Dal Khalsa is a movement of rights and aspirations

Dal Khalsa is a movement for restoration of the glorious period of the history of the Sikh people, when they ruled the Punjab and were masters of their own destiny. Dal Khalsa is a phase in the contemporary history of the Sikhs, which will not die without a whimper, which will continue to call a spade a spade, which will do what others in the community shy from and which will continue to hold its head high so that the dignity and honour of the community is never compromised.http://www.punjabiturban.com/index.php

Dal Khalsa has had three distinct avtars through various times in history. The first was the Dal Khalsa of the medieval times, under the tutelage of the Misl chiefs. On 29 March, 1748, at Amritsar, various Sikh chieftains joined hands to form the Dal Khalsa under the command of Sardar Jassa Singh Ahluwalia to counter the armed invasion of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who occupied Lahore in January of the same year.

The 11 units of Dal Khalsa functioned as a confederacy with faith as the constitution embodied in the tradition of the collective resolutions of the Sarbat Khalsa –the biannual Assembly of the Sikh people.

The nomenclature Dal Khalsa was again revived, nearly after two centuries, for the rationale was the same–to counter the onslaught of the mighty Indian state which was determined to crush the aspirations of the Sikh people. In the religious environs of Gurdwara Akalgarh of Sector 35, Chandigarh on 6 August 1978, a dedicated team of young Sikhs led by Gajinder Singh, Satnam Singh Paonta Sahib, Harsimran Singh and others vowed to instil the traditional spirit of rebellion amongst Sikhs and challenge the traditional Akali leadership of the times and thus brought about the birth of the Dal Khalsa of the 19th century. This lasted for nearly half a decade, culminating in the flight of the pioneers from the Sikh homeland to keep the flag of being a sui generis people alive. The government of the day invoked ban on the organisation on May 1, 1982 that lapsed in May 1992.http://www.punjabiturban.com/gallery.htm

The present day Dal Khalsa is a political organisation, of course with the same aims and objectives as the earlier two avtars. In a sense, only the baton has been passed on by forces of history.

In the late nineties of the last century, when things seemed to have died down, when the governments of the day in Punjab and at the centre in Delhi, were living in the glee of having crushed the spirit of freedom, Kanwarpal Singh and his new team reignited the flavour and aspiration for the right to an independent Sikh state through the third avtar of the Dal Khalsa, in Amritsar on 6 August 1998, which continues to be around till this day.http://www.punjabiturban.com/feed.php

Dal Khalsa does not lose its focus of its mission in all its activities, ranging from seeking associate status for the Sikh Nation at the United Nations, observing the martyrdom day of Sikh martyrs including Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, holding of a week-long Sikh Freedom March from Akal Takht to Takht Damdama Sahib, unfurling of the Sikh National Flag of the Sarkar-e-Khalsa in defiance of the Indian tricolour on 26 January 2005, compiling a who’s who of martyrs of the Saka June 1984, holding a series of road shows urging the government to regulate the flow of migrant labour into the state that is destroying the demographic framework of the Punjabi Suba and joining hands with like-minded Sikh parties to systematically question and challenge the policies and programmes of Indian mainstream political parties.

Dal Khalsa, in the true spirit of Sikhism, is not partisan in its yearning for freedom. It upholds the right to freedom of all ethnic and religious minorities, including the Kashmiris and the various peoples of the north-east. Dal Khalsa maintains live liaison with the key representatives of these ethnic minorities to share opinions and ideas, express solidarity in times of distress and need and to devise programmes and strategies to put up a common front against the onslaught of the Indian state.

The present team of Dal Khalsa is a dedicated band of volunteers and activists, who in their never-say-die spirit continue to engage the people of Punjab in various activities designed to seek the right to self-determination for the Sikh people in their beleaguered homeland Punjab.

Dal Khalsa stands committed to an independent and sovereign Punjab, to be achieved by democratic and peaceful means by engaging the United Nations and the international community.