Sikh nation resolutions, March to April 1981

Who: The Chief Khalsa Diwan, which organised the 54th All-India Sikh Educational Conference at Chandigarh; Ganga Singh Dhillon of Washington, who gave its presidential address; the SGPC; the Akali Dal (Talwandi) and the leaders who spoke at Anandpur Sahib and the Golden Temple on 13 April 1981; and their critics, among them Dr Gopal Singh and Khushwant Singh.

What: Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles, the Home Ministry's note on Khalistan, Khushwant Singh and J. S. Grewal give this sequence.

• 13 to 15 March (the Home Ministry's note says 17 and 18 March): the conference at Chandigarh. Gurmit Singh writes that Dhillon told it the Sikhs are a nation "by any definition", and that it resolved that the Sikhs are a separate nation and sought consultative status with the non-political bodies of the United Nations on the lines of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Khushwant Singh says it asked the United Nations for "Associated Status". The resolutions were greeted with cries of "Khalistan Zindabad".
• 29 March: the SGPC's General Committee, as Resolution No. 67, declared that "the Sikhs are a separate and distinct Nation". The Home Ministry's note says the SGPC, headed by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, passed it unanimously. Gurmit Singh writes that writ petitions against it in the High Court and the Supreme Court were dismissed.
• 13 April, Baisakhi: a convention at Anandpur Sahib resolved unanimously that the Sikh nation should approach the United Nations for enrolment as an associate member "for rebuilding Des Punjab within the Union of India". The note says Jagdev Singh Talwandi, a leader of an Akali Dal faction, echoed the demand there. Rajinder Kaur and Bhindranwale spoke for the claim at the Golden Temple that day. Gurmit Singh says even moderate leaders such as Sant Harchand Singh Longowal supported the claim: Longowal said religion, caste, customs, culture and history could be the basis of a nation, as East and West Germany were two countries but one German nation.
• 14 to 16 April: the note says the Centre set up a National Security Board on 14 April, impounded a passport and cancelled Dhillon's visa. Gurmit Singh writes that Inderjit Singh, chairman of the conference's reception committee, was removed from the chairmanship of the Punjab and Sind Bank, and that on 16 April the Diwan, in Resolution No. 246, disowned any demand for a Sikh State or UN membership without disowning the claim to be a nation. Grewal says it declared that the Sikhs "were and would remain an inseparable part of Bharat".
• 5 July: Dr Gopal Singh's All India Sikh Intelligentsia Convention said the Sikhs are a qaum, not a nation. Khushwant Singh opposed the claim, saying the Sikhs are not racially different from Hindus, and Dhillon replied that nationhood does not rest on blood alone.

Where: Chandigarh, for the conference; Amritsar, at the SGPC and the Golden Temple; and Anandpur Sahib, for the Baisakhi convention.

Why it mattered: It moved the Sikh claim from community to nation. Grewal writes that the idea was taken to carry the implication of political separation and was suggestive of Khalistan, and Khushwant Singh adds that some Akali leaders explained that by qaum they meant a separate religious or communal identity. The state's reading of these events is set out in the Home Ministry's note on Khalistan of April 1981. The Akali Dal's revised list of 15 demands to the Government in October 1981 still said the Sikhs should enjoy special rights as a nation.