Sikhitihasਸਿੱਖ ਇਤਿਹਾਸ
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ

Sadh Sangat Board

ਸਾਧ ਸੰਗਤ ਬੋਰਡ

Society sponsored by Congress Sikhs to fight the January 1960 SGPC elections against Master Tara Singh's Akali Dal. It won 4 seats to the Akalis' 136.

The Sadh Sangat Board was a society that Congress Sikhs sponsored to contest the January 1960 elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) against the Shiromani Akali Dal of Master Tara Singh. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says Giani Kartar Singh, who had resigned from the Punjab ministry to give all his energies to the campaign, sponsored the society "with the overt help of the state government", and that the Congress Sikhs under Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon and Giani Kartar Singh were trying to defeat Master Tara Singh and his nominees in those elections. Sangat Singh says its sponsor was Kairon and that Giani Kartar Singh resigned his ministry on 24 October 1959 to devote full time to the gurdwara elections.

Background: Master Tara Singh announced on 7 May 1959 that the Akali Dal would fight the January 1960 SGPC elections on the issue of Punjabi Suba, according to Sangat Singh. The Congress Sikhs had tried a similar front in the SGPC elections of 1954 to 1955, the Khalsa Dal, which won only 3 of the 132 seats it contested (Grewal; Sangat Singh dates the election to early 1955). A Communist-backed Desh Bhagat Board also stood in 1960. Sangat Singh uses the name Sadh Sangat Board once earlier, calling it Communist, in his account of the SGPC presidential vote of 16 November 1958 (77 to 74); the sources found do not say whether that is the same body or when the Board began.

Key moments

  • January 1960: the Akali Dal won 136 seats and the Board 4, according to the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism and Sangat Singh. Khushwant Singh puts the Akali win at 136 of 140 seats. Sangat Singh says the Desh Bhagat Board was "wiped out".
  • 24 January 1960: Master Tara Singh and the new SGPC members took a pledge at Sri Akal Takht Sahib to win a Punjabi Suba.
  • Khushwant Singh reads the result as proof that the majority of Sikhs supported the Punjabi Suba (volume 2, p. 296). The Akali morcha of 1960 to 1961 followed.

Where it stands: for the gurdwara elections of January 1965, Sangat Singh writes that the Congress Sikhs formed no new Khalsa Dal or Sadh Sangat Board but entered the Sant Akali Dal in strength. The sources found do not show the Board contesting any later election.

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People

Organisations

Events

Sources

  1. Punjabi Suba Movement (entry by Karnail Singh Doad), Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Punjabi University. eos.learnpunjabi.org
  2. The Sikhs in History (Sangat Singh), chapters on 1950 to 1964 and 1964 to 1975 (the scan prints no page numbers), Sangat Singh (Internet Archive copy). archive.org
  3. The Sikhs of the Punjab (J. S. Grewal), pp. 194 to 195, Cambridge University Press, New Cambridge History of India II.3 (Internet Archive copy). archive.org
  4. A History of the Sikhs, vol. 2: 1839-2004 (Khushwant Singh), p. 296, Oxford University Press, 2004 (Internet Archive copy). archive.org

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