The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood - Vidhia.com

12 THE SIKHS: SEARCH FOR STATEHOOD
demand. The movement gained strength in 1965 when the Akali Dal
also adopted a resolution distinguishing Punjab as its homeland while
calling India its motherland:
This conference recalls that the Sikh people agreed to merge in a
common Indian nationality on the explicit understanding of being
accorded a constitutional status of co-sharers in the Indian
sovereignty along with the majority community, which solemn
understanding now stands cynically repudiated by the present
rulers of India. Further the Sikh people have been systematically
reduced to a sub-political status in their homeland, the Punjab,
and to an insignificant position in their motherland, India. The
Sikhs are in a position to establish before an impartial
international tribunal, uninfluenced by the present Indian rulers
that the law, the judicial process, and the executive action of the
State of India is constitutionally and heavily weighted against the
Sikhs and is administered with unbandaged eyes against Sikh
citizens. This conference therefore, resolves, after careful thought,
that there is left no alternative for the Sikhs in the interest of selfpreservation
but to frame their political demand for securing a
self-determined political status within the Republic of Union of
India. 15
The movement was suspended as Indo-Pakistani hostilities broke in
September 1965. Impressed by Sikhs’ contribution to the Indian war
efforts, the government agreed to the reorganization of Punjab in 1966.
The Akali leaders’ ambition to achieve a culturally congruent region
was achieved. For the first time in history, Sikhs formed a majority in
the new Punjab. 16 However, its borders, the capital, the share of river
waters, the management of the Bhakra Dam Project and the
neighbouring states’ anti-Punjabi policies became the subjects of Sikh
resentment against the central government. In the new Punjab, the Akali
Dal formed a coalition government in 1967. However, its electoral base
was narrow, as Sikh voters were divided into the Congress, the Akalis
and small communist parties. The Akalis’ experience in this short-lived
coalition government alerted them to the central government’s
increasing interference. Between 1967 and 1980 three Akali coalition
governments were dismissed by the central government. 17 The
Congress at the centre had changed decisively from the Nehruvian
policy of accommodation to an active manipulation of provincial