He was the Union Home Minister, served as Bihar’s Governor, and was one of the tallest Dalit leaders in the Congress ranks in Punjab. Now, the party’s state president, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, is under fire over “casteist” comments made about Buta Singh, and an FIR was registered against him on Tuesday.
Campaigning for the Tarn Taran Assembly bypoll, scheduled to be held on November 11, Warring referred to Buta Singh’s community, Mazhabi Sikhs, and his complexion in one of his speeches, pointing out how the Congress made him the country’s Home Minister. As the state Congress president and Ludhiana MP faced a backlash after the videos of the speech went viral online, the state’s Scheduled Castes Commission took suo motu cognisance of the remarks. On November 4, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) acted on BJP leader Tarun Chug’s complaint and asked the police to submit a report within seven days.
The Kapurthala police on Tuesday filed an FIR against Warring on a complaint from Singh’s son Sarabjot, said SSP Gaurav Toora, invoking Sections 353 (public mischief) and 196 (promoting enmity on grounds of religion, race, etc) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with provisions of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Finding himself on the back foot, Warring has said Buta Singh was “like a father figure” to him and his remarks were meant to highlight the Congress’s “inclusive character”. He also said he would “unconditionally apologise if anyone felt hurt”.
For the Congress and the Warring, a perceived insult to Buta Singh presents a political problem, as Punjab has the highest proportion of SC population in the country (32%, as per the 2011 Census) and even now, parties reaching out to Mazhabi Sikhs and Balmikis continue to invoke the legacy of the former Congress leader. Of the 34 SC-reserved Assembly seats, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 30, the Congress 3, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) 1 in the 2022 Assembly polls, with the path to power travelling through these constituencies.
Who is Buta Singh?
The Congress leader was born in 1934 in the village of Mustafapur in Jalandhar district. Academically inclined, he completed his Master’s degree in Punjabi from Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Bombay and then his PhD from the University of Bombay on the “Concept of state in Sikh politics”.
Singh began his political career with the SAD, contesting and winning from the Moga Lok Sabha seat in 1962 by defeating the Congress’s Chanan Singh by more than 30,000 votes. Two years later, a few months after Jawaharlal Nehru’s death, he switched to the Congress, beginning a decades-long association with the party.
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He was elected to the Lok Sabha eight times, representing Moga once, Ropar in Punjab thrice, and Jalore in Rajasthan four times. In 2014, he contested as an Independent from Jalore after the Congress denied him a ticket, but lost.
Singh held several key ministerial portfolios under Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and P V Narasimha Rao, serving as the Deputy Minister for Railways (1974–76), Minister of State for Supply and Rehabilitation (1976–77), Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Sports (1980–82), Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development (1982–84), and finally as Union Home Minister (1986–89) under Rajiv Gandhi. As the Home Minister, he played a key role in handling the militancy crisis in Punjab and in implementing the Rajiv–Longowal Accord, signed in 1985 with the aim of resolving political, territorial, and water-sharing issues believed to have fuelled militancy and unrest.
In 1998, Singh resigned as Union Communications Minister after his name figured in the JMM bribery case. However, the Delhi High Court in March 2002 acquitted both Narasimha Rao and Singh for lack of evidence, overturning the conviction by a Special CBI judge two years earlier. In November 2004, Singh was appointed the Bihar Governor, but he resigned on January 29, 2006, after the Supreme Court declared his recommendation to dissolve the Assembly in 2005 as unconstitutional, a major embarrassment for the UPA government that had accepted his advice.
Singh served as NCSC chairman from 2007 to 2010. In between, in 2008, he even took leave from office to campaign for his son Arvinder Singh, who won the Deoli Assembly seat in Delhi. Arvinder Singh was MLA from 2008 to 2013, before moving to the BJP in 2015 after the Congress denied his father a poll ticket. He returned to the Congress in 2019 but passed away in November 2021, months after his father’s death in January at the age of 86 following a brain haemorrhage.
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While the Opposition has targeted Warring — state Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema has demanded that Rahul Gandhi remove Warring as the state Congress president, and the SAD has also sought legal action — his own party has not rushed to his defence. Former CM Charanjit Singh Channi, who is also from the Dalit community, is the Jalandhar MP at present, has criticised Warring’s remarks, emphasising the need for “greater sensitivity” when talking about figures such as Buta Singh.