Bapu Surat Singh Khalsa's eight-year hunger strike for the Bandi Singhs

Who: Bapu Surat Singh Khalsa of Hassanpur village, Ludhiana, who had come from the United States in November 2014; his son Ravinderjit Singh and daughter Sarbarinder Kaur; Punjab Police; PUCL Punjab-Haryana; and the Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu.

What: Surat Singh Khalsa began a fast unto death on 16 January 2015 at his ancestral village, Hassanpur, Ludhiana, the day after Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa ended his second fast at Lakhnaur Sahib. He asked for the release of Sikh political prisoners who had finished their sentences. PUCL says he had been a government primary school teacher until he resigned in 1984 to protest the killings of Sikhs.

• 8 February 2015: He was detained and taken to Civil Hospital, Ludhiana, under police cover (PUCL).
• 26 February: Four people were taken into custody, among them his son Ravinderjit Singh, who was still in jail on 28 March. PUCL says Surat Singh himself was held under sections 107 and 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and that family and visitors were restricted. PUCL Punjab-Haryana, in a statement of 28 March 2015 headed Punjab's Irom Sharmila, said that police and doctors had reportedly stitched a food pipe to his forehead to feed him, which it said, if true, amounted to torture. It described the fast as 68 days old.
• 1 August: Police did not let Ravneet Singh Bittu into Dayanand Medical College hospital, Ludhiana. Bittu asked him to end the fast, citing the Gurdaspur attack and intelligence reports of more attacks; his daughter said he would not end it until the detainees were freed (The Tribune).
• 5 December: Wikipedia, citing Hindustan Times and The Indian Express, says a video of a man said to be him eating in hospital went viral; he denied it was him and gave up water, and his son later said he had eaten under drugs the doctors gave him.
• 18 February 2016: The Tribune called Waryam Singh, freed on 18 February 2016 after almost 26 years in jail, one of the 49 Sikh detainees for whom Surat Singh Khalsa had launched a struggle.
• January 2023: The Tribune says the fast ran until 14 January 2023. ThePrint reported on 23 January 2023 that he had ended the fast the week before, aged 89, after the Quami Insaaf Morcha began at Mohali on 7 January.

The Punjab Government cited the Supreme Court's stay of 9 July 2014 in Union of India v. Sriharan for not freeing life convicts; PUCL replied that legal and political options remained. PUCL also said the arrests and restrictions seemed meant to silence the protest. The sources opened do not say how much he took by mouth in the later years. He died in January 2025, aged 91 (The Tribune).

Where: Hassanpur, Ludhiana; hospitals in Ludhiana.

Why it mattered: The Tribune's obituary calls the protest one of the longest and most significant non-violent protests in Punjab's history, eight years from 16 January 2015. It was the next step after Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa's two fasts and ran on until the Quami Insaaf Morcha began at Mohali.