institutions and traditions. With a view to convincing them that no spiritual benefit can accrue without the intervention of a living Guru, they began contradicting Sikh belief in the Guru Granth.

There have been saints and mystics in all ages and climes for whom religious forms and ceremonial had little importance, but reference to and rejection of Sikh symbols and usage are so direct and specific in the primary religious book of the Nirankaris that this could not but cause injury to those who believe in them. Upon the tongues of the Nirankari puppeteers this denunciation becomes much more antagonistic and heinous.

Sikhs have resented the continuing denigration by the Nirankaris of the their faith and of their belief in the Guru Granth as the Person Visible of the Gurus. They have protested against it. This is what they attempted to do - peacefully - at the time of the huge Nirankari congregation in Amritsar on April 13, 1978, coinciding with Baisakhi celebrations by the Sikhs. The Sikh group which went to the site had no violent intent. They were unarmed, except for their religiously sanctioned regalia. They were neither Nihangs nor Akalis, though most of the Sikhs are of Akali persuasion - politically. The bulk of the protesters in fact belonged to Bhai Randhir Singh’ s jatha, whose primary concern is with kirtan or chanting of the holy hymns. Their other colleagues were from the jatha of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who devote themselves exclusively to the study and expounding of the bani of the Guru Granth.

The protesting Sikhs were met with a shower of bullets from the Nirankaris. Thirteen of them were killed, and many more wounded. The congregation, under the aegis of the Nirankari leader, Gurbachan Singh, continued for more than three hours after the gruesome tragedy. No one - none from among the Nirankaris who profess love and human fellowship to be the fundamental value in their creed - had a thought to spare for the dead bodies that lay scattered outside.

The Sikh protest continued, leading to the issuance on 10 June 1978 of a hukamnama from the Akal Takht, their highest seat of religious authority and legislation, forbidding Sikhs to have any social dealings with the Sant Nirankaris. This was an expression of the Sikhs’ will to protect themselves against the encroachments of those who questioned and attacked their fundamental beliefs and their accepted way of life and who in a body had killed several of their brothers-in-faith.

The hukamnama, or edict, issued under the seal of Akal Takht, has the sanction of their religion as well as of their history. Guru Gobind Singh had himself directed his Sikhs in hukamnama (serial No. 53, Hukamname, Ganda Singh, ed.) “not to visit on the occasion of death or marriage the families of masands" (heads of Sikh sangats in different parts who had fallen from their religious duty). Half a century ago, the Panth invoked the authority of the hukamnama to excommunicate Teja Singh, who once a prominent Singh Sabha leader, had started challenging most of the prevalent Sikh usage.

The hukamnama, now issued from the Akal Takht recorded the Sikh community’ s protest against the criticism of its faith by the Nirankaris and reiterated its concern to preserve its religious integrity, forms and traditions. It did not in any manner impinge on the religious or civic rights of the Nirankaris.

First to take note of the Nirankari heresay and denial of the Sikh faith was the Damdami Taksal or Damdama School of Sikh Learning, a religious body engaged in the study and teaching of the Sikh canon. It felt injured by the continuing insidious defilement of the Sikh tradition by the Nirankaris. Clearly to perceive the true nature of the challenge was the Taksal leader, Sant Kartar Singh, who after his premature death in the summer of 1977 in an automobile accident, was succeeded by Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale. Matters became much more abrasive in the time of Sant Jarnail Singh, especially after the massacre of Sikhs in Amritsar on Baisakhi day, April 113, 1978. the tragedy alerted the entire Sikh people to the hazard they had been living with.

Baisakhi is a holy day for Sikhs. It is honoured as the birthday of the Khalsa in Amritsar as it is in other places. They gather in large numbers to commemorate the day. In Amritsar on that festival day in 1978 were assembled thousands of Sikhs. From among them a small group of hymn-singing devotees belonging to the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, the chorus reciting holy gurbani, unadulterated and uninterrupted, was fired upon by a troop of Nirankari volunteers. They were stopped at a distance of about 200 yards from the venue of their mammoth gathering and shot at. Thirteen of them lay dead on the ground. The incident sent a wave of horror and anger across the entire Sikh Panth. It darkened the day for the Sikhs the world over. Parkash Singh Badal, chief minister of the Punjab, rushed back home from Bombay cancelling the Baisakhi celebrations. The Janata-Akali coalition government in Delhi under prime minister Morarji Desai, with Surjit Singh Barnala and Dhanna Singh Gulshan as its Akali constituents, faced a crisis.

