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| Article being developed must do much reading to do a proper article on Nehru and the Sikhs
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| '''Jawaharlal Nehru''' (November 14, 1889 – May 27, 1964), from Jawahar (Jewel) laal (red) was a political leader of the Indian National Congress. The son of Motilal Nehru, (Moti) pearl (lal) red. The political dynasty begun by his father still plays and important part in the politics of modern day India.
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| Mentored by Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi, he became one of the youngest leaders of the Indian National Congress. He was one of several important pioneers of the Indian independence movement serving as the first Prime Minister of Independent India.
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| He was one of the first to advocate a complete separation from the British Empire. He believed that socialism could best solve the long-standing ills of India. Nehru raised the flag of a divided, independent India in New Delhi on August 15 Standing on the very same balcony that the Moghul Emperop's would daily present themselves at the Lal Kila. His daughter Indira and grandson Rajiv would follow in his footsteps as Prime Minister of India.
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| Called Panditji (Honored/revered scholar) he was a writer, his letters to his daughter, written while in prison, were published as ''Glimpses of World History''.
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| In the November, 1937 issue of the Calcutta-based journal Modern Review, an article entitled 'The Rashtrapati' severely criticized Jawaharlal Nehru. The author acknowledged Nehru's initiative and innate drive but also pointed out the glaring streaks of autocracy in him, saying that his character was marked by "intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient". The author, who signed himself "Chanakya", added that Nehru's conceit was "already formidable", and worried that soon "Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar". The author of this article was Nehru himself under a pseudonym of Chanakya. This publication is a significantly important example of autocritique. [11]
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| ==Other Literary works==
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| * The Discovery of India written by Jawaharlal Nehru
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| * Glimpses of World History written by Jawaharlal Nehru
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| * Tryst with destiny the historic speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, considered in modern India to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India.
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| * Letters from a father to his daughter a collection of letters written by Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter Indira.
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| Still being written
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| Khushwant Singh was awarded the Padam Bhushan in 1974. Ten years later in 1984, he returned the honor in protest to Government of India against the storming of Golden Temple by the Army. On June 8, a day after the incident, he drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan and returned the framed citation to the President of India, Giani Zail Singh, who himself was a Sikh.
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| It was an act of Courage. When he returned to his house, his home became information center for the Sikhs. Every TV channel and radio station from abroad contacted him about the details of the damage to Golden Temple.
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| It also saw his falling out with Nehru family. Khushwant Singh was a member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, from 1980 to 1986. His dry and icy comments frequently landed him in Soup.
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| But soon thereafter Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent him to New York as a member of the Indian delegation to the llth session of the United Nations General Assembly. In 1958
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| f hounds of cruelties of all sorts to leave the Kashmiri Hindus no alternative but to embrace Islam on pain of death. During his rule of five years of hair raising cruelty and tyranny Iftekhar Khan drove it home to Pandits that then future in their land of birth was assured only if they kissed Islam, failing which they must quit their homeland forthwith; there was no third option.
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| In consequence of this dire threat, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits succumbed to his policy of duress and treacherous religious bigotry of the vicious subeder and thus got converted to Islam.
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| Thousands who could manage to withstand the tremendous pressure bade good bye to their homes and hearths and sought refuge in neighbouring regions to keep alive themselves and their faith that was so dear to them.
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| It is during the rule of Emperor Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb that Kashmiri Pandits driven out of Kashmir reached Delhi and settled down in Bazar Sitaram. Two prominent castes namely Zutshis and Shangloos reached there after a great struggle, difficulties and hardships. These castes over a period of generations had changed into Pehlvis (poets) and Topawallas, said one of the descendants of KPs living in Bazar Sitaram Shri Gulzar Pahlvi. There is a temple of ancient KPs now internally displaced communities in India believe in.
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| It is said that Pandit Nehru's marriage procession had come all along from Allahabad to Bazar Sitaram where his marriage was solemnized. Their present priest is Iqbal Krishen Revoo.
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| It is during the Aurangzeb-Iftekhar Khan combine that reduced the Kashmiri Pandits as low as dust, nay they made them lick the dust. They trampled the Pandit psyche by subverting all the achievements of this advanced and learned community in social, economic and religious fields during the pseudo-secular stance of the earlier Mughals. Aurangzeb followed Islamic law with fervor showing no regard for normal laws of Hindus.
