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In its 1961 Constitution, the Shiromani Akali Dal stated its objective as ‘work[ing] for the protection of Sikh rights and ensuring the Sikhs’ continued existence as an independent entity’1—in other words, Sikh sovereignty, regardless of the conceptual idiom through which it may be articulated. Led by Master Tara Singh, and then Sant Fateh Singh, the SAD sought to fulfill this objective within the framework of India’s electoral machinery.
To this end, the SAD made use of three strategies: constitutional mechanisms, infiltration, and agitation. Within the ambit of the Indian Constitution, the SAD could field candidates for the state legislature, petitioning the government and airing its grievances publicly. Further, by ‘join[ing] the Congress’s ‘one-party dominance’ system,’2 the SAD could hope to apply pressure on the state, where power was held. The Akalis consequently joined the Congress Party as part of the state government in 1948 and 1956. Strategic infiltration of the Congress was actively encouraged post-Independence by Master Tara Singh, and surreptitiously by Punjab’s Congress chief minister, Partap Singh Kairon (Notably, in 1949, the Punjab’s Congress leadership was more amenable to the proposal that Punjabi in the Gurmukhi script be recognized as Punjab’s official language).
Finally, from time to time, the SAD resorted to the agitational tactics of morchas, non-violent but confrontational demonstrations, to force the state’s hand; over the course of the Punjabi Suba movement, and later the Dharam Yuddh morcha, the Akalis developed a distinctly Sikh semantics of protest, centered around the Akal Takht. We may turn towards the post-Singh Sabha political landscape and find a similar scenario, wherein Sikh politicking proceeded within and without colonial structures of governance. Indeed, the Akali Dal and the SGPC were born from agitation. All this indicates classic Akali realpolitik did not disdain participation within the Indian state machinery, nor feared confronting it, as long as this ensured the Sikhs a measure of sovereign governance over their own affairs.
As such, Sikh sovereignty may be conceptualized in fluid, tactical, negotiated terms, slipping in and out of statist and non-statist zones, engagements primarily driven by self-interest. In 1960, in his defense of the Punjabi Suba movement, the SAD’s Gurnam Singh articulated the Sikh position: there was no division between the religious and the secular, the political and the spiritual, nor between the Panth as a whole and its citizens. The Panth, as a cohesive, collective entity, could not be atomized into individual citizens within a liberal state, but rather required an autonomous space of its own: a distinct state within the state. In other words, a homeland (albeit well within the Indian state’s theoretical framework).
Regardless of the harsh invective and wildly contradicting strategies that have plagued various competing factions across Panthic history, what remains common is the end-goal: securing a political space where the Sikhs may meaningfully govern in accordance with their own way of life. The classic strategic trifecta of constitutional means, infiltration and agitation remains the abiding framework within which we can gauge and analyze Sikh political action over the past seven decades.
Contrary to popular romantic perceptions of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a simple rustic preacher only reluctantly forced into politics, the Sant was in fact a most savvy political actor, capable of shrewdly navigating and playing off the interpenetrating contests of power that defined Punjab during the late seventies and early eighties: the Akalis and the Congress, Zail Singh and Darbara Singh, competition within the Akali Dal, etc.
As Home Minister, Zail Singh, keen to crush Darbara Singh, intervened and thwarted Bhindranwale’s arrest on more than a few occasions. In 1981, Bhindranwale was briefly jailed in Ferozepur. Santokh Singh, the president of the Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee, reportedly made it clear to the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that Bhindranwale enjoyed widespread support among the Committee’s members, and she could not expect to retain their loyalty if he was not freed.3 In the attendance of the memorial ceremonies that followed Santokh Singh’s murder were Zail Singh, Rajiv Gandhi and Sant Bhindranwale. During SGPC bye-elections in 1978 and 1979, the Congress sought to undermine the Akali Dal by extending support to Bhindranwale’s candidates; during the 1979 parliamentary elections, in turn, Bhindranwale supported the Congress’s RL Bhatia from Amritsar.
