Akali movement in the secret files

When Mahatma Gandhi visited Nankana Sahib in March 1921, he described the martyrdom of the Akali reformers as an act of national bravery. The return of the keys of the Toshakhana of the Golden Temple to Baba Kharak Singh, then President of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, was hailed by Gandhi as the first victory in India’s struggle for freedom. Similarly, the firing on Shahidi jathas at Jaito, with volunteers arriving from Vancouver, Hong Kong and Singapore, drew international attention and generated sympathy in the global press.

A major strength of the volume lies in its extensive use of private and confidential correspondence among senior colonial officials. The papers of Lord Reading, Edward Maclagan and Malcolm Hailey offer rare insight into official perceptions of the movement. These documents illuminate the strategies adopted by the Punjab government in response to Akali mobilisation and reveal the anxieties within the colonial establishment.

Mohinder Singh edits and annotates these materials with methodological rigour. The documents are contextualised with care, enabling readers to grasp not merely events but also the shifting calculations of the Raj. Of particular importance is the examination of the processes that culminated in the passage of the Sikh Gurdwaras and Shrines Act of 1925 and the release of Akali prisoners. The study shows how a religious reform struggle intersected with constitutional politics and compelled the colonial state to legislate.

The book underlines the close, though carefully calibrated, relationship between the Akali leadership and the Indian nationalist movement. Sikh leaders maintained contact with Congress figures and sought support and guidance, even as they guarded the distinct identity of their religious cause. Baba Kharak Singh, for instance, served as President of the SGPC while also participating in the Punjab Congress during the Non-Cooperation Movement. The movement thus operated simultaneously within a Sikh institutional framework and the broader anti-colonial struggle.

Gandhi and the Congress sympathised with the core demand for Gurdwara reform and offered organisational backing. To counter official propaganda, the Congress set up an Akali Sahayak Bureau in the Golden Temple complex. Gandhi observed that by linking their religious agitation with the national movement, the Sikhs were advancing both their own cause and that of the country.

The most striking insights, however, emerge from the correspondence of Malcolm Hailey after he succeeded Maclagan as Governor of Punjab. Hailey believed that repression alone would not secure long-term results. Instead of negotiating with what the government had declared an unlawful association, he sought to fragment the Akali leadership. He encouraged landed interests to form parallel bodies, known as Sudhar Committees, in order to divide Sikh opinion and dilute the influence of the SGPC.

The Hailey papers show a governor acutely aware of the political climate in Punjab and determined to slow the momentum of the movement. His strategy involved dividing Akali factions, promoting anti-Akali sentiment and manipulating legal processes to weaken organisational cohesion. He accepted that the popular demand for representative control of Gurdwaras could not be permanently resisted. Yet he resisted engaging directly with the existing Akali leadership, preferring instead to cultivate alternative Sikh groupings more amenable to government influence.

Hailey achieved limited, temporary success in eroding the social base of the movement. However, when national leaders such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Muhammad Ali Jinnah proposed an All-India Gurdwara Bill in the Central Legislative Council, the provincial government’s room for manoeuvre narrowed. The argument that Gurdwaras existed beyond Punjab undercut Hailey’s attempt to contain the issue within the province. Eventually, a Private Bill was allowed to proceed and was passed in 1925, resolving a major point of confrontation between the Sikhs and the colonial state.

This collection of secret and private papers thus deepens our understanding of both Sikh political assertion and colonial statecraft. It reveals how a movement rooted in religious reform became intertwined with India’s freedom struggle, and how the British administration alternated between repression, accommodation and division. Carefully edited and analytically framed, the volume is indispensable for anyone seeking a nuanced grasp of Sikh history in late colonial India and of the dynamics that shaped modern Punjab.

(The reviewer is a former history professor at Kurukshetra University)