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| When the religious persecution and cruelties perpetrated by Iftekhar Khan and approved by Aurangzeb made life unbearable for Pandits in Kashmir, the latter decided to approach the immortal national hero Shri Guru Tegh Bahadar at Anandpur Sahib for rescuing the Kashmiri Hindus from Islamic onslaught by his personal intervention. A delegation of 500 KPs (Kashmiri Pandits) led by Pandit Kirpa Ram learned person, called on the Guru and narrated their harrowing and woeful experiences of the diabolical misrule of Iftikhar Khan patronized by Aurangzeb whose wickedness had no parallel. These fundamentalists thrust Islam by hook or by crook. They converted by atrocities,
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| Jawaharlal Nehru reiterated Gandhi’s assurance to the Sikhs at the All India Congress Committee meeting in Calcuatta in 1946. He declared:
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| The brave Sikhs of Punjab are entitled to special consideration. I see nothing wrong in an area and a set-up in the North wherein the Sikhs can experience the glow of freedom. The Statesman, Calcutta, July 7, 1946 quoting Jawaharlal Nehru in Singh, Iqbal, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis, New York: Allen, McMillan and Enderson, 1986, p. 37.
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| With the Muslims proposing the creation of a Pakistan to safeguard their interests, some Sikhs put forth the idea of carving out a Sikh state of Khalistan. For instance, in 1940, Dr. Vir Singh Bhatti demanded the formulation of the Sikh state of Khalistan as a buffer state between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. During a prolonged negotiation process during the 1940s between the British and the three groups seeking political power—Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs—the Congress Party continually extended such promises to prevent Sikhs from allying with the Muslim League. To win Sikh support, Jawaharlal Nehru again declared:
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| Redistribution of provincial boundaries was essential and inevitable. I stand for semi-autonomous units…if the Sikhs desire to function as such a unit, I would like them to have a semi-autonomous unit within the province so that they may have a sense of freedom.” Congress Records, quoted in Singh, Iqbal, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis, New York: Allen, McMillan and Enderson, 1986, p. 38.
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| These pledges of by Nehru and Gandhi on behalf of the Indian Congress were formalized through a resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 9, 1946:
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| Adequate safeguards would be provided for minorities in India…It was a declaration, pledge and an undertaking before the world, a contract with millions of Indians and, therefore, in the nature of an oath we must keep. Quoted in Singh, Iqbal, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis, New York: Allen, McMillan and Enderson, 1986, p. 38.
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| During a press conference on July 10, 1946 in Bombay, Nehru’s controversial statement that the Congress may “change or modify” the agreed upon agreement came “as a bombshell”. Singh, Iqbal, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis, New York: Allen, McMillan and Enderson, 1986, p. 38. As a consequence, Mohammad Ali Jinnah—the charismatic leader of the Muslim League—was forced to seek safeguards for his community through the creation of a separate Pakistan.
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| Repudiation of Promises by Indian National Congress
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| After the departure of the British, the Congress Party would repudiate all pledges and Constituent Assembly resolutions promulgated to safeguard Sikh interests. PSingh, Iqbal, Punjab Under Siege: A Critical Analysis, New York: Allen, McMillan and Enderson, 1986, p. 38-39. Many Sikhs felt that they had been tricked into joining the Indian union. On Nov. 21, 1949, upon the review of the draft of the Indian Constitution, Hukam Singh, the Sikh representative, declared to the Constituent Assembly:
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| Naturally, under these circumstances, as I have stated, the Sikhs feel utterly disappointed and frustrated. They feel that they have been discriminated against. Let it not be misunderstood that the Sikh community has agreed to this [Indian] Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document. Singh, Gurmit, History of Sikh Struggles, New Delhi: South Asia Books, 1989, p. 110-111
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| new govt.
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| A large number of political parties and social organizations were invited to take part in the Conference which held its first meeting at Delhi on 12 February 1928. The Central SIKH League received the invitation as representative of the SIKHS. The League nominated Baba Kharak SINGH, SARDAR Bahadur Mehtab Singh, Master Tara Singh, Giani Sher Singh, Amar Singh Jhabal and Sardar Mangal Singh to take part in the Conference. Sharp differences on vital questions arose between the Muslim League on the one hand and the Hindu Maha Sabha and the Sikhs on the other during the first session of the All-Parties Conference held at Delhi on 12 February 1928 under the presidentship of Dr M.A. Ansari. At the next session held on 19 May 1928, the Conference appointed a committee often members headed by Pandit Motilal Nehru to lay down broad principles which should serve as the basis for the new scheme. Mangal Singh represented the Sikhs on the committee.
