Dr Jagjit Singh Chohan

Dr Jagjit Singh Chohan, also spelt Chauhan, came from Tanda in Hoshiarpur district and became the best-known exile voice for Khalistan. The Tribune says he began as a leftist and was drawn into Sikh politics by Master Tara Singh’s “Sikh Homeland” slogan, and that he later coined the word Khalistan. It describes him as a medical practitioner who had also mastered Ayurveda.

Key moments

• 1967: elected to the Punjab Assembly from Tanda. The Tribune says he stood for the Republican Party of India, while a UNI report of 2007 says he won on an Akali Dal ticket. He became Deputy Speaker and then Finance Minister under Chief Minister Lachman Singh Gill, whose government fell after about nine months. He is credited with introducing state lotteries.
• 1969: lost his seat. In 1971 he moved to Britain.
• 13 October 1971: an advertisement in the New York Times announced a movement for an independent Sikh state. The Hitavada columnist Kartik Lokhande writes that Indian intelligence inquiries indicated the Pakistani Embassy in Washington paid for it. That is the column’s claim, and the source gives no reply from Chohan.
• 1977 and 1980: he returned in 1977 and raised the Khalistan demand at a rally in Tanda, then left for England again in 1980. In England he declared himself president of the Council of Khalistan and issued passports, currency notes and stamps in Khalistan’s name (The Tribune).
• June 2001: he came back to India after about 21 years. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had directed the government to issue travel documents. He said he would pursue Khalistan “in a peaceful manner”, and police sources told The Tribune that past sedition cases against him had ended in acquittals or been closed as untraced, and that no violence-related case had ever been registered against him.
• September 2001: his first visit to the Golden Temple in about two decades. He announced an agitation to free gurdwaras from “modern mahantas”, argued that the Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925 should be scrapped, and held the ruling Akali Dal and the SGPC responsible for Operation Bluestar. He said his Khalsa Raj Party would contest the SGPC elections.
• 19 June 2007: the Punjab Vidhan Sabha observed a moment of mourning for him. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal called him a “towering political personality”, and the Speaker had remarks on his separatist activities removed from the record.

What he is remembered for: He pressed the demand for Khalistan for about 36 years, from 1971 until his death in April 2007, through an advertisement, declarations and the symbols of statehood, and it did not produce a state. On returning in 2001 he said the cause would be pursued peacefully.