CHANDIGARH: A confrontation is developing between the Punjab Government and the SGPC over holding of elections to the Sikh religious body.
Elections to the SGPC were last held in 1980, these could not be organized after that because of the disturbed law and order situation in Punjab.
Now when there is a semblance. Of peace, the Chief Minister, Beant Singh, has set his face against it. He has made it clear on more than one occasion in recent days that the government will like to wash its hands off the SGPC, which came into being in 1925.
He and his party men have taken to wondering aloud whether the SGPC is a useful institution any longer because of its failure to fulfill its assigned role in managing gurdwaras in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Act of 1925.
The Chief Minister is credited with the view that the role of the SGPC, especially its chief, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, has been very controversial during the more than a decade old history of militancy in Punjab.
The SGPC has repeatedly failed to uphold the sanctity of gurdwaras by allowing antisocial elements to carry out their undesirable activities from these shrines. Even the Golden Temple complex was allowed to be taken over by militants, who lost no time in turning it into a safe sanctuary and a dumping ground for weapons. The debris of Akal Takht was used by the militants to bury the bodies of their victims, such activities by the militants and a complete abandoning of its responsibilities by the SGPC were the causes for the Operation Bluestar in 1984 and Operation Black Thunder II in 1988.
If peace is returning to Punjab and the gurdwaras are largely free from the influence of the militants, it is certainly not due to the SGPC’s efforts.
In an interview, Beant Singh says the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925 came into being as a culmination of a long struggle launched by the Sikhs to free the gurdwaras from the clutches of mahants, who were indulging in all sorts of undesirable activities.
For the first few years, gurdwaras were an aged properly. But in recent years, undesirable activities have started taking place in them.
The Chief Minister says although envisaged as a religious body, the SGPC has over the years allowed itself to be converted into a political instrument. Its president spends most of his time politicking and is Known to nurse the ambition of becoming the Chief Minister of Punjab. The horse-trading indulged in by Tohra at the time of the annual election of the office-bearers of the SGPC will put to shame a political organization.
Beant Singh is convinced that the SGPC has timed itself into a base for the Akalis and provides facilities available in shrines to propagate their ideology and carry out political activities; this phenomenon is also responsible to a large extent in spreading of fundamentalism besides giving a fillip to militancy in Punjab in recent years.
Beant Singh is determined to change all that. With this end in view, he has already launched 2 campaigns in the state to educate the people and crystallize public opinion against the undesirable activities of the SGPC. He also questions the usefulness of the SGPC in the present circumstances.
He points out that no such body exists in other religion. Hindus manage their shrines through committees constituted at the local level, so do the Christians. Why do the Sikhs need the SGPC? They too should manage the affairs of the gurdwaras through local committees. There are many gurdwaras in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh which are being managed efficiently by the local Sikhs.
The Chief Minister is also critical of the bogey of “government interference” in the religious affairs raised from time to time by Tohra and other Akalis, “By retaining a provision in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act under which the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar conducts the elections and presides over the first meeting of the members, the SGPC has itself invited interference from the government. I am also against government interference, Hence, my reluctance to call for elections in the SGPC,” Beant Singh says.
The Chief Minister points out that Tohra had vowed a few years ago not to seek reelection as president of the SGPC only to break it with impunity a year later, “And the argument he gave was that he had agreed to become the SGPC chief again in order to prevent the government from taking it over through the DC of Amritsar. If this is so, then why is he asking the same government to come and organize elections to the SGPC?” asked the Chief Minister.
Beant Singh has made it clear that he is against any government role in the SGPC and if need be, the Sikh Gurdwaras Act should be amended. He himself has not taken up the matter with the Center but he expects the Sikhs to come out in favor of it.
The wily politician that he is, Tohra has been quick to sense trouble. He is aware that if the government succeeds in its plans, it will mean the end of his 18yearlong rule over the Sikh religions body and the dissipation of vast resources at its command, Little wonder, there has been stiff opposition from him and other Akalis, Tohra has threatened to include safeguarding of the SGPC in the list of demands of future morchas to be launched by his party. (Courtesy “The Tribune”).
Article extracted from this publication >> February 26, 1993
