Beant Singh (politician)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Beant Singh

• Beant Singh was an Indian politician and member of the Indian National Congress (INC) who served as the Chief Minister of Punjab from 1992 to 1995.

• His family settled in Montgomery district, Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan) when he was young.

  

• After doing his schooling in Okara, British India (now in Pakistan), he attended Government College University, Lahore.It was during his college days that he first got interested in politics.

  

• Belonging to a family with an army background, Beant Singh served in the British Indian Army for two years after his graduation.

  

• Thereafter, his family moved to the Canal colonies in the Western districts of Punjab.

• During the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Beant Singh’s family was uprooted from its home in Lahore. Thereafter, they temporarily relocated to their ancestral village, Bilaspur.

• In the chaotic partition passageways, Beant Singh aided numerous people in securing a safe path at the border crossing. For about 20 days, Singh’s family was clueless about his whereabouts and whether he was dead or alive.

• After his marriage in 1944, his three eldest children were born in pre-partition Lahore and the youngest two were born in post-partition Ludhiana, India.

  

• Soon after, they moved to the village Kotli (Kotla Afgana) near Payal in the Ludhiana district, where Singh started his political career.

• In the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Beant Singh became the Chief Minister of a terrorism-ridden Punjab. At that time, well-armed Khalistan militants had been demanding an independent country, Khalistan, for nearly 12 years. While assuming the office, Beant Singh said,
  

  I see my job as enforcing law and order…Too many dangerous persons are carrying too many weapons. I have told the police to finish them and my government is with them.”

  

• Although Beant Singh successfully minimized terrorism in Punjab and changed the then-prevailing public perception that all Sikhs were terrorists, he became a target of Khalistani militants who accused him of approving fake encounter killings, abductions, and secret cremations during the insurgency in Punjab. Beant Singh resurrected the overall respect for Sikhs in the country, which had been lost after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, but he was criticized by the Sikhs for the government’s illegal and cruel actions to get rid of Khalistani militants, which had cost many innocent lives.

• While remembering his grandfather in an interview, Beant Singh’s grandson Gurkirat said,
  

  He loved chai a lot. So much that he drank 10-15 cups a day.”

• He was a teetotaler. ^[6]The Print

• To pay a tribute to Beant Singh, a postage stamp featuring his portrait was published. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked about Beant Singh on the release of the stamp, and said,
  

  A great son of India and of Punjab – Sardar Beant Singh ji …. If our society is largely peaceful and secular today, it is only because of the courage and patriotism of people like Sardar Beant Singh ji. Our freedoms are built on the foundation of their hard work and sacrifices-Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh.”

• In his memory, Beant Singh Memorial & Chandigarh Centre for Performing and Visual Arts was established in Sector 42, Chandigarh.