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| At the next session held on 19 May 1928, the Conference appointed a committee often members headed by Pandit Motilal Nehru to lay down broad principles which should serve as the basis for the new scheme. Mangal Singh represented the Sikhs on the committee. The committee presented on 10 August 1928 a unanimous report known as the Nehru Committee Report which was placed for review before the All-Parties Conference at Lucknow on 28-31 August 1928. The Report suggested Dominion Status for India; federal system of government with a strong centre; responsible executive; bicameral legislature at the Centre and unicameral ones in the provinces; adult franchise and joint electorates with reservation of seats proportionate to population for the Muslims in provinces where they were in a minority and for non-Muslims in the NorthWest Frontier Province. There were no provisions made specifically for the Sikhs. The recommendations of the Nehru Committee, as adopted at the All-Parties Conference at Lucknow, were to be placed before an All-Parties Convention which met at Calcutta in December 1928. Mangal Singh, the sole Sikh member of the Nehru Committee, had signed the Report and put the seal of Sikhs assent on its recommendations. Some other Sikh Congress leaders such as Sardul Singh Caveeshar and Amar Singh Jhabal supported the stand taken by Mangal Singh, but Master Tara Singh, Giani Sher Singh and some other AKALI leaders were strongly opposed. They argued that their demand had been complete abolition of communal representation not only in the Punjab but all over the country. If communal representation was to be given to any minority community in any other province, the same concession should have been given the Sikh minority in the Punjab as well. The Report was considered at the annual session of the Central Sikh League at Gujranwala on 22 October 1928. Giving his presidential address extempore, Baba Kharak Singh said that the Report had sinned against the selfrespect and dignity of India by limiting the national objective to Dominion Status. This meant that the people would have to fight twice overfirst, to win Dominion Status and then, Svaraj or complete independence. The second point of Baba Kharak Singh's criticism was that the Nehru Report had laid the foundation of communalism by accepting separate electorates. Giani Sher Singh sponsored the main resolution castigating the Report for acquiescing in the principle of communal representation. The resolution advocated a system of joint electorates with plural constituencies, adding that, if community wise representation became inevitable, Sikhs should have at least 30 per cent of the seats in the Punjab legislature and the same proportion of representation from the Punjab in the Central legislature. Among other speakers were SANT Singh of Lyallpur, Amar Singh Jhabal and Buta Singh, Advocate. Mangal Singh, who was a signatory to the Nehru Report, told the conference that he had urged upon the committee that either communal representation be discarded altogether or that Sikh's share be fixed at 30 per cent. Master Tara Singh said that the Sikhs wanted neither British raj nor Muslim. He declared that, while working with the Congress, he would not flinch from laying down his life to secure the Sikhs their rights. The original resolution, disapproving of the Nehru Report and its goal of Dominion Status and demanding 30 per cent seats for the Sikhs in case separate electorates were adopted, was carried by a large majority. At the All-Parties Convention held at Calcutta commencing from 22 December 1928, Sikhs were represented by 30 delegates of the Central Sikh League, besides 8 members of the Namdhari sect. Sardar Bahadur Mehtab Singh, speaking on behalf of the Sikh League on 29 December 1928, opposed the provision for reservation of seats in any province, adding that if the principle was to be accepted in the case of one community it should apply to others as well. At the following session (30 December), an amendment was moved on behalf of the Sikh League to the effect that communalism should not be made the basis of future policy in India in any shape or form and that the Nehru Report be amended accordingly, but it was ruled out of order by the President, Dr M.A. Ansari. Harnam Singh read out a long prepared statement on behalf of the Sikh League, stressing the historical, economic and political importance of the Sikhs in the Punjab, and how they had been ignored in the Nehru scheme. The Sikhs, he said, were prepared to make all sacrifices in the interest of the nation, provided communalism was completely expunged from the Indian body politic, but the communal principle was on the contrary the basis of the Nehru Report. He declared that his party did not support the Report and would take no further part in the proceedings of the Convention. The delegates representing the Sikh League walked out of the Convention. Mahatma Gandhi while moving for adjournment of the Convention sine die remarked that personally he felt that justice had not been done to the Sikhs. The disappointment of the Sikhs with Nehru Committee Report and the All-Parties Conference drove even some progressive and nationalist sections of the community away from the Indian National Congress. The Sikh leaders planned,a strategy which forced the Congress leadership not only to shelve the Nehru Committee Report for good, but also to come to terms with the Sikhs who held a conference at LAHORE at the end of December 1929 to coincide with the 44th annual session of the Congress to be held there under the presidentship of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Baba Kharak Singh, who presided over the Sikh conference, reiterated the Sikh's determination not to let any single community establish its hegemony in Punjab. A resolution passed by the conference demanded that, if communal representation was to continue, the Sikhs should get 30 per cent share of the assembly seats in Punjab, with adequate provisions for the protection of their rights in other provinces. The Sikh conference, and even more dramatically the mammoth Sikh march that preceded it, made a tremendous impact. Congress leaders led by Mahatma Gandhi came to meet Baba Kharak Singh and his colleagues and gave them the assurance that no political arrangement which did not give full satisfaction to the Sikhs would be accepted by the Indian National Cong.
