Chandigarh: Gurcharan Singh Tohra, the longest reigning "Pope" of the Sikhs, rose from scratch to emerge as the patriarch and rebel in the rough and tumble of the community's religion-politics.

Born at Tohra village of Patiala district in Punjab in September 1924, he had an early interest in religion and was an active Akali worker even before the partition of India. He became General Secretary of the Patiala unit of the Akali Dal in 1947.

Tohra, a graduate in Punjabi from Lahore University, worked at the grass roots for the next two decades and came into contact with Communists, including CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist) leader Harkishan Singh Surjit though he did not become one himself.

Known as a hardliner, Tohra had carved out for himself the image of a non-conformist with the powers-that-be in Akali politics and had taken frontline SAD (Shiromani Akali Dal) leaders Surjit Singh Barnala and Parkash Singh Badal who had headed Akali Dal Governments in Punjab in the eighties and nineties.

He joined hands with Badal in June last year after the SAD-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) alliance was routed from power during the Assembly elections in Punjab.

An agriculturalist, Tohra was first jailed in 1945 during Riyasti Praja Mandal Movement in Nabha, in 1950 for formation of popular Government in PEPSU, in 1955 and 1960 in connection with Punjabi Suba agitations, in 1973 in connection with Kisan agitation in Haryana, in 1975, under MISA and during 1982-92 for the cause of farmers, Punjabis, protection of human rights under NSA and TADA and religious matters, including Dharam Yudh Morcha and operation Blue Star (1984).