Harbans Singh Manchanda

Harbans Singh Manchanda was president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (DSGMC) in the years of the Dharam Yudh Morcha. In March 1983 the Akali Dal's president suspended him from the party for six years, and in 1984 he was shot dead in Delhi.

Khushwant Singh, in a note on the events of February 1983, writes that the Delhi Gurdwara Committee's president at the time was H. S. Manchanda and that he was shot dead on 28 March 1984. Gurmit Singh writes that a Sikh youth shot him dead and gives no date. Neither says who the youth was or why, and we found no source that does.

Key moments

• 3 December 1982: Manchanda and Bibi Nirlep Kaur were arrested. They were to lead the protest march of 4 December, the closing day of the Asian Games in Delhi, when Gurmit Singh says 1,400 Sikhs courted arrest.
• 27 February 1983: Indira Gandhi addressed a congregation at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and announced that the Government accepted three religious demands: Jullundur Radio would relay Gurbani from the Golden Temple, Sikhs could carry a nine-inch sword on flights, and State Governments and gurdwara committees would be consulted on an all-India gurdwara act. Gurmit Singh says Manchanda organised the reception and the congregation, and that Home Minister Buta Singh announced that the rest of the Kotwali near Gurdwara Sis Ganj would be handed to the Delhi committee. Khushwant Singh says she made the announcement at a gathering of her own supporters and wanted the credit to go to the Congress Sikhs.
• 28 February 1983: Sant Harchand Singh Longowal called the Government's acceptance of the religious demands a fraud on the Sikhs, according to Gurmit Singh.
• 5 March 1983: Longowal, as president of the Akali Dal, suspended Manchanda from the party for six years for organising the reception and congregation for Indira Gandhi at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib.
• 28 March 1984: shot dead in Delhi, according to Khushwant Singh, about two months before Operation Blue Star.

Remembered for: heading the Delhi Sikh gurdwara body on the day Indira Gandhi chose Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to announce concessions, and for the Akali suspension that followed.