One person who felt deeply hurt by this massacre of the innocents was Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He had lived all his life saturated in Sikh piety. Iron had entered the pious soul. This sturdy youth from the Brar land of the Malwa district of the Punjab, then barely across his thirties, was angered beyond assuaging. Yet he kept his anger in control, and never let his ethnic temper get the better of him. He found his peace in laying down his life gallantly, in dying the way he had declared he would die. In course of time, his plain and hard-hitting rhetoric came to be directed both against the Nirankaris and the government. The government for him was the symbol of Hindus and the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, that of the newly established dynastic Brahmanical rule. Indira Gandhi was the main target of his sarcasm. Soon he became the most forceful Sikh figure in the world and his pictures became front-cover display in journals the world over - in France, Germany, the UK, Canada and in the USA.

It has been said, thoughtlessly and simplistically, that Bhindranwale was the creation of the Congress government. Nothing could be more fanciful. As subsequent events revealed, he was much too strong and independent a personality to buy anyone else’ s line. It is true that his name once did come up in a private and secret meeting at which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Home Minister, Giani Zail Singh, Jathedar Santokh Singh of Delhi and Sanjay, Indira Gandhi’ s younger son, were present. On the agenda was the question of how to lay the ghost of the Akalis who had carried on almost single-handed an implacable campaign against the internal Emergency clamped down on the country by Indira Gandhi, and were like a thorn in her flesh. The suggestion came up that Bhindranwale be tried as a foil to their re-emergence. But Giani Zail Singh, the most experienced and skilful of Sikh politicians of the day, scotched it saying how the mighty Partap Singh Kairon and some others had tried, but failed to create a rival power to checkmate the Akalis.

A critical development had been the radicalization of the Sikh establishment itself. The Sikh Educational Conference founded in 1908 on the model of the Muhammadan Educational Conference had been a calm and placid platform. It had strictly confined itself to a programme of educational advancement and social reform among the Sikhs. At its 54th annual session in Chandigarh, March 13-15, 1981, it altered its course significantly. The dramatis personae were venerable men of the establishment, Dr Inderjit Singh, Chairman, Punjab and Singh Bank, Justice Harbans Singh, a retired chief justice of the Punjab High Court, and a wealthy, but steadypaced youth, Dilbir Singh, of Amritsar. A new entrant was Dr Jaswant Singh Neki, a fiery poet in his younger days, who, in later years, had settled down to a distinguished career in medicine and Sikh learning. A special invitee from London was a Sikh jurist, Justice Mota Singh. Presidents of the conference till then had been Sikh dignitaries, noblemen and personages in Sikh piety and education such as Bhai Jodh Singh, Sant Atar Singh, Sundar Singh Majithia, Sir Jogendra Singh and the Maharaja of Patiala. For the 54th session in 1981 the choice lay between Phulel Singh, a Sikh businessman of Canada, and Ganga Singh Dhillon, originally from Sheikhupura district of the Punjab, who had migrated to the USA in the wake of the partition of the Punjab. The latter, more flamboyant of the two eventually was chosen for the honour. In India, Ganga Singh had enjoyed the patronage of the Akali leader, Giani Kartar Singh, and trained in the game of politics in his school. Ganga Singh Dhillon was a non-educationist, yet he filled the bill as president colourfully. He dramatized the conference proceedings by putting down in one of his speeches the words “the Sikhs are a nation.” At the instance of its president, the conference demanded a sovereign state for the Sikhs and authorized the Chief Khalsa Diwan which had always pleaded a softer policy and under whose aegis the conference was meeting, to seek from the United Nations, associate membership of the non-political lobby. Dilbir Singh moved a resolution urging the conference to work for the promotion of Sikhism as advocated by Ganda Singh in his presidential address. The five proposals made in this behalf were the setting up of an international Sikh education board and an international Sikh secretariat, amending the constitutions of the universities in the Punjab to include the teaching of the lives of the Gurus in their curricula, proper maintenance of the Gurdwaras in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and adoption of measures calculated to safeguard the interests of Sikhs the world over.

For raising the slogan that Sikhs were a nation, Ganga Singh Dhillon became persona non grata with the Indian leaders. Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister, Giani Zail Singh, the Home Minister and Darbara Singh, Chief Minister of the Punjab, declined his requests for personal interviews. But the notion that Sikhs were a nation he had sponsored thrived. On March 29, 1981, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee adopted a motion to the effect that the Sikhs are a nation. When the President Gurcharan Singh Tohra, was taxed with the question that the Shiromani Committee was turning political, he quipped, “On October 10, 1946, Ishar Singh Mahjail had moved in the house a resolution for the creation of a Sikh State. The resolution was seconded by Sardar Swaran Singh.”

