ĀZĀD PUNJAB scheme, signifying a major shift in the kinds of political strategies to be pursued by Sikh political leadership in their efforts to enhance the political influence of their community, was a crucial turning point in the development of modern Sikh politics.

        Ironically, the Communal Award seemed to initiate a process which saw a decreasing emphasis on council representation as a means of community defence. Muslims, for example, saw little benefit from their majority in the Punjab. They still were a minority in India as a whole. Sikhs simply refused to accept their consignment to permanent political subordination. Increasingly, adjustment of territorial boundaries to enhance a community's political influence was stressed. In the 1930's the notion of a separate territorial entity for their community began to gain ground among Muslims. In 1940, at its Lahore session, the Muslim League pushed forward a separatist territorial claim for the Indian Muslim community and demanded Pakistan as a separate sovereign State for Muslims.

        The demand for a territorial rearrangement to enhance Sikh political influence was revived in 1943 by the Akālī Dal in the form of the Āzād Punjab scheme, which was the brain-child of Giānī Kartār Siṅgh. Like the earlier formulation, the scheme called for the detachment of Muslim majority districts from Punjab to create a new province, Āzād Punjab, in which the Sikh population was maximized and in which no single community, constituted a majority. The Akālī Dal president, Master Tārā Siṅgh, said that Āzād Punjab "shall comprise Ambala, Jullundur, Lahore divisions, and out of the Multan division, Lyallpur District, some portion of Montgomery and Multan districts. " In this way, Sikhs, it was argued, would achieve the balance of power in the province and would gain the maximum benefit from their numbers. Territory became the key to preservation of the Sikh community. Hindus and Muslims, Master Tārā Siṅgh pointed out, could look to their co-religionists in other provinces where they constituted majorities, but Sikhs had no such alternative and required this form of protection until something better was proposed. As radical as the Āzād Punjab scheme was and despite its popularity in the Sikh community, it was quickly shuttled aside by events. As the possibility of the partition of the Punjab grew, the scheme became less and less meaningful. The spectre of Muslim domination was replaced by the fear that the Sikh community would be split between India and Pakistan. Territorial rearrangement took a still more radical twist as increasing numbers of Sikhs began to demand an independent Sikh State, a demand ultimately lost in the politics surrounding Partition. The quick demise of the Āzād Punjab scheme is not a true measure of its significance. As the first popular formulation of territorial rearrangement as a means of protection for the community, it set a pattern that continued to persist in Sikh politics for a long time.

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Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, vol. 2. Princeton, 1966
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Gerald A. Heeger

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