Keys Morcha (Morcha Chabian) over the Golden Temple keys

Who: The SGPC and the Akali leaders, among them Baba Kharak Singh, Sardar Bahadur Mehtab Singh, Master Sundar Singh Lyallpuri and Master Tara Singh. On the other side, the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar and the Punjab government.

What: The Golden Temple had a government-nominated manager (sarbrah) from 1849. Akali reformers took the temple over in October 1920, but the old sarbrah, Sundar Singh Ramgarhia, still held the keys of the toshakhana, the temple treasury. The reformers saw that as a leftover of official control. On 20 October 1921 the SGPC resolved to ask him to hand the keys to its president. The Deputy Commissioner moved first: on 7 November 1921 Amar Nath, an extra assistant commissioner, raided Sundar Singh's house with police and took the keys.

On 11 November the government named Captain Bahadur Singh as the new sarbrah, but the SGPC refused to recognise him. Baba Kharak Singh addressed a protest meeting in Amritsar on 12 November. On 26 November two Sikhs were arrested at a divan at Ajnala, and over 50 SGPC members went there to carry it on. The district authorities declared it an illegal assembly and arrested leaders including Baba Kharak Singh, Mehtab Singh and Sundar Singh Lyallpuri. Master Tara Singh was among those arrested later.

On 3 January 1922 the government announced it would return the keys. The SGPC refused to take them until all detained Sikhs were freed without conditions. On 11 January the Home Member, Sir John Maynard, announced the release of all Sikhs in detention. The Akalis still would not collect the keys from the Deputy Commissioner, so an official brought them, wrapped in red silk, to Baba Kharak Singh at a divan at Sri Akal Takht Sahib on 19 January 1922. Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have wired that the first decisive battle for India's freedom had been won.

Where: Amritsar, at Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib, and Ajnala, where the arrests were made.

Why it mattered: The government gave way. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says it acted because of growing Sikh protest and worry over its effect on Sikh soldiers and peasants. The SGPC had insisted that every detained Sikh be freed before it would take the keys, and the government conceded that too. The Guru ka Bagh Morcha began seven months later.