Master and Sant Akali Dals reunite

Who: The Akali Dal (Sant), led by Sant Fateh Singh, and the Akali Dal (Master), which had followed Master Tara Singh until his death on 22 November 1967; and Sirdar Kapur Singh, who became Senior Vice-President of the joint party.

What: The two Dals had split in 1962. Gurmit Singh writes that after Master Tara Singh's death there was no longer a clash of personalities, and that Lachhman Singh Gill's Congress-backed ministry had harassed Sant Fateh Singh and his associates, which led the Sant to conclude that Sikhs must have some political autonomy. Grewal writes that the fall of two Akali ministries in under nineteen months obliged the Akali leaders to review their position.

On 28 September 1968 the sixteenth All-India Akali Conference met at Batala. Sant Fateh Singh accused the Centre of interfering in the affairs of the states and demanded constitutional safeguards against it. The Akali Dal (Sant) and the Akali Dal (Master) announced their merger and agreed that all decision-making powers should vest in the Khalsa. The agreement was signed on 8 October 1968, according to Gurmit Singh and Grewal. Grewal says Kapur Singh's ideas were reflected in it, and AllAboutSikhs says he drafted it.

As Grewal summarises it, the agreement said the Panth's political objective was well grounded in the commandments of Guru Gobind Singh, that the Khalsa were “a sovereign people by birth-right”, and that the Shiromani Akali Dal's goal was an autonomous status in a well-demarcated territory within free India. It demanded that the Constitution of India be on a correct federal basis, with greater autonomy for the states, because the Congress in power had abused it against non-Congress governments. Gurmit Singh quotes the Panth's formula in it as “All decision-making powers to the Khalsa”.

In the mid-term poll of February 1969 the reunited party, allied with the Jana Sangh and the Swatantra Party, won 43 seats, and an Akali-Jana Sangh coalition government under Gurnam Singh was installed on 17 February 1969. The reunion broke in March 1970, when Sant Fateh Singh and Gurnam Singh fell out, and Parkash Singh Badal became Chief Minister on 27 March.

Where: Batala, where the sixteenth All-India Akali Conference met. The sources opened do not say where the agreement was signed.

Why it mattered: It put in writing a political goal for the Akali Dal in the new Punjab. Grewal writes that the slogan of state autonomy was added to the earlier concern for getting Chandigarh included in Punjab and for regaining control of power and irrigation projects. Gurmit Singh reads the agreement differently: he says the two Dals agreed to strive for a “Sikh Homeland”. Grewal reads its aim as autonomy within free India.