Guru Nanak Niwas

Guru Nanak Niwas is a rest house for pilgrims inside the Sri Harmandir Sahib complex at Amritsar. It became the base of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale for most of the Dharam Yudh Morcha.

Key moments

• 19 July 1982: after the arrests of Bhai Amrik Singh and Baba Thara Singh, the Sant comes to the complex and starts a morcha (SikhRI; the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says 20 July, because Mehta Chowk no longer seemed safe). For most of the morcha he is based in Room 32 of Guru Nanak Niwas. Wikipedia, citing a book, says Sant Harchand Singh Longowal invited him and called him “our stave to beat the government”.
• 25 July and 4 August 1982: he calls a Panthic convention and announces a morcha for the release of his men. The Akali morcha is moved to Amritsar and the two are merged on 4 August.
• 15 December 1983: the Babbar Khalsa, urged on by the Akali Dal and Longowal, demand that he leave Room 32. He goes without argument, and moves his base into the Akal Takht Sahib. SikhRI says it was tradition for morcha leaders to stay inside the complex, and that Sant Fateh Singh had stayed in the Akal Takht during the Punjabi Suba Morcha.
• June 1984: on 4 June the army moves tanks and armoured carriers onto the road beside the building. The government’s White Paper said that on 6 June a group of about 350 people, Longowal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra among them, surrendered to the army near the building. Wikipedia notes that Longowal and Bhan Singh, in their own accounts, did not mention a surrender or the attack the White Paper described.

What it means today. The building marks the start of the Sant’s residence inside the complex and the point at which he moved into the Akal Takht, where, the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says, he and Major-General Shahbeg Singh built defences and stocked supplies for a siege.