Through the All India Sikh Students’ Federation, helmed by Amrik Singh, and his own devout band of followers (constituted largely by Sikh youth), Bhindranwale had access to organizational muscle. It was also alleged that he ‘had planted his own people in government offices, in the police and in the intelligence agencies.’ In 1982, Sant Harchand Singh Longowal secured Bhindranwale’s support for the Dharam Yudh morcha against the Center. Employing the classic semantic vocabulary of Sikh agitation (voluntary arrests, full-blooded demonstrations, the jugalbandi of political sloganeering and battle-cries, all cast in Sikh symbolism, and centered around the Akal Takhat), the morcha quickly gained momentum. Its success further amplified the Sant’s political stature, and cemented his mastery of the classic trifecta: elections, infiltration and agitation.
Behind the kabuki of mainstream political discourses, many games were played, rivalries and factions exploited, opportunities wrested and relinquished. Between the Congress, eager to undercut the Akalis in Punjab, and the Akalis, who were desperate to redeem their religious credentials, Sant Bhindranwale represented a wild card. The long and short of it is that these various political entities thought it prudent to cultivate and use the Sant’s steadily increasing clout to their own ends.
It is within this tangle of intrigues, motivations and conflicts that we must frame Sant Bhindranwale’s rapid ascent to the upper echelons of Punjab’s political order. Though he himself never participated in the electoral process, Bhindranwale lent pragmatic support to candidates as suited his political exigencies; for a long time, his politicking between the Congress and the Akali Dal occurred largely within the horizon of Punjab’s political landscape, indulged by parties eager to partake in his power. Combined with the scores of loyal Sikh men ready to act at his beck and call, the Sant had effectively cultivated an informal parallel network of governance, operating in Deleuzean smooth space— unstructured, haptic, contingent— seemingly answerable to no authority save God himself.
This brings us to Amritpal Singh, a prominent Sikh activist currently imprisoned in Dibrugarh, Assam. Arrested in April 2023 following a nationwide manhunt, he is standing to be elected as Member of Parliament from Khadoor Sahib. Two years ago, his fiery, confrontational rhetoric brought him to national attention; the mainstream media was quick to evoke the specter of Bhindranwale, highlighting his frank admissions regarding the Sikhs’ demand for self-rule. In February 2023, Amritpal Singh’s supporters clashed with security forces and stormed a police station in Ajnala. This, combined with tenuous links to a Shiv Sena leader’s murder, gave the state enough cause to detain him under the National Security Act.
His arrest was greeted with statements expressing outrage and indignation from the Akal Takht Jathedar, the Akali Dal, as well as British and Canadian Sikh leaders. The Sikh mainstream perceived this detainment as persecution of Sikh advocacy, and indeed, the Sikh way of life. Certainly, Amritpal Singh continues to exercise an intense influence upon many sections of Punjab’s Sikh society—symptomatic of the Sikhs’ frustrations with Delhi, as it is of the vacuum that continues to gestate in the heart of Sikh political and social life.
On April 27, 2024, Amritpal Singh was visited by his legal counsel, ex-MP Rajdev Singh Khalsa (himself a self-avowed acolyte of Joginder Singh, Bhindranwale’s father). After the visit, Rajdev Singh announced Amritpal Singh’s decision to run for office. This decision has drawn sharp criticism from various political factions in Punjab, ranging from accusations of being a ‘deep state asset,’ of being exploited by vested Sikh interests, his supporters denounced as turncoats and thugs. On the other hand, Simranjit Mann’s Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) has withdrawn its own candidate for Khadoor Sahib, and assured its support to Amritpal Singh’s campaign. His campaign, led by his father, focuses on social upliftment—combatting drug abuse, outmigration, justice in sacrilege cases, the release of Bandi Singhs— and has drawn popular support in the constituency. While Indian media continues to assess him in terms of his advocacy for Khalistan, many of Punjab’s masses defend him as a particularly effective and charismatic social reformer.
Rajdev Singh’s case is a curious one. He is part of the old Akali guard: it was Sant Fateh Singh himself who appointed a young Rajdev Singh head of the Sikh Student Federation’s Punjab Division, a position he held from 1968 to 1970; in 1989, fighting as a United Akali Dal candidate alongside Simranjit Mann, he was elected Sangrur’s MP. He has made no bones about his contacts with the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, stating categorically that he had laid three conditions for joining the organization: Sikhism’s sovereign and distinct identity must be acknowledged; Sant Bhindranwale, Satwant Singh, Beant Singh, and other modern Sikh martyrs should be nationally hailed as heroes; provisions must be made to grant Punjab a special status similar to Article 370, within the Indian Constitution’s framework. However, he broke all ties in 2015, following numerous incidents of beadbi in Punjab: the organization had chosen to back the reigning Badal dispensation, which Rajdev Singh considered culpable.