The dictum that the Sikhs are a nation was avidly embraced by the Sikh youth. In addition to the vocabulary of extremism, Sikhs were seizing upon its strategies as well. A small group of Sikh youth formed in 1979 gave itself the name of Dal Khalsa borrowing the terminology from the eighteenth-century history of the Sikhs. It espoused Khalistan, a sovereign Sikh state, to be established for the Sikhs. The initiative came in the main from a non-Jatt group, though the movement as it took off the ground passed into the control of the Sikh Jatt youth. On September 29, 1981, an Indian Airlines Jetliner (Boeing 737) flying to Lahore with 117 persons aboard was hijacked by the Dal Khalsa youth. the hijackers demanded the release of Sant Bhindranwale, then in judicial custody following the murder of Jagat Narain, a Hindu newspaper proprietor of Jalandhar. The Dal Khalsa also demanded from the Government of India release of all persons detained in connection with the Khalistan movement. Harsimran Singh, a member of the Supreme Panchayat of the Dal demanded that the families of those killed in Mehta Chowk, the seat of the Damdami Taksal, at the time of arrest of Bhindranwale should be paid rupees one lakh each. Addressing a press conference in Guru Nanak Nivas in the Golden Temple complex, Harsimran Singh demanded that a sum of money equivalent to 500,000 dollars be paid towards the funds for the Khalistan movement. The hijackers, he declared, would seek political asylum in Pakistan. The hijackers identified were Gajinder Singh, Satnam Singh of Paonta Sahib, Jasbir Singh of Ropar, Tejinderpal Singh of Jalandhar and Karam Singh of Jammu. Gajinder Singh, born in 1954, into a migrant family of Haripur Hazara, North-West Frontier Province, was brought to Chandigarh in 1959, where as he grew up, he joined the Guru Gobind Singh College. The hijackers were arrested in Lahore in a daring commando action by Pakistan.

Gajinder Singh had set up a Sikh youth association and then a literary society. The Dal Khalsa members, about 200 in number, had taken out a procession at Anandpur Sahib during Hola Mohalla festival, March 19, 1981, in support of Khalistan carrying a map of proposed Sikh state on placards. Dr. Sohan Singh, formerly director, Health services, Punjab and Karnail Singh, who had retired as a joint director, Animal Husbandry Department, were held by police. Dr Sohan Singh formed Senior Sikh Sophisticates Forum to strengthen the Khalistan movement. Sohan Singh and Karnail Singh were president and general secretary, respectively, of the Forum. They sponsored seminars in Chandigarh. Kapur Singh, formerly of the Indian Civil Service, was the principal philosopher and guide of the group. Certain serving officials of the Punjab Government participated in the academic discussions and many more were in secret sympathy with it.

Harsimran Singh was an employee of the School of Punjabi Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh, under Professor V.N. Tewari, who was the chairman of the Department. At a meeting of the University Senate, Dr Tewari said that he had no complaint against Harsimran Singh as far as his official work was concerned. But Harsimran Singh was not allowed to continue and his services were terminated.

Another protest strategy to come into effect was that of blockade. At a meeting of the working committee of the Akali Dal on March 12, 1983, it was decided to block traffic for a day on the main roads of the state and set up meetings in constituencies held by Congress legislators.

On April 4, 1983, the road traffic was paralysed in most parts of the Punjab. Agitators set up human road blocks by squatting on the highways and other roads. At a number of places the agitators had brought out trucks, tractors and bullock carts to obstruct traffic.

The blockade of roads was followed by a programme of rail roko a call to stop the trains. This was executed with equal zeal and thoroughness. Akali volunteers made human walls by sitting dharna across the tracks. Additionally, they rolled down logs of wood and sunk steel pikes into the earth to bring to a standstill all locomotion. The number of agitators counted at various points ranged from twenty to two thousand. Those sitting dharna had set up marquees and sang gurbani and repeated vociferously Sikh religious and political slogans. The Government cancelled a large number of trains. Dal Khalsa workers raised pro-Khalistan slogans. Postal services were seriously hampered. Mailbags sat unattended and unclaimed.