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| ==Master Tara Singh==
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| The Punjab government arrested Master Tara Singh as he was about to leave for Delhi on 14 March 1959. The procession, however, was taken out as scheduled with a portrait of Master Tara Singh displayed on a truck at the head. Tills had some impact on the government and he was released on 21 March 1959. The Prime Minister however rejected his suggestion for arbitration. The Working Committee of the Shiromani Akali Dal then suggested, on 27 March 1959, arbitration by Jayaprakash Narayan, Rajagopalachari or Acharya Vinoba Bhave but this propsal, too, was rejected by the Prime Minister on 5 April 1959. Master Tara Singh announced that he would go on a fast unto death on 16 April 1959.
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| It was then that Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru invited Master Tara Singh to tea on 11 April 1959. The meeting resulted in what came to be known as Tara SinghNehru Pact. The text read:
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| It is common ground amongst all concerned that there should be no governmental interference in religious affairs; Nevertheless, complaints have arisen of such interference in regard to Gurdwara management and amendments made in the Gurdwara Act.
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| Some machinery should be devised to ensure the implementation of the policy of noninterference in the Gurdwara management and to consider any complaints of such interference. It is suggested that a Committee should be constituted for the purpose. This Committee should consist of two persons nominated by the Punjab Government and two persons nominated by Master Tara Singh, President of Shiromani Akali Dal.
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| This Committee will consider any allegations of interference and will suggest remedial action wherever possible. Where there is disagreement among the members of the Committee, the matter may be referred to the Governor of Punjab. Any amendment in the Gurdwara Act should be undertaken after obtaining the approval of the General Committee of the SGPC. The general elections of the SGPC should be held as early as possible.If any difficulty arises in the implementation of the above proposal, Mr. Nehru will be glad to help.
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| The Pact vindicated Master Tara Singh's stand on the matter of government interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs. But the Committee set up under its provisions could not arrive at any understanding or conclusion, because of divergence of views in the two blocks, nor could they arrive at any decision what matter should be referred to the governor.
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| The pact, however, laid down an unequivocal commitment by the government at the highest level on the basic issue that no amendment in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act shall be undertaken without the approval of. the general body of the SGPC.
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| Incidentally, the control of the SGPC was retrieved by the Shiromani Akali Dal as a result of the 1960 elections when it won 136 seats against only 4 in favour of the Sadh Sangat Board, a society set up with the overt help of the state government.
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| churidar pants, a tight-fitting variant of the salwar.
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| The Beatles Harrison's boat at shrinagra rotting in the water
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| Imported kurtas were fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s, as an element of hippie fashion, fell from favor briefly, and are now again fashionable. South Asian women may also wear this Western adaptation of South Asian fashion.
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| stand-up collars of the type known to tailors and seamstresses as "mandarin" collars. These are the same sort of collars seen on achkans, sherwanis, and Nehru jackets. or Chairman Mao.
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| Lake dal hair of the Rasul
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| In 1951, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).[10]
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| * The Nehru jacket is named in his honor due to his preferred wearing of jackets that later inspired the Nehru jacket's design. churidar pants,
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