Political Career
Musafir joined the freedom movement in the early 1920s and courted arrest several times till 1947. He courted arrest in the Civil disobedience movement in 1930. He became the head of Sri Akal Takht, central seat of religious authority for the Sikhs. He held this office from 12 March 1930 to 5 March 1931. He also served for a time as secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee as well as general secretary of the Shiromani Akali Dal. He also courted arrest as part of Satyagraha and Quit India movements.
In 1949, he became the President of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. He held the office of the President for 12 years and was also an elected member of the Congress Working Committee. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957 and 1962, representing Amritsar constituency. In 1966, he resigned from the Lok Sabha and became the Chief Minister of Punjab state after its re-organization. In 1967, he contested the Vidhan Sabha election from Amritsar constituency, but he was defeated by Satya Pal Dang of the Communist Party of India. He was the member of the Rajya Sabha from 1968 to 1974. Musafir died in Delhi on 18 January 1976. He was posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan in 1976.
Musafir was a member of the Indian delegations to the International Peace Conference in Stockholm in 1954, World Peace Conference in Helsinki in 1965, and the World Peace Conference in Berlin in 1969. He also led the Indian delegations to the World Progressive Writers Conference in Japan in 1961 and the Indian Writers Afro-Asian Conference in Baku in 1965.
Read more about this topic: Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir
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