Buta Singh

Buta Singh (1934 to 2021) was born at Mustafapur in Jalandhar district into a Mazhabi Sikh family, according to Wikipedia, which says he first won the Moga Lok Sabha seat in 1962 as an Akali Dal candidate, joined the Congress when it split in the late 1960s, and won Ropar for it in 1967. He was Union Home Minister from 1986 to 1989 under Rajiv Gandhi and Governor of Bihar from 2004 to 2006, and died on 2 January 2021, aged 86.

In the Panth's record he is named for his place in the Government's handling of Sri Harmandir Sahib after Operation Blue Star. Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles, the main source below, is a partisan Sikh account, and each of its statements is given as his.

Key moments

• 1965: as an Akali member of Parliament, his memorandum to the Parliamentary Committee on Punjabi Suba pleaded for a Punjabi-speaking state and, Gurmit Singh says, blamed “Hindu communalists and their hirelings” for the change of mother tongue from Punjabi to Hindi. The scan prints its date as 5 November 1963.
• 27 February 1983: Gurmit Singh says he announced that the rest of the Kotwali near Gurdwara Sis Ganj would go to the Delhi Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. He calls him Union Home Minister, a post Wikipedia dates to 1986 to 1989.
• 19 June 1984: as Minister for Parliamentary Affairs he announced at a press conference in Amritsar that the Army would leave the Golden Temple the next day and the repair work would go to the SGPC. The Cabinet Secretariat contradicted this within hours (Gurmit Singh).
• July to August 1984: Gurmit Singh says Buta Singh went from dera to dera of eminent saints to persuade one to undertake Kar Sewa on the Akal Takht, that none would while the Army stayed, and that the Government then got Baba Santa Singh of the Budha Dal to do it. He says the Government, through Buta Singh, called a meeting of the Sarbat Khalsa on 11 August 1984 to override the hukamnama excommunicating Santa Singh, and that the meeting passed a resolution appreciating Santa Singh and Buta Singh for organising the Kar Sewa.
• After Blue Star: Gurmit Singh writes that Buta Singh tried to malign Gurcharan Singh Tohra as a conspirator in Operation Blue Star, and calls the charge false and malicious. He notes that Tohra told the Punjab Governor on 30 May 1984 that he could not ask Bhindranwale to leave the Akal Takht.
• Later: a PTI report of 15 January 2026, written about another leader's appearance before the Akal Takht that day, recalled that the Akal Takht declared him tankhaiya because he had violated its directives on the reconstruction of the Takht, and that he later sought an apology, underwent the religious punishment and atoned. The report gives no years for these events, and he had died on 2 January 2021, so they long predate it.

Remembered for: being the Union minister through whom, in Gurmit Singh's account, the Government tried to settle the rebuilding of the Akal Takht in 1984, for which the Akal Takht later declared him tankhaiya; and, earlier, an Akali member of Parliament who argued for a Punjabi-speaking state.