Bhajan Lal

Bhajan Lal was a Haryana politician who served as Chief Minister for twelve years in three stints. He was born on 6 October 1930 at Koranwali village in Bahawalpur, now in Pakistan, started as a village sarpanch, and entered the Haryana Assembly from Adampur in 1968. He joined the Janata Party in 1977 and was a minister under Devi Lal. He became Chief Minister in 1979 (Wikipedia gives 29 June) at the head of a Janata government. In 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power at the Centre, he led almost the entire Haryana Janata legislature party into the Congress, which The Tribune put down to his survival instinct. He was re-elected Chief Minister in 1982, held the post until 1986, was Union minister for environment and forests and later for agriculture, and was Chief Minister again from 1991 to 1996. He formed the Haryana Janhit Congress in 2007 and died of a heart attack on 3 June 2011.

Where he enters Sikh history

• November 1982: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism lists the behaviour of the Haryana government and police during the Asian Games at Delhi as a further provocation to the Sikhs: Sikhs travelling between Punjab and Delhi were indiscriminately stopped, searched and humiliated. The Tribune (23 August 2003) says this followed Sant Harchand Singh Longowal's announcement of Akali protests during the Games, and that Sikhs including Army officers were stopped in Haryana.
• August 2003: Bhajan Lal visited Sri Harmandir Sahib. The Tribune reports that he said "Let the past be buried", did not mention the Asiad episode, and asked the paper not to mention the "Asiad humiliation".
• November 1984: he was Haryana's Chief Minister when Sikhs were killed at Hondh-Chillar and Gudha-Kanina. In February 2011 Sikhs for Justice and the All India Sikh Students Federation said in a petition that he was "allegedly inimical to the Sikhs" and that a fair investigation was therefore not possible (The Tribune). Sikh Siyasat News wrote in 2012 that the killer squads were "organized and patronized" by him. These are allegations; the sources reviewed show no court finding against him, and Human Rights Watch, writing of Hondh-Chillar, says government commissions have failed to secure prosecutions.

What he is remembered for. In Haryana, as a survivor of coalition politics who held the state for twelve years. In Sikh memory, as the Chief Minister of the state through which Sikhs were harassed in 1982 and killed in 1984, and where, Human Rights Watch says of Hondh-Chillar, those responsible have not been properly prosecuted.