Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was born on 2 June 1947 as Jarnail Singh Brar to a Jat Sikh family in the village of Rode, in Moga District. He dropped out of school five years after starting in 1953, at age 11, to work with his father on the farm. In 1965, his father enrolled him at the Damdami Taksal, a religious school near Moga, named after the village of Bhindran Kalan. After a one-year course with Gurbachan Singh Khalsa, he rejoined his family and returned to farming, marrying in 1966. He continued studies under Kartar Singh, who became the new head of the Taksal after Gurbachan Singh Khalsa's death in June 1969, and quickly became Kartar Singh's favourite student. Kartar Singh died in a car accident on 16 August 1977, having appointed the then 31-year-old Bhindranwale as his successor. Bhindranwale was formally elected the 14th jathedar of the Damdami Taksal at a bhog ceremony at Mehta Chowk on 25 August 1977. He adopted the name 'Bhindranwale' meaning 'from [the village of] Bhindran [Kalan]', and attained the religious title of 'Sant'.

Reader's Guide

Bhindranwale remains a controversial figure in Indian history. The Sikhs' highest temporal authority, the Akal Takht, describes him as a 'Martyr', with immense appeal among rural sections of the Sikh population, who saw him as a powerful leader who stood up to Indian state dominance and repression. Many Indians, however, saw him as spearheading a 'revivalist, extremist and terrorist movement'. In 1982, Bhindranwale and his group moved to the Golden Temple complex and made it his headquarters, establishing what amounted to a 'parallel government' in Punjab, settling cases and resolving disputes while conducting his campaign. In 1983, he along with his militant cadre inhabited and fortified the Sikh shrine Akal Takht. In June 1984, Operation Blue Star was carried out by the Indian Army to remove him and his armed followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib, resulting in hundreds to thousands of deaths according to various reports, including that of Bhindranwale. He posthumously became the leading figure for the Khalistan movement, although he did not personally advocate for a separate Sikh nation.

Did You Know?

• Bhindranwale was the seventh of eight siblings, with seven brothers and one sister.
• He married Pritam Kaur at age nineteen; the couple had two sons, Ishar Singh (born 1971) and Inderjit Singh (born 1975).
• He never learned English but had a good grasp of the Punjabi language, and his speeches were released on audio cassette tapes and circulated in villages.
• As a social reformer, he denounced practices like the dowry and encouraged a return to simple lifestyle, abstaining from drugs and alcohol.
• Khushwant Singh, a critic of Bhindranwale, allowed that his amrit parchar was a resounding success, with adults in their thousands taking oaths to abjure liquor, tobacco and drugs.