By Jaideep Sarin, IANS,
Chandigarh: Power politics seems to be at the heart of the Haryana government’s move to set up a separate body to administer gurdwaras in the state and the Punjab-based Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) opposition to it.
While there is a Congress government in Haryana as also at the centre, the Akali Dal is the dominant ruling party in Punjab.
The Haryana government, led by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has said a new SGPC for the state could be announced Nov 1 this year. But the Amritsar-based SGPC has warned of a serious fallout of the “ill-advised” move by Haryana and has sought the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the country’s first Sikh prime minister, in the matter.
The SGPC, called the mini-parliament of Sikhs, is dominated by the ruling Akali Dal in Punjab and is a cash-rich organization with an annual budget of nearly Rs.4.5 billion. Much of this money comes from offerings made at gurdwaras, especially the holiest of Sikh shrines, Harmandar Sahib, popularly known as the Golden Temple.
The budget does not include other expensive offerings, including gold, ornaments and equipment, made to the shrines by devotees from India and abroad.
The majority of gurdwaras in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are under the control of the SGPC under the Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1925.
The SGPC does not want to let go of the control of gurdwaras in Haryana. The state has seven major historical gurdwaras under direct SGPC control while 18 other gurdwaras have local managements indirectly linked to the SGPC.
SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar has accused the Congress governments at the centre and in Haryana of trying to divide Sikhs by trying to set up a separate SGPC.
If the Haryana government insists on setting up a separate SGPC, the central government will have to bring in an amendment in the Gurdwara Act. The timing of the announcement by Hooda, just months before Haryana’s assembly polls, is being seen as a political attempt to appease Sikhs in Haryana.
Sikhs are in a minority in Haryana. The state government had set up a committee last year under cabinet minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha, himself a Sikh leader, to prepare a report after getting the views of Haryana Sikhs. A total of 128,566 affidavits were filed before the committee seeking a separate SGPC for Haryana.
The Sikh leaders in Haryana are demanding their own SGPC on the basis of separate gurdwara managements in Delhi and other places. They accuse the Amritsar-based SGPC of neglecting Haryana gurdwaras and Sikhs, despite these shrines contributing a revenue of Rs.100 million to the SGPC kitty annually over the years.
The leaders had been demanding autonomy for Haryana gurdwaras for a long time but the SGPC did not pay heed. In fact, some Sikh leaders from Haryana have been ignored by the SGPC at the cost of those who toe the SGPC and the Akali Dal line.
One such leader has been losing SGPC elections in Haryana but was co-opted by the SGPC leadership and was made a senior office bearer. This led to a heartburn among other elected SGPC members from Haryana.
The 170-member SGPC holds its elections every five years. It controls nearly 200 Sikh shrines and religious and educational institutions.
But it has no control over gurdwaras in Delhi, which are managed by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (DSGPC), Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and some other states.
Gurdwaras in Pakistan, especially Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev’s birthplace Nankana Sahib near Lahore, are now controlled by the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC). The SGPC had vehemently opposed the formation of the PSGPC a few years ago, but the Pakistan government paid no heed.
A number of gurdwaras in the United States, Canada, Britain, European countries and other parts of the world are run by local managements which have no SGPC control.
Out of the five ‘takhts’ (high religious seats), the Patna Sahib Takht (Bihar) and the Hazur Sahib (Nanded, Maharashtra) are not under SGPC control.
Three other Takhts – Akal Takht (Amritsar), Takht Keshgarh Sahib (Anandpur Sahib, 90 km from Chandigarh) and Takht Damdama Sahib (near Bathinda) – are with the SGPC. The Akal Takht is the highest temporal seat of Sikhism.
(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at [email protected])