What was the sig­nif­i­cance of this man called Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale? What did he stand for? Why was he dreaded by the In­dian state and why was he feared by the Akali lead­er­ship? In life and in death, how did he in­vig­o­rate a gen­er­a­tion of Sikhs to fo­cus on Sikh is­sues and how he made them em­brace Sikh con­scious­ness, Sikh na­tional iden­tity and for­sake com­mu­nism and drug abuse. British Sikh, ac­tivist-writer Jagdeesh Singh writes that Jar­nail Singh out­shone the weak, com­pro­mis­ing and con­niv­ing minds along­side him in the ranks of the in­creas­ingly stale, half-hearted Akali Dal lead­er­ship and bravely stood up to the In­dian lead­er­ship.

DUR­ING THE EIGHT­IES, IT WAS EV­I­DENT THAT THE AKALI DAL LEAD­ER­SHIP wanted to di­vert, dis­tract and com­pro­mise the de­fined Pan­jaab-Sikh agenda of full, max­i­mum ter­ri­to­r­ial au­ton­omy and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion within a ‘loose In­dian fed­er­a­tion.’ Jar­nail Singh wanted full de­liv­ery of the Anand­pur Sahib Res­o­lu­tion, a com­pre­hen­sive char­ter of Pan­jaabi-Sikh rights and de­mands whilst re­main­ing within a ‘loose In­dian fed­er­a­tion’; giv­ing Pan­jaab and Sikhs full au­ton­omy, free­dom, spe­cific recog­ni­tion in law and semi-in­de­pen­dence.

The fa­mous Anand­pur Sahib da Mata -the Anand­pur Sahib res­o­lu­tion, ini­tially ex­pressed in 1973, was a con­sci­en­tious at­tempt to achieve a bi­lat­eral re­la­tion­ship with the over­bear­ing, cen­tral­is­ing In­dian state based on equal­ity of sta­tus, po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eignty en­shrined and held within Pan­jaab for Pan­jaab. and a shared col­lat­eral re­la­tion­ship be­tween a cen­tral gov­ern­ment with min­imised and re­stricted pow­ers and the re­gional states of the In­dian Union hav­ing max­i­mum au­ton­omy to con­duct and shape their in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal de­vel­op­ment.

The essence of this was full self-de­ter­mi­na­tion to the re­gional na­tions of the In­dian Union, and a mas­sive re­duc­tion in the dis­pro­por­tion­ate dom­i­neer­ing, and su­per­im­pos­ing pow­ers of the ‘cen­tre’ or the ‘Union’ gov­ern­ment. The un­der­ly­ing and over­ly­ing vi­sion of the Anand­pur Sahib Res­o­lu­tion was a com­pre­hen­sive re-struc­tur­ing of the In­dian Union along con­fed­eral (not just fed­eral) lines.

Bhai Jar­nail Singh vig­or­ously cham­pi­oned this char­ter for free­dom and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. He re­peat­edly re­minded his fel­low col­leagues in the ranks of the Akali Dal, SGPC, etcetera, of their solemn pub­lic vow to pur­sue this. He be­lieved in­trin­si­cally in the ethics of this his­toric res­o­lu­tion, which the power-crazed In­dian es­tab­lish­ment de­monised as ‘sep­a­ratist’ and ‘ex­trem­ist’.

Bhai Jar­nail Singh vig­or­ously cham­pi­oned this char­ter for free­dom and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. He re­peat­edly re­minded his fel­low col­leagues in the ranks of the Akali Dal, SGPC, etcetera, of their solemn pub­lic vow to pur­sue this. He be­lieved in­trin­si­cally in the ethics of this his­toric res­o­lu­tion, which the power-crazed In­dian es­tab­lish­ment de­monised as ‘sep­a­ratist’ and ‘ex­trem­ist’.

Hav­ing been de­nied a re­turn of Pan­jaabi sov­er­eign state­hood in the un­de­mo­c­ra­tic 1947 trans­fer of power, and pushed into a forced mar­riage with the over-sized, over­pow­er­ing Hindu ma­jori­tar­ian cen­tral­ist In­dian state; the ag­grieved Sikh lead­er­ship was pre­pared to as­sert for safe­guards and free­doms of a semi-in­de­pen­dent state within a loose po­lit­i­cal frame­work of the In­dian Union.

Ar­guably, this was a com­pro­mised, sec­ond-best op­tion for the Pan­jaabi-Sikh na­tion, left com­pletely adrift, pow­er­less, di­vided, bro­ken and mas­sively dis­placed in the 1947 geno­ci­dal par­ti­tion. Pan­jaab nor any other sub­ju­gated coun­try of South Asia (whether Balochis­tan, Kash­mir, Ben­gal, Sindh or other) was freed back to its own pre-British in­de­pen­dent life. It was be­ing passed from the fry­ing pan into the fire of the next phase of mod­ern im­pe­ri­al­ism, whether on the Pak­istan side of the bor­der or the In­dian side or both. Pan­jaab was by far the great­est af­fected na­tion, from this no­to­ri­ous, un­de­mo­c­ra­tic and geno­ci­dal po­lit­i­cal and ter­ri­to­r­ial carve-up.

