Word: akali
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...party fared better last week in another of India's new states. In the northwest prairie state of Punjab, Tara Singh, 71, the white-bearded leader of India's 6,000,000 Sikhs, abandoned his fight for a state of Sikhistan, and ordered his 36-year-old Akali Party of bearded, sword-wearing zealots to join the Congress Party. Henceforth, said Masterji Singh, Akali will stick to religious, economic and cultural matters only. His admonition to his Sikhs, traditionally the great warriors of India: "Girdle your loins. Buckle your sword-hilted belts. Shave no more. Visit our temples...
...Moslems can get Pakistan, and the Hindus India, why not a Sikhs' Sikhistan?" But Nehru's Congress Party won over many of Tara Singh's followers to the idea of peace, and of a multiracial India. In the 1951 general elections, Tara Singh's Shiromani Akali party lost heavily. "Ye unbelievers," cried old Tara Singh from out the depths of a magnificent beard, "there will come a time when you will need me and flock around me-for your very survival...