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Community in knots as Takht fights Takht
Jagmohan Singh
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The right-wing enemy is amusedly happy and the Sikhs as a whole
are heading towards a divide, similar to the one seen during the
times of the Bandhai Khalsa and Tat Khalsa dispute. |
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AMRITSAR/PATNA:
AT a time of extreme crisis within the Sikh community, here is the
snap shot from the battle front in the year of Guru’ta Gaddi
celebrations: Takht is arraigned against Takht with all the might
possible, one jathedar is calling the others ‘Mahadoshi’, two Takhts
have joined forces against other three, a Supreme temporal leader is
pushed, shoved, jostled, hassled and kept out of the meeting of
Panth’s top clergy, and allegations have come down to issues of
number of marriages a Jathedar has had.
 In the battle of the Takhts, even Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji is being
sought to be arraigned against another Granth that some believe in
fiercely and others detest the idea of seeing it as a competing
scripture.
The Dialogue is dead, and an all out war has been declared. The
simple Akal Purakh-fearing hardworking kirti Sikh men and women are
helplessly watching the scenario unfold.
Compromising the highest ideals of the Sikh religion, the religious
leadership occupying the highest seats of the religion has reached
the nadir of its working style and management of a crises
situation. While everyone saw this coming, including the dramatis
personae themselves, a resolution has not even been attempted
seriously. The insensitivity and upmanship of the Jathedars is
winning the day, the community is losing by the day.
Jathedar Iqbal Singh of Takht Patna Sahib was forcibly and
physically prevented from attending a meeting of the Takhts, his
hukumnamas rejected; he, in turn, reached Patna and rejected the
entire exercise.
Every devout Sikh is upset; the common Sikh has become immune to the
routine infighting; ‘Spokesman’ continues to play dirty teasing the
whole community; the Indian media is lapping up fodder against the
Sikhs and their religious institutions; the Badals are pursuing the
sinister agenda of undermining the Jathedars; the right-wing enemy
is amusedly happy and the community as a whole is heading towards a
divide, similar to the one seen during the times of the Bandhai
Khalsa and Tat Khalsa dispute.
On Tuesday, when Giani Iqbal Singh, the senior-vice-Granthi of Takht
Harmandir Sahib Patna, in cohorts with his team rebuked the Jathedar
of Akal Takht, Amritsar and his team, he set the ball rolling for
another inglorious chapter in the year when they should have been
preaching to the Sikhs and the world the significance of Shabd Guru
as part of the Tercentenary Celebrations of Guruship of Guru Granth
Sahib.
In recent times, Takht Patna Sahib had never issued a hukamnama.
The Jathedar of Patna Sahib, known for his bitter tongue, planned
his way into meetings at Akal Takht, threatened action against the
present chief of SGPC and obtained rights to issue diktats. This
happened sometime back. Since then, he has been plotting one move
after another –supremacy and equality of Takhts, the Nanakshahi
calendar, the Dasam Granth controversy, excommunication of Jathedar
Darshan Singh and others, adding ambiguity to the meaning and ethos
of Hukamnama and Gurmata and many other smaller moves.
Not to be outdone, the Jathedars in Punjab continue to play the game
of either “wait and watch” or “sending emissaries to tide over the
temporary crisis situations” or “willy-nilly continue to play their
own shots” till the situation reached such an impasse. Both are
playing political games and as Jathedar Kulwant Singh of Takht Hazur
Sahib has said, “they invariably resort to road-roller undemocratic
methods, which hinders unity, though we are all for unity of the
Panth.”
So far, Kulwant Singh, the Jathedar of Takht Hazur Sahib has
refrained from being part of the name-calling game and it is hoped
that he will continue to remain incommunicado for such purposes to
the media and the Sikh leadership. He may have made it known his
and the Takht’s opinion about Dasam Granth, but it is not expected
that he would join Giani Iqbal Singh in fostering a vertical divide
in the community.
No one will buy the argument of Jathedar Vedanti that neither he nor
the SGPC leadership were aware that Giani Iqbal Singh would come to
participate in the Jathedars meeting on June 6 at Amritsar. They
knew it. They simply bungled the situation and allowed the nasty
SGPC task force to up the ante and physically humiliate Giani Iqbal
Singh and disallow him to attend the meet. If the Akal Takht
Jathedars and others wanted to discredit Giani Iqbal Singh for
upstaging his authority, they should have done it earlier and not
waited so long.
Furthermore, if the Dera Wadbhag Singh people have to be brought
back within the fold of Sikhism, it is a welcome sign, but the
community should be taken into confidence and all social, religious
and political groups should be involved in the decision-making as is
the tradition.
Using intemperate and unparliamentary language and tactics, both the
sides have saddened the Sikhs. Calling each other “culprits” they
have demeaned the sanctity of the august body. In the coming days,
weeks and months, we will see dirty linen being washed in public in
the name of “White Paper” from both the sides.
The Badal Dal, which covertly calls the tune, both in Amritsar and
Patna, cannot absolve itself of the blame of being
narcissistic. Avtar Singh Makkad in
Amritsar and Mohinder Singh Romana are their men and they have
miserably failed.
Personal misgivings and allegations against the Jathedars apart,
virtually the entire Sikh religious leadership has put the Sikhs to
shame.
Bhai Gurdas in his ballads narrates the journey of Guru Nanak to
Mecca. When the Maulvis there asked Guru Nanak, “Who is superior,
the Hindu or the Muslim?” Guru Nanak’s reply was apt and prompt,
“without good deeds, both are in the wrong”. The same can easily be
said about “our Jathedars”.
Jagmohan Singh
is a commentator based in Ludhiana. He may be contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
11
June,
2008
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