Assuaging the Sikhs: Government Responses to the Akali Movement, 1920–1925

Abstract

In 1920, Sikhs in the Punjab started a campaign aimed at freeing their principal gurdwaras (temples) from the control of their hereditary incumbents. The campaign quickly gathered momentum, and, within a few months, it developed into a non-violent anti-government movement. Unlike the rather shortlived 1919 Disturbances and the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement in the Punjab, the Sikh agitation, which came to be known as the Akali movement, did not cease until 1925 and caused considerable concern to the Punjab authorities, as well as the Government of India. The Akali movement was not limited, as in past cases of anti-British agitation involving the Sikhs, to small groups of disaffected Sikhs, returned emigrants, or Congress sympathizers; at its height in 1922, the unrest encompassed the bulk of central Punjab's Jat Sikh peasantry, one of the most militarized sections of Punjabi society. The Sikh community's martial traditions, fostered by their religious doctrines and culture, had been kept alive during British rule by the recruitment policies of the Indian Army, where, in 1920, one in every fourteen adult male Sikhs in the Punjab was in service. This meant that the abiding allegiance of the Sikh community to the Raj was a matter of considerable importance, and their estrangement, especially that of the Jat Sikh peasantry, would adversely affect the Sikh regiments of the Indian Army. It also meant that if the community as a whole was provoked into open rebellion, British hold on the Punjab could well nigh prove untenable.

Defining the Religious and the Political

“…Smith identifies the 'fanaticism' of the Akalis as a fundamental danger -this is what distinguishes them from those who follow Mr Gandhi -but the meaning of this runs along several different lines at the same time. The distinctive danger to the Government from Sikh mobilization did not stem from the danger of it as a religious movement; in fact, it was Sikh and Punjabi loyalty -and therefore the loyalty of the army and its potential future recruits -that D E F I N I N G T H E R E L I G I O U S A N D T H E P O L I T I C A L loomed large in the concerns voiced in government communications and Legislative Council debates at the provincial level, where Gurdwara reform was debated at length (Fox 1985, 85; see also Tan 1995Tan , 2005. In fact, the Government initially perceived the Gurdwara movement firmly in the category of the 'religious' -and thus was eager to pursue a policy of 'conciliatory inactivity', in Tai Yong Tan's words.…”

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Politics of Non-violence: A Perspective of Passive Resilience, 1920-1930

“…David in his book The Nonviolent Struggle for Indian Freedom, 1905-19 i explained the nature and course of nonviolent politics in British India before the establishment of SAD in 1920 (Hardiman, 2018). Similarly, Tan Tai Yong's research article "Assuaging the Sikhs: Government Responses to the Akali Movement, 1920-1925" also provided a scholarly account of SAD's role in GRM and the government response to this movement (Tan, 1995). Most of these accounts are explained SAD's role in context of Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925 and its nonviolence strategy beyond this is generally missing and needs scholarly attention.…”