Jagat Narain, a politician and newspaper man of Jalandhar, who had flourished on his flagrant writings against the Akalis was shot on September 9, 1981, by three persons riding a motorbike between Ludhiana and Jalandhar. He was a supporter of Nirankaris. Without any evidence the assailants were identified with Bhindranwale’ s group. There was pressure for his arrest as there was at the time of the killing of the Nirankari leader, Gurbachan Singh.

On April 24, 1980, the Nirankari chief had been shot dead in the Nirankari headquarters. He was alighting from his car. A hand-grenade was hurled upon him from the first floor of the house. But it did not explode. Before anyone could guess what was happening, the air thickened with the smoke from automatic fire. A bullet hit the Nirankari leader’ s left armpit. He ran towards his house, but fell down dead.

After Jagat Narain’ s murder government authority began to work with unusual alacrity and it became obvious that it was preparing to getting into its net some important personage. Pressure began to be mounted for the arrest of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The harassment of Bhindranwale which followed led to violent clashes between police and the students at the Khalsa College at Amritsar. Bhindranwale announced on September 16, 1981, that he would offer himself for arrest at Chowk Mehta at 1.00 p.m. on September 20. Bhai Amrik Singh of the Sikh Students Federation made a public statement that police wanted to liquidate Sant Bhindranwale. They had already given evidence of their hostility towards him by openly burning his buses carrying their religious literature, including the katha or exposition of the Holy Writ by the taksal leader, Baba Gurbachan Singh.

Before surrendering himself to police, Bhindranwale addressed the gathering near Gurdwara Gurdarshan Parkash, Mehta Chowk, with police, the Border Security Force and Punjab Armed Police standing guard. Bhindranwale turned out in a saffron turban and a black gown. Other Sikh leaders such as Gurcharan Singh Tauhra and Harchand Singh Longowal were present. Longowal made the announcement that Akali Dal would launch a civil disobedience movement if Bhindranwale was not released unconditionally.

Bhindranwale made an issue of the unusual haste displayed by government in making unwarranted arrests in this case. He sharply laid on it the point that there were two different laws in the country - one for the Hindus and other for Sikhs. There had been crimes against Sikhs, but the government rarely exhibited such swiftness in investigating them. In his case, added Bhindranwale, no proper enquiry had been made. He had been held merely on a complaint by the Hindu leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

On October 14, 1981, Giani Zail Singh, then Home Minister in Government of India, told Parliament that there was no evidence about Bhindranwale’ s involvement in the murder of Jagat Narain. The following day Bhindranwale was freed from custody.

After passing through a period of intense factionalism, the Shiromani Akali Dal, Sikhs’ mainstream political pulpit demonstrated its mass strength in the morcha or agitation launched on June 25, 1975, against the internal emergency clamped upon the country by Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. This was a most potent and sustained protest in the nation against the sudden annulment by government of all democratic rights and liberties. The Akalis won wide admiration for their solidarity and for their powers of mobilization and stamina. The moment threw up from among them a calm and determined leader in the person of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal. For more than two years, he ran the civil resistance campaign with the knack of a born leader and won universal applause for his qualities of tact and resolution.

On August 20, 1980, Sant Harchand Singh was elected president of the Shiromani Akali Dal at the age of 48. Gently spoken and mild-mannered, he was assisted by a well-informed and sharp-witted writer and political commentator, of exactly his own age, Rajinder Singh, Editor of the Quami Ekta, whom he had chosen to be his team-mate as one of the general secretaries of the party. The first task for the party was to fix its political goal from among the several current voices. To this end, a secret meeting of the Akali Dal was held at a remote Sikh pilgrim centre, Guru-ka-Lahore, in the Shivalik hills, on June 8, 1981. Those who took part in this conclave were Gurcharan Singh Tauhra, Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhjinder Singh, Atma Singh, Jiwan Singh Umranangal and Rajinder Singh. There was a strong opinion expressed at the meeting in favour of Khalistan, i.e. an independent sovereign state for the Sikhs. After a protracted and exciting debate a common meeting ground was struck to adjust the differing viewpoints. A Dharam Yudh Morcha or struggle for enforcing the religious rights of the Sikhs became henceforth the Sikh political motto.

Sant Harchand Singh served an ultimatum on the Union Government that if demands of the Sikhs were not accepted by August 31, 1981, they would float an all-out morcha or agitation. He made this announcement from the pulpit of the religious convention then in progress at the Manji Sahib in Amritsar. He added that the Sikh protest would be signalled by a mass demonstration in Delhi.