Bhai Jar­nail Singh or Sant Jar­nail Singh, as he is pop­u­larly known, openly warned dur­ing his life that, whether In­dira Gandhi wished to keep the Pan­jaabi-Sikhs in In­dia as equals, or if not then she should give us a sep­a­rate state to go our own way. That, we would not re­peat the dire mess of 1947 ren­der­ing the Sikhs com­pletely state­less. He stated that com­plete in­de­pen­dence was not our im­me­di­ate de­mand, but that would be de­pen­dent on how we are be­ing treated by In­dia.

Over 1947- 1984, the prime, ideal op­tion of fully in­de­pen­dent, sov­er­eign state­hood did not ap­pear achiev­able and ten­able, in the cir­cum­stances. Full au­ton­omy rep­re­sented ar­guably a rea­son­able, com­pro­mised and prag­matic po­si­tion to try and achieve a bal­anced and shared power re­la­tion­ship with the In­dian state. The in­trin­sic ideals of self-gov­er­nance, self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and sov­er­eignty over do­mes­tic af­fairs, drove the Anand­pur res­o­lu­tion. It stopped short of full-blown in­de­pen­dence.

Jar­nail Singh brought an au­then­tic, hon­est lead­er­ship to pur­su­ing this. His match­ing spo­ken words and ac­tions re­vealed a per­son who was gen­uine, clear and co­her­ent in what he was seek­ing and pur­su­ing in an eth­i­cal and egal­i­tar­ian way. He was dri­ven by the his­toric ideals of the great Gu­rus and post-Guru-his­tory. His down-to-earth sim­plic­ity and pas­sion epit­o­mised a rare kind of per­son who was ready to stand and fight with de­fi­ant courage. This con­trasted with the Tohras, Badals and Lon­gowals.

He led from his ap­point­ment in 1977 as the suc­ceed­ing head of the much es­teemed and highly vig­or­ous Dam Dami Tak­sal -re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal sem­i­nary, to his ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice in June 1984, joy­fully de­fend­ing and dy­ing along with his com­rades in sa­cred mar­tyr­dom for the sov­er­eign shrine of Sikhi and Pan­jaab – the Dar­baar Sahib. He epit­o­mised both elo­quently and in, ac­tion, in phys­i­cal form and per­sona, the saint-sol­dierly ex­am­ple of Sikh his­tory.

His qual­i­ties of hu­mil­ity, sim­plic­ity, help­ing scores of dis­ad­van­taged and un­justly treated peo­ple who flocked to him for help (in­clud­ing Hin­dus), cou­pled with his coura­geous de­fi­ance against the state and po­lice, and proven readi­ness to stand and fight vig­or­ously to the death.

In June 1984, this fig­ure shone like a bright, shoot­ing star against the many dull, cow­ardly, com­pro­mis­ing mot­ley fig­ures like Harc­hand Singh Lon­gowal, Parkash Singh Badal, Gur­cha­ran Singh Tohra, Bal­want Singh Ramoowalia and more; like a true Pan­jaabi-Sikh hero in the same tra­di­tion of Baba Deep Singh, Bhai Bota Singh, Bhai Garja Singh and Akali Phoola Singh. It would not be wrong to call him the Banda Singh Ba­hadur of 1980-1984.

His name and im­age con­tinue to pul­sate in the soul of the Pan­jaabi-Sikh na­tion. He is an au­then­tic icon of na­tional lib­er­a­tion and em­pow­er­ment. Of a new life that is pos­si­ble, free from the clutches and drudgery and mis­ery of the In­dian state. He epit­o­mised not just free­dom and in­de­pen­dence, but a readi­ness to ques­tion and scru­ti­nise self-as­sum­ing ‘lead­ers’. In true Sikh spirit, he was a peo­ples per­son. A grass-roots cham­pion. A real leader! All the more rea­son for In­dia to de­monise him.

For both the Pan­jaabi-Sikh na­tion and Jar­nail Singh, the de­ci­sive mo­ment came with the In­dian mil­i­tary on­slaught in June 1984. This was an­other Jalian­wala Bagh 1919 but four-fold in in­ten­sity and civil­ian ca­su­al­ties. In­dia had come to crush­ingly de­feat the Pan­jaabi re­sis­tance that had per­se­vered buoy­antly up to that point and was ready to move fur­ther for­ward with a cut­ting off of all grain sup­plies to rest of In­dia from 3rd June 1984 in a fur­ther ma­jor step in the Dharam Yudh ag­i­ta­tion. A fur­ther ma­jor height­ened phase in the move­ment was to open. In­dia had, had enough of the de­fi­ant and re­sis­tant Sikhs! They needed to be put in their place!

Bhai Jar­nail Singh and his fel­low com­rades con­fronted the In­dian army war-like on­slaught like true saint-sol­diers. The rest is his­tory to be read, stud­ied, to in­spire and in­vig­o­rate us fur­ther! Bhin­dran­wale re­mains alive!