Akali Rasta Roko blocks Punjab's roads; police firing kills at least 19

Who: Akali Dal workers and villagers who sat on Punjab's roads; the Punjab Police under Chief Minister Darbara Singh's Congress government; and the Akali leadership under Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.

What: The Akali Dal announced on 12 March 1983 a Rasta Roko, or Stop Traffic, programme for 4 April, together with the enrolment of one lakh Marjeevras, "do or die" volunteers, on Vaisakhi. It was one of the new fronts the Akalis opened in the Dharam Yudh Morcha. The White Paper says the Government appealed to the Akali Dal on 31 March to call off the agitation.

On 4 April Akali workers and villagers sat on roads across Punjab. Gurmit Singh writes that the 146 km Grand Trunk Road from Amritsar to Ludhiana was completely blocked, and so was the Jalandhar-Pathankot highway, and that the police opened fire at several places. He lists 19 dead: six at Kup Kalan in Sangrur district, five at Malerkotla, two at Bhankarpur near Dera Bassi, two in Bathinda district, and one each at Patiala, Rajpura, Phagwara and Ferozepur, citing The Indian Express of 5 April. The White Paper says demonstrators turned to violence and arson and attacked the police, that two executive magistrates and 175 police officers and men were injured, and that police used lathi charges, tear gas and firing, and 21 people died. J. S. Grewal says the campaign was meant to be peaceful but violence erupted, and puts the dead at 26. Wikipedia's account of the morcha gives 24 in one place and itemises 19 in another.

The Akalis called 17 April a Condolence Day. From 1 to 5 May a procession carrying the ashes of the dead went from Nathana in Bathinda district to Kiratpur Sahib, where the ashes were immersed in the Sutlej at Gurdwara Patalpuri. Gurmit Singh says the procession, which passed through Patiala, deepened Hindu-Sikh tension that broke out at several places, among them Patiala on 2 and 3 May. Khushwant Singh told the Rajya Sabha on 28 April that entire villages had turned out to block roads, Hindus as well as Muslims, and that a judicial inquiry promised after Rasta Roko had not been started, by his count 20 days or more (the speech came 24 days after Rasta Roko, and he does not say from when he counted).

Where: Roads across Punjab, above all the Grand Trunk Road between Amritsar and Ludhiana, and the firing sites named above.

Why it mattered: Gurmit Singh reads the firing as the point at which Akali leaders concluded that peaceful protest would not move the Government. On 13 April, nine days after Rasta Roko, Longowal gave the "do or die" oath to 33,000 Marjeevras at Sri Akal Takht Sahib. The Government's account blames the agitation itself for the violence.