Event
Guru Ka Bagh Morcha
From Aug 1922 Akali jathas were beaten without raising a hand; 5,605 Sikhs went to jail before the garden was leased in Nov 1922 and the prisoners freed in Apr 1923.
Who: Akali volunteers, called out by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, against Mahant Sundar Das Udasi and the Punjab police and government that backed the mahants. The Committee's records say 5,605 Sikhs went to jail. The Rev. C. F. Andrews, a friend of Gandhi, and the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Edward Maclagan, also had a part.
What: Guru ka Bagh was a garden attached to a gurdwara near Ajnala, in Amritsar district. Mahant Sundar Das had signed an agreement on 31 January 1921 to serve under an eleven-member Committee, then went back on part of it, claiming the garden as his property. On 9 August 1922 police arrested five Sikhs for trespass over firewood cut for the gurdwara kitchen, and the next day they were given six months' rigorous imprisonment. The Committee sent a daily batch of five to cut firewood, and from 22 August police arrested whole jathas on charges of theft, riot and criminal trespass. On 25 August a lathi-charge was ordered to disperse a large gathering. On 26 August warrants were issued for eight members of the Committee's executive.
Jathas then marched to the garden daily and were beaten. Andrews sent a press report on 12 September 1922 describing "hundreds of Christs being crucified", and recorded that the volunteers had vowed at the Golden Temple to commit not one act of violence. On 13 September Maclagan visited, and on his orders the beatings stopped, although arrests, fines and seizures of property went on.
Where: Guru ka Bagh, near Ajnala, Amritsar district.
Why it mattered: It showed a mass movement keeping to non-violence under blows, and it ended with the mahant's claim sidestepped. On 17 November 1922 Sir Ganga Ram leased 524 kanals and 12 marlas of the garden from Mahant Sundar Das and let the Akalis in. On 27 April 1923 the Punjab Government ordered the Sikh prisoners released, and the morcha ended.
The morcha belongs with the Nankana Sahib massacre of 1921 and the Jaito morcha of 1923 to 1924, the three great struggles that ended in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925.
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Sources
- Guru ka Bagh Morcha (entry by Rajinder Singh), The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
- Akali Movement (entry by Sardar Singh Bhatia), The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
- Guru Ka Bagh Morcha: The Indomitable Spirit of the Akali Sikhs (Surender Pal Singh), Sikh Research Institute. sikhri.org