Sant Fateh Singh was a preacher and school founder in the Ganganagar area who entered Akali politics in the 1950s and displaced Master Tara Singh as the leader of the Punjabi Suba movement.
His argument was that the demand should be put purely on linguistic grounds rather than as a Sikh demand, which is what made it winnable within the Indian constitutional framework, and he pressed that line against considerable opposition inside his own party.
He undertook fasts in 1960, 1965 and 1966, and threatened self-immolation, and broke each of them. Darshan Singh Pheruman, who did not break his fast in 1969, is the contrast that Punjab draws.
The Punjabi Suba was granted in 1966 with the Punjab Reorganisation Act, and Chandigarh and the river waters were left unresolved, which they remain.
He founded schools and colleges across the Malwa and Rajasthan.
He got what the movement had asked for and is remembered ambivalently, which is a common fate for people who negotiate rather than refuse.
He led the Punjabi Suba movement after 1960 and was the principal figure in the agitation that produced the reorganisation of 1966.
He undertook fasts unto death on Chandigarh and the river waters and broke each of them, which is the contrast that Darshan Singh Pheruman's death was set against.
He ran schools and colleges in the Malwa and came into politics from that work. He died in 1972.