Morcha Guru Ka Bagh 1922: the non-violent struggle that shook the Raj

The Morcha Guru Ka Bagh was a non-violent campaign in 1922 at Gurdwara Guru Ka Bagh, about twenty kilometres from Amritsar, during the Gurdwara Reform Movement. For weeks, jathas of Sikhs walked to the gurdwara and were beaten by the police without lifting a hand in return, and their courage moved people across India and abroad.

Firewood for the langar

Guru Ka Bagh, at the village of Ghukewali, is associated with visits by Sri Guru Arjan Dev Ji and Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib Ji. Like many shrines, it had been in the hands of a mahant, who had agreed to hand it to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. But when Sikhs cut firewood for the langar from the trees on the gurdwara's land, as they always had, the mahant complained of theft, and in August 1922 the police arrested five Sikhs.

Jatha after jatha

The SGPC began sending jathas each day to cut wood, each member pledged to non-violence. At the bridge near the gurdwara the police beat them with lathis until they fell, day after day. Hundreds were injured and thousands arrested. The Rev. C. F. Andrews, a friend of Gandhi, came to watch and wrote that he had seen a new heroism, and that the Sikhs had learned the lesson of the cross. Even a jatha of retired soldiers, many decorated in the First World War, took the blows.

The outcome

Under public pressure, the beatings stopped in September, and in November the land was bought by a sympathiser and handed over. The morcha strengthened the movement that led to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925.

How the day is observed

Sangats remember it with kirtan and Ardas at Guru Ka Bagh and elsewhere.