the peaceful campaign to achieve justice from the central indian government began 4 august 1982 under the leadership of the akali party president, harchand singh longowal and six other members of a designated high command, namely parkash singh badal—former chief minister of punjab, gurcharan singh tohra—president of the shiromani gurdwara parbandhak committee, jagdev singh talwandi, surjit singh barnala—former union agriculture minister, sukhjinder singh—former punjab minister, and ravi inder singh—former speaker of the punjab legislature. all in all, it endured some twenty-two months and saw the arrest of more than 200,000 demonstrators in amritsar. the overall campaign was marked by several individual demonstrations. one of the earliest had an unexpected outcome. when longowal declared that sikhs would demonstrate against the central government's injustices at the opening of the asian games scheduled to begin in delhi on 19 november 1982, the prime minister called on the chief minister of haryana to prevent sikhs traveling by road or rail from neighbouring punjab to delhi. the haryana police did this and in the process caused inconvenience to the civilians and army officers coming to the games. harbans singh, on 4 january 1983 there was a mass stoppage of traffic on the major highways. on 17 june 1983 rail traffic was halted by large-scale protests. a statewide work stoppage was held on 29 august 1983. on 26 january 1984, article 25(a) of the constitution, indicating sikhs are hindus, was publicly burned.