Sarbat Khalsa at Sri Akal Takht Sahib

Who: The sangat gathered at Sri Akal Takht Sahib on a call from the Damdami Taksal (Jatha Bhindran). Asia Samachar puts the crowd at more than 100,000, while UPI reported about 15,000 supporters armed with guns, spears and swords at the Sunday ceremony; there is no official count. The assembly named a five-member Panthic Committee: Bhai Dhanna Singh, Gurbachan Singh Manochahal, Gurdev Singh Usmanwala, Aroor Singh and Wassan Singh Zaffarwal. The Gurmata prints the third name only as Bhai Gurdev Singh. Panthic.org lists him as Gurdev Singh Usman, a different man from Gurdev Singh Kaunke of Kaunke Kalan, whom the same Gurmata names as acting Jathedar of the Akal Takht.

What: On Sunday 26 January 1986 (13 Magh), nineteen months after the army assault of June 1984, the Sarbat Khalsa passed a Gurmata, printed in Panthic Dastavez (pp. 159 to 166). It:

• constituted the Panthic Committee as the leadership of the Panth, with its office in the Akali Dal building, and ordered all Panthic bodies to work under the authority of the Akal Takht alone;
• declared the SGPC and the local gurdwara committees dissolved, saying SGPC officials had helped the government at the time of the attack on Sri Harmandir Sahib;
• removed Jathedar Giani Kirpal Singh, appointed Bhai Jasbir Singh (then under house arrest) as Jathedar of the Akal Takht with Gurdev Singh Kaunke acting in his place, and replaced the head granthi of Sri Harmandir Sahib;
• refused the Akal Takht rebuilt by the government and gave the kar seva to the Damdami Taksal under Baba Thakur Singh, to be paid for only by honest earnings;
• rejected the Rajiv-Longowal accord as a betrayal, vowed to keep up the struggle for the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, called the state's treatment of Sikhs genocide, and named the Barnala government an enemy of the Sikhs after it jailed 2,500 youths; and
• ordered a Sarbat Khalsa every Vaisakhi and Bandi Chhor Divas.

Where: Sri Akal Takht Sahib, Amritsar.

Why it mattered: This assembly did not declare Khalistan. The word appears once, in the last resolution, which says that if Bhai Satwant Singh, Bhai Balbir Singh, Bhai Kehar Singh or the three Sikhs sentenced in Pakistan are martyred, they will be called shaheeds of Khalistan. The declaration came on 29 April 1986, from the Panthic Committee. The editors of Panthic Dastavez complain that the assembly did not fix Khalistan as its goal and that three committee members were unfit. Panthic.org says the five were all linked to the Damdami Taksal and that Manochahal asked for a Babbar Khalsa member to be added, but the others refused. Counts of the resolutions differ: 1984 Tribute says 23.