He also had brief flirtations with the Aam Admi Party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali), and the Bhartiya Janta Party. His support for the AAP’s HS Phoolka was motivated by the hope that Phoolka, as Chief Minister, would have the power to address Sikh issues— the 1984 genocide, Punjab’s status— through the state’s machinery. It is clear that a pragmatic, almost mercenary sense of mutual benefit drives Rajdev Singh’s politics—he is willing to join hands with anyone who is willing to bring Sikh issues to the forefront and resolve them, no matter the ideological tint that colors their point of view.
Another thing he is adamant about is functioning within the Indian electoral framework. Regarding criticisms levels against Amritpal Singh’s decision to contest an election within the framework of the Indian Constitution, Rajdev Singh responded by decrying the ultimate failure of armed struggle; the only success, he reasoned, has been achieved by securing power through elections. When asked how the Sikhs may benefit were they to secure, say, an absolute majority in Punjab under a united leadership, he confidently replied that such a state would be very well capable of exerting pressure on the Center.4 Rajdev Singh’s views echo those of Simranjit Mann, who confided in Mark Juergensmeyer his misgivings about the implosion of the Sikhs’ armed struggle, and how the electoral path allowed for a more constructive, even if constricted, path forward. Mann insisted that contesting elections was a ‘strategic move,’ rather than one informed by any principled stand or moral scruples.5
We may also juxtapose these statements with those of Harminder Singh Sandhu, and Gurbachan Singh Manochahal, who had both advocated for a two-pronged approach that utilized both parliamentarian and insurgent methods6 (Sandhu also planned to put in place Khalsa panchayats across Punjab, which would function as parallel judiciaries capable of resolving domestic and rural cases). Again, we circle back to the classic Akali model of constitutional means, infiltration, and agitation, all encompassed within a Sikh realpolitik that can pragmatically function both within any constitutional framework, and outside it, as the Khalsa wishes.
While it was the Congress that helmed post-independence India’s one-party dominance, it is the Bhartiya Janata Party that holds that position today. In terms of constitutional alliances, the Akali Dal has historically maintained cordial relations with the moderate wing of the Hindu right; it was part of the NDA from 1998 to 2020, during which period the Badal regime managed to bring infrastructural and financial stability to post-insurgency Punjab. The two parties only parted ways during the farmers’ protests. Although the presence of prominent Sikh faces like Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, and Captain Amrinder Singh does not endear the BJP to Punjab’s Sikhs, who view the BJP’s Hindutva ideology with considerable distrust, it does provide a potential faction within the ruling party that can influence and pivot decisions on Sikh issues.
Rajdev Singh’s political odyssey is a more conspicuous manifestation of this same strategy: to tactically forge alliances and collaborations that may help the Sikhs in their quest for a measure of autonomous, righteous self-rule. The Akalis’ post-Independence politics of infiltration, as well as Simranjit Mann’s views on elections as a ‘strategic move’ meant to create space for autonomous rule through legislative power, remain relevant points of reference. To that end, Rajdev Singh’s tireless counsel to Amritpal Singh, and the alacrity with which he announced his candidacy, suggests that Rajdev Singh considers this campaign to be a viable vehicle to bring a first bloom to these ambitions— by hook or by crook, even at the risk of confirming the Panth’s suspicions (to this day, Master Tara Singh draws criticism for his association with the Hindu Mahasabha, and other entities of the Hindu right). We may thus attempt to contextualize allegations of ‘deep state’ complicity levelled against Amritpal Singh by taking recourse to the Akali Dal's post-independence ‘infiltration’ policy. Although this does not necessarily bring us any closer to a consensus that condones or condemns the strategy, it certainly contextualizes the electoral gambit within modern Panthic history.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) (1961) Constitution of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Amritsar: SGPC Publications.
Singh, Gurharpal, and Giorgio Shani. Sikh Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Print. New Approaches to Asian History.
Tully, Mark and Jacob, Satish. Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle. Rupa, 1985.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press, 2000.
Although opposed to the Indian state, Manochahal was in favor of participating in the 1992 Punjab Legislative Assembly, arguing that wresting legislative power would provide the Sikh leadership with immense latitude politically.