Sardar Gian Singh Rarewala

Gian Singh Rarewala was a Patiala State official who became Premier of PEPSU, the Patiala and East Punjab States Union, and later its first elected Chief Minister. He afterwards joined the Congress, served in Partap Singh Kairon's ministry and returned to the Akalis, and he was one of the Akali leaders in the talks that produced the Regional Formula of 1956.

The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives his birth as 16 December 1901 and his death in Delhi on 31 December 1979. It says he graduated from Mohindra College, Patiala, and rose in Patiala State's service to minister.

Key moments

• 1948: after PEPSU was formed, Gurmit Singh writes, a caretaker government was set up with Rarewala, then in Patiala State's service, as Premier. J.S. Grewal dates it to August 1948 and says he was neither an Akali nor a Praja Mandalist at the time. Gurmit Singh says the Hindu-led State Congress attacked him as a relative of the Maharaja of Patiala.
• January 1949: a broad-based ministry with Rarewala as head, four Sikh and three Hindu ministers, was formed on 13 January and sworn in on 20 January. Gurmit Singh says it was dissolved on 18 November 1949, when the Central Government took over.
• 2 May 1950: he wrote to Vallabhbhai Patel protesting that a footnote to the Scheduled Castes order would leave Sikhs among the other 31 castes without its benefits. Patel replied on 4 May that there was no question of widening the concession (Gurmit Singh).
• 1951: Grewal writes that before the middle of the year Brish Bhan and Raghubir Singh joined hands to oust him and that Raghubir Singh became Chief Minister.
• April 1952 to March 1953: after the 1952 election a United Front ministry under Rarewala, supported by the Akalis, replaced a Congress ministry on 21 April (the Encyclopaedia says 20 April). Grewal calls it the first non-Congress ministry in the country. It fell when he was unseated on an election petition, and PEPSU came under President's Rule on 5 March 1953 (Encyclopaedia).
• 7 July to 16 October 1955: the SGPC's list of presidents shows him as president during the Punjabi Suba morcha, taking over from Bawa Harkishan Singh and followed by Master Tara Singh. The Encyclopaedia's entry on him does not mention this. It says he sympathised with the Punjabi Suba agitation of 1955 and worked for it.
• 1956: Gurmit Singh lists him with Master Tara Singh, Jodh Singh, Hukam Singh, Giani Kartar Singh and Bawa Harkishan Singh as meeting Nehru, and dates the Regional Formula that followed 22 January 1956. The Encyclopaedia says that on 11 March 1956 he commended the plan to the Akali Dal's general body, which approved it, and that when PEPSU merged into Punjab on 1 November 1956 he joined the Congress.
• 1957 to 1962: he was sworn in on 3 April 1957 as Minister for Irrigation and Power under Kairon. Khushwant Singh calls him a minister in the Kairon ministry until 1962 and after that Kairon's chief opponent.
• 1967 to 1969: Khushwant Singh writes that as leader of the Congress he won over Lachhman Singh Gill and toppled Gurnam Singh's ministry, that Giani Zail Singh then challenged his hold over the Congress, and that Rarewala resigned from the Congress to rejoin the Akalis.
• 11 December 1972: the Encyclopaedia names him among the twelve members of the Akali Dal sub-committee whose work became the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of October 1973. He sat on it with Surjit Singh Barnala, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Dr Bhagat Singh and Amar Singh Ambalvi, among others.

What he is remembered for. He is remembered as the head of the first non-Congress ministry in the country, which Gurmit Singh says was not allowed to function and whose fall convinced the Sikhs that federalism and democracy in India were only a hoax.