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Sarnaji, forget amendment, try mending ways
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What does this amendment bring for the Sikhs is what should be
the talking point. There is no doubt that with this move, there
would be comparatively less politicking for the post of the
president of the board, as within six months of their election,
every incumbent of the committee used to begin making
preparations for the next elections. The preparations were so
extensive that the primary purpose of such committees –effective
Gurdwara management and Gurmat Parchar was totally ignored. |
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 Dear Sardar
Paramjit Singh ji
Waheguru Ji Ka
Khalsa
Waheguru Ji Ki
Fateh!
Over the years
you have emerged as the archrival of the Badal-style politics in
Delhi
and that has given the Sikhs some relief in
Delhi
and elsewhere. Almost every Sikh well versed with Sikh political
affairs talks of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee being
different from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. I have
closely watched your working in the last few years and I admire your
gut and spirit to stand up to Badal and his cohorts in
Delhi.
I write this
letter to you to express my thoughts on the recent intervention by
the Delhi
government in the affairs of the DSGMC. On the surface, it appears
a healthy development but it brings out the gaping holes in the
systems of Gurdwara management.
The amendment to
the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1971 by the Delhi government, which
extended the term of the executive board of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara
Management Committee from the present one to two years, showed your
skills in political maneuvering in getting things done. By itself,
this is a significant development.
Considering the
fact that even the SGPC is also seeking amendments to the Sikh
Gurdwara Act 1925 seeking extension of the SGPC board from the
present one to two and a half years, you have been able to move
ahead faster than them adequately demonstrating your prowess in
pursuing matters which affect the Sikhs in one way or the other.
The statement of
objects and reasons of the amending act called, the Delhi Sikh
Gurudwaras (Amendment) Act, 2008 says that the Act was necessary “as
it has been seen over the years that the elections of the President
or the office bearers or other members of the Board had never been
held after one year and was delayed by several months.”
It further says
that "As a result of this, there is a common feature of horse
trading amongst the members to take support by one group or the
other before completion of the annual elections”, and that “ample
time was wasted in reconstitution of the managing committees of
various institutions run by the Committee.”
Similar
arguments were verbally made by the
Delhi education
Minister, Arvinder Singh Lovely when he moved the amendment bill in
the Assembly.
As was expected
the opposition led by the
Delhi unit of
the SAD (Badal) opposed the move, terming it as “intervention in the
religious affairs of the Sikhs”.
What does this
amendment bring for the Sikhs is what should be the talking point.
There is no doubt that with this move, there would be comparatively
less politicking for the post of the president of the board, as
within six months of their election, every incumbent of the
committee used to begin making preparations for the next elections.
The preparations were so extensive that the primary purpose of such
committees –effective Gurdwara management and Gurmat Parchar was
totally ignored.
I wish to let
you know that I also spearheaded the move seeking amendment to the
Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925 for making 30 percent reservation of seats
for women in the SGPC, during the brief term of Deve Gowda as the
prime minister of the country. As you would know, we were
successful in the move.
The present move
by you and the one, which I made raise a major issue. It is very
easy for any government to make amendments to our Gurdwara Acts. In
both these cases, the amendments were made for the collective good
of the Sikh people, but the room for mischief in the Act remains. I
cannot my meeting with the late Home Minister Indrajit Gupta in this
connection. When I told him that an amendment to the Sikh Gurdwara
Act can be done by a mere notification of the Ministry of Home
Affairs, he was more than shocked. He asked me, "How is it that
Sikhs are sleeping over this and tolerating this?"
The amendment
you got done is a major amendment to the Act in about 40 years. The
one amendment which sticks in the memory of Sikhs was the one which
Indira Gandhi got done to downgrade the qualifications of a member
seeking election to the DSGMC, when she wanted to foist Jathedar
Santokh Singh (whose son Manjit Singh had formed the Panthak party
which recently merged with the Shiromani Akali Dal led by Parkash
Singh Badal) into the Delhi Gurdwara Committee.
This is my major
fear and that is why I write to you. Good intentions and malafide
intentions follow the same route and there appears to be no
foolproof mechanism within the Acts to counter or check any wrong,
which a determined government at any point may want to do.
Furthermore,
there is a dire need to get other major amendments done to both the
Acts, and here too you should make a beginning. I will outline two
of them:
-
General
elections should be mandatory. Like all elections, the Gurdwara
Elections should happen by default and should not await the nod of
the incumbent party.
-
As these Acts
are part of the statute, as per the provisions of the Act, the
Gurdwara Election Tribunal should carry out the voter registration
process with the support of an independent panel.
Like the
extension of the term of the President, these two areas make the
elections in
Delhi
and Punjab to the Gurdwara Committees a big mockery. Elections to
the Local Committees of Gurdwaras were held in 1995 after a gap of
39 years! It suited the incumbent party and the government not to
hold elections for all these years.
In
Delhi
as well as in
Punjab, the
percentage of people participating in the election process is so
small that the common man’s refrain is that “it is better to stay
away from such elections”.
I think that you
need to inspire more faith in the electorate in
Delhi
–more for participation in the process for it to become more
legitimate. This can come through the proposed legislation and a
continuous campaign to decrease such politicking which impinges on
impropriety and which causes hurt to the faith of the devout.
Pragmatism has
been the hallmark of your functioning and given the trying
circumstances in which Sikhs outside the state of
Punjab live,
your courage and forthright behavior is by and large praiseworthy.
The manner in which you have created affinity with the Pakistan
Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee will also go down in history as a key
development of our times.
What flows from
my first fear is the fear of the pressure of political
intervention. The Badal Dal has already started a campaign that it
wants to rid the DSGMC of “proxy Congress control.” Is there such a
thing? Does the Congress influence you?
Even though
there may be some room to give you benefit of doubt, you flout your
nearness to the Congress and this is another worrisome factor in
your working. The Sikhs in
Punjab had
started to look upto you as an alternative to the Badal feudal sway,
till you seriously faltered in the Dera Sauda affair when the
government insisted that you “intervene to resolve the issue.” I
know that you would not accept that you made a mistake because that
characteristically, that is difficult to admit, but the fact remains
that in that particular case you erred in haste and marred your
standing.
Petty
politicking has been the bane of Sikh politics. The
politicalisation of Sikh religious affairs inherently contains
pitfalls. You have the opportunity to undo wrongs and set new
precedents.
I strongly urge
you to beef up the administrative structure, the Gurmat Parchar
network and involve Sikh activists to evolve a mechanism which can
rectify serious drawbacks in various Acts in force in the country.
A deeper analysis would show that there is not much to choose
between the SGPC and the DSGMC when it comes to effective management
and Parchar. With the Tercentenary celebrations of Guruship of Guru
Granth Sahib approaching soon, neither of the two bodies has made
any short-term or long-term programmes.
I have a strong
feeling that by the sheer force of your personal integrity you would
be in a position to dominate Sikh political affairs, atleast in
Delhi,
for a long time to come. I appeal to you to further use your skills
of negotiations and diplomacy purely from the standpoint of Sikh
interests.
With best wishes
and prayers. Rab Rakha.
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh
is a commentator on Sikh religio-political affairs. He may be
contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
16
April 2008
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