Shiromani Akali Dal: Championing Sikh Interests

One of India’s oldest surviving political parties did not begin in a legislature or an election rally. It began inside Gurdwaras. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) grew out of a religious reform movement in the 1920s and slowly transformed into the principal political voice of the Sikh community and the state of Punjab. To understand Punjab’s politics today, from its language to its farmers’ protests, you have to start with this party and the cause it has carried for over a century.

How a religious reform movement became a political party
Why the movement mattered beyond religion
The fight for a Punjabi-speaking state
Hunger strikes, leaders, and a hard-won state
The Anandpur Sahib Resolution and the demand for autonomy
A party defined by regional and agrarian concerns
The Akali Dal and the BJP alliance
Challenges in recent years

How a religious reform movement became a political party

In the early twentieth century, many historic Sikh shrines were controlled by hereditary priests called Mahants. Over time, several of them began treating shrine offerings and tax-free land grants as personal property, which directly contradicted Sikh teachings. Misuse of shrine funds and corrupt practices by Mahants became the trigger for what is now called the Gurdwara Reform Movement, or the Akali Movement.

The Sikh community wanted these Gurdwaras returned to democratic Panthic control. To organise this effort, two bodies were created in December 1920. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) was formed on 15 November 1920 to manage Gurdwaras, and the Shiromani Akali Dal was established on 20 December 1920 to provide disciplined volunteer groups, known as jathas, who would peacefully reclaim shrines through moral pressure.

The early Akali Dal was largely made up of Sikh Jat peasants, craftsmen, labourers, and retired soldiers. It functioned as a non-violent volunteer corps, with members courting arrest in large numbers. The struggle eventually forced the colonial government to pass the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, which placed historic shrines under elected Sikh committees. The honorific “Shiromani” was formally added to the party’s name in 1922.

Why the movement mattered beyond religion

The Akali Movement was not only about temples. It taught a community to use organised, non-violent mass agitation to extract concessions from a powerful government. This experience brought Akali leaders close to the Congress and gave a strong push to the freedom struggle in Punjab. Notably, the proportion of Sikhs who courted arrest during this period was strikingly high relative to their share of the population, which signalled the movement’s intensity.

The fight for a Punjabi-speaking state

After Independence, the Akali Dal shifted from shrine reform to a new central demand: a separate Punjabi-speaking state, or Punjabi Suba. When states across the country were being reorganised on linguistic lines, Sikh leadership felt Punjab was being denied the same treatment.

The States Reorganisation Commission argued that Punjabi was not sufficiently distinct from Hindi and suspected the demand was really a disguised attempt to create a religion-based state. Many Sikhs saw this as discrimination, since other major linguistic groups had been granted their own states. The situation was made more complicated by the fact that a large number of Punjabi-speaking Hindus declared Hindi as their mother tongue in the census, which reduced the official count of Punjabi speakers.

Hunger strikes, leaders, and a hard-won state

The movement was led by figures like Master Tara Singh and later Sant Fateh Singh, who used hunger strikes, protest marches, and mass arrests to keep up the pressure. Sant Fateh Singh tactically emphasised the linguistic basis of the demand while downplaying its religious dimension, which made it harder for the government to dismiss it as communal.

After years of agitation, and following the 1965 war with Pakistan, a parliamentary committee recommended the creation of a Punjabi-speaking state. The government passed the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, which came into effect on 1 November 1966. Punjab was split: a Punjabi-speaking Punjab where Sikhs formed a majority, a Hindi-speaking Haryana, and hill areas that went to Himachal Pradesh.

The outcome was bittersweet. Many Akali leaders called it an “incomplete Punjabi Suba” because several Punjabi-speaking areas were excluded from the new state, and Chandigarh was kept as a shared Union Territory rather than handed over as the capital. These unresolved issues, especially Chandigarh and the sharing of river waters, would fuel Akali politics for decades.

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution and the demand for autonomy

Once the linguistic state was achieved, the Akali Dal’s agenda evolved toward greater political and economic autonomy. This vision was captured in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, adopted by the party’s working committee in 1973 and later endorsed at a large conference in Ludhiana in 1978.

The resolution made several demands. It called for limiting the central government’s powers to defence, foreign affairs, communications, and currency, while giving states control over most other subjects. It sought greater financial autonomy, protection for the Punjabi language and Sikh institutions, and recognition of Sikhism as a distinct religion. In essence, it was an argument for a genuinely federal India with stronger states.

The resolution became one of the most contested documents in modern Indian politics. Akali leaders maintained it was about regional autonomy and federalism within India, while critics and the central government often portrayed it as a step toward separatism. This clash of interpretations set the stage for the turbulent and tragic decade of the 1980s in Punjab, a period that left deep scars on the state and the party alike.

A party defined by regional and agrarian concerns

Two threads run consistently through the Akali Dal’s history: regional autonomy and agrarian interest. Because its support base has always been rooted among rural Sikh farmers, the party has positioned itself as the natural defender of Punjab’s agriculture. The slogan “every Akali is a farmer, and every farmer is an Akali” captures how tightly the party has tied its identity to the land and those who work it.

The Akali Dal and the BJP alliance

For much of the post-1990s period, the Akali Dal was one of the most stable regional allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The two parties shared power in Punjab for long stretches, with the SAD anchored among rural Sikhs and the BJP drawing support from urban Hindu voters. This was a complementary arrangement that suited both sides for over two decades.

That long partnership ended dramatically in 2020. When the central government passed three contentious farm laws, the move was fiercely opposed by Punjab’s farmers. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Modi cabinet in September 2020 in protest. Shortly after, the party announced it was pulling out of the BJP-led NDA, ending one of the oldest alliances in Indian politics.

This decision was rooted in the party’s core identity. Faced with a choice between staying in the central government and standing with the farmers who form its base, the Akali Dal chose its rural constituency. It was a clear illustration of how agrarian and regional concerns continue to shape every major decision the party makes.

Challenges in recent years

The Akali Dal has faced serious electoral setbacks in recent years. It performed poorly in the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections and struggled again afterward, as new players like the Aam Aadmi Party reshaped the state’s politics. The party has also seen internal splits and the departure of several senior leaders, raising questions about its future direction. Yet it remains a party with deep historical roots and a loyal core following, making any prediction about its decline premature.

Over more than a hundred years, the Akali Dal has worn many hats: a volunteer corps reforming shrines, the engine of a linguistic state movement, a champion of federal autonomy, and the political home of Punjab’s farmers. Its story is, in many ways, the story of modern Punjab itself.

What do you think? Does a party so closely tied to one religious community and one region strengthen Indian federalism by giving regional voices a platform, or does it risk narrowing political debate? And as Punjab’s politics change, can a century-old party reinvent itself for a new generation of voters?

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Table of Contents

How a religious reform movement became a political party 🔗

Why the movement mattered beyond religion 🔗

The fight for a Punjabi-speaking state 🔗

Hunger strikes, leaders, and a hard-won state 🔗

The Anandpur Sahib Resolution and the demand for autonomy 🔗

A party defined by regional and agrarian concerns 🔗

The Akali Dal and the BJP alliance 🔗

Challenges in recent years 🔗