Early Days
An agriculturalist, Tohra was first jailed in 1945 during the Riyasti Praja Mandal Movement in Nabha, in 1950 for formation of popular government in PEPSU. In 1955 and 1960 Tohra was put behind bars in connection with Punjabi Suba agitations, in 1973 in connection with Kisan agitation in Haryana, in 1975, under MISA and under NSA and TADA and religious matters, including Dharam Yudh Morcha and Operation Blue Star (1984).
Tohra became the acting president of SGPC, which manages key Sikh shrines, in 1972 after the death of Sant Chanan Singh and was formally elected its president for the first time in November that year.
Tohra continued to head the SGPC, considered the mini-parliament of the Sikh community, for a record 27 years before he was unceremoniously removed from the key post following a split in SAD in the wake of his revolt against Badal's leadership.
Tohra was arrested during the Emergency and was very popular in Punjab until Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala emerged on the scene and militancy took over Sikh politics.
Read more about this topic: Gurcharan Singh Tohra
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or days:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Some days your hat’s off to the full-time mothers for being able to endure the relentless routine and incessant policing seven days a week instead of two. But on other days, merely the image of this woman crafting a brontosaurus out of sugar paste and sheet cake for her two-year-old’s birthday drives a stake through your heart.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)