Shastri and Sant Fateh Singh talks on Punjabi Suba, August 1965

Who: Sant Fateh Singh, with Uttam Singh Duggal, Lachhman Singh Gill and Arjan Singh Budhiraja, whose record of the talks Gurmit Singh reprints; Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri; Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda; and, at the second meeting, Punjab's Chief Minister Ram Kishan.

What: The Sant met Shastri at his residence on the evening of 7 August 1965 and again on 8 August. He argued that the demand was purely linguistic and constitutional. He said that in 1955 twelve thousand Sikhs had gone to jail and in 1960 more than 57,000 men and women, with about two dozen shot by the police, and he repeated what he said he had been told about the Delhi procession of 12 June 1960.

He then listed what he called threats to the Sikh religion: copies of the Guru Granth Sahib burned or torn at Budh More, Jamalpur and other places, cigarettes thrown into the sarovar at Sri Harmandir Sahib, and remarks about beards and the kirpan by Dr Sushila Nayar and Vinoba Bhave. He contrasted the Government's haste over the stolen hair of the Prophet in Kashmir, when Shastri was sent at once. Nanda said he would take up the sacrilege cases and dictated a note. The Sant added grievances over martyrs' memorials, the film Haqiqat, the Terai Sikhs, passports for pilgrims to Pakistan, the Akali election symbol and the Paonta Sahib firing.

The Government's answer, as Gurmit Singh's record gives it, was that Punjabi Suba would cause an upheaval because a big majority would oppose it and the country was passing through a critical period. Nanda said the demand was constitutionally justified but could not be met in the emergency. Shastri asked the Sant to postpone it and promised that the Regional Formula would be enforced fully, which the Sant called eyewash. Nanda and Shastri also said they distrusted Master Tara Singh's word and could crush any trouble he made; the Sant replied that they could crush him as easily. At the second meeting a three-page note answering his complaints was read out; the Sant said it contained nothing substantial and left.

Where: New Delhi, at the Prime Minister's residence.

Why it mattered: The talks closed with no agreement. Gurmit Singh says the Sant's Working Committee rejected the Government's note on 14 August, resolving that the Government of India did not trust the Punjabis in general and the Sikhs in particular. On 16 August the Sant announced from the Akal Takht that he would fast from 10 September, and burn himself on 25 September if the demand was not met (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism). After the Pakistani attack of 1 September, Sikh and government leaders asked him to put the fast off, and he did so on 9 September. A cabinet committee and a Parliamentary committee under Speaker Hukam Singh took up the question in the weeks after the war.