implemented, holding a Punjabi Province conference in October. Language frontiers had become communal frontiers, and Master Tara Singh considered the Punjabi Suba as the only solution against rising Hindi fanaticism. He called a general meeting of the Shiromani Akali Dal at Patiala on 14 February 1959, which 299 out of 377 members attended. The convention strongly supported restoring the political operation of the Akali Dal. Partap Singh Kairon was himself an advocate of Punjabi and the founding of the Punjabi University for the support and development of the language along with Giani Kartar Singh. His own father Nihal Singh had been a prominent figure in the Singh Sabha enlightenment, the influence of which his own cultural perceptions and affiliations to Punjab and Sikhism had been moulded; he would refer to his proud Singh Sabha upbringing both privately and publicly. He pressed for the establishment of the university, though he repressed Akali influence in favour of bringing Congress influence into rural Punjab; politically active Akalis were still working through Congress per their earlier agreement during this time, joining during his leadership. Congress controlled 120 seats in the legislature out of 164, with 58 Sikhs among them, with nearly 50 representing the Punjabi "region," which had 71 seats total, though former Akali Sikhs were underrepresented compared to Congress Sikhs, and Tara Singh was not satisfied with the number of tickets given to former Akalis, regarding which he had not been consulted. Renewed efforts for the Punjabi Suba The Punjab Government under Kairon remained as politically firm dealing with rival supporters of Punjabi as it had done over the supporters of Hindi, and the political rivalry between Congress and the Akali Dal resulted in the narrow loss of Master Tara Singh in the election for the office of president of the SGPC to another Akali candidate, Prem Singh Lalpura. Tara Singh reacted by arranging a Punjabi Suba conference in Chandigarh, at which he announced his intention of launching a mass movement. He was subsequently arrested, though a silent procession in Delhi on 15 March 1959 proceeded as arranged; the procession, with portraits of Tara Singh, ended in a religious divan at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib, and Tara Singh was released from jail in under a week. While in November 1958 Kairon narrowly dislodged Tara Singh from the SGPC presidency, his subsequent unconstitutional attempt to dilute the SGPC's democracy under the action of accommodating