WSN IN­VES­TIGA­TIVE RE­PORT: World Sikh News ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh has been ac­tively as­so­ci­ated with so­cial ac­tivists, con­ser­va­tion cam­paign­ers and po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties to fo­cus at­ten­tion on Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib in Puri, which has been on the verge of de­struc­tion and obliv­ion.  In a four-part in­ves­tiga­tive re­port and analy­sis, WSN re­ports how Sikh pre­mier bod­ies have col­luded with vested in­ter­ests and how the whole cam­paign to save the her­itage site of this place -Mangu Mutt, was ear­lier sab­o­taged but SGPC and other bod­ies who are now hy­per­ac­tive. This first part is an overview of the in­ves­tiga­tive analy­sis -chron­i­cling the his­tory, leg­end and con­tem­po­rary fic­tion about Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib.

THE SIKHS HAVE BEEN GROSSLY NEG­LI­GENT IN PRO­TEC­TION and preser­va­tion of its glo­ri­ous her­itage, not only in home­land Pun­jab but across the rest of In­dia too.  Apart from the re­cent fo­cus on Sikh Gur­d­waras and in­sti­tu­tions in Pak­istan, the Sikhs and their bod­ies, es­pe­cially the SGPC will have to shoul­der the full blame for ig­nor­ing this as­pect of the Sikh her­itage for a long time. The Gu­ru’s her­itage and the marks of Sikh his­tory in Bangladesh have still to be touched, not to speak of thou­sands of places in West­ern and East­ern In­dia.

It is dis­heart­en­ing that the pre­sent Sikh lead­er­ship or the Sikh rep­re­sen­ta­tives from SGPC, DS­GMC, OSPB and GSS Bhubanesh­war have not taken the trou­ble to share the glo­ri­ous his­tory of the Sikh her­itage in Puri and Odisha with the Sikh pop­u­la­tion in that state and be­yond. They do not seem to be aware of his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences and facts to val­i­date and en­dorse the faith and claims of the Sikh com­mu­nity.

Cel­e­brat­ing the 550 years of Guru Nanak, it is our duty to re­store all her­itage on the foot­steps of Guru Nanak dur­ing his four jour­neys, in­clud­ing many other cen­tres and Puri-con­sid­ered to be one of the four dhams -re­li­gious cen­tres of Hin­duism.

Sikhs have to re­claim this her­itage at Puri and re­build it as a trib­ute to the com­pos­ite ethos of Sikhism en­com­pass­ing Sikh tra­di­tions, Udassi cul­ture, NanakPan­thi be­liefs, the Kabir­Pan­thi affin­ity with Gu­ru’s Bani and many oth­ers who re­vere Guru Nanak.

Since the last five months, ef­forts are on to re­claim and re­store the Sikh her­itage in Puri. The World Sikh News has been at the fore­front in the bat­tle to save this glo­ri­ous com­pos­ite and shared her­itage which has as­so­ci­a­tional ref­er­ence to the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple.

I am not a his­to­rian but I have delved deep into his­tory, as much as I can, to prove the Sikh claim to Mangu Mutt, Pun­jabi Mutt and Gur­d­wara Baoli Mutt. I am chron­i­cling here de­tails based on my two vis­its, in­ter­ac­tion with ex­perts and read­ing of his­tor­i­cal texts.

The pre­sent analy­sis per­tains to the his­toric­ity, leg­end and the fudg­ing of his­tory of Mangu Mutt and Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib by a sec­tion of the Sikh com­mu­nity in full com­plic­ity with the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, lead­er­ship of the Akal Takht Sahib and the Takht Sri Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib, with tacit com­plic­ity of the Orissa Sikh Pra­tinidhi Board.

This is also a tale of how the Odisha gov­ern­ment and its lo­cal ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials, not out of de­fault but with full knowl­edge of facts and his­tory, at­tempted to fol­low the Supreme Court and other or­ders in toto and how they hob­nobbed with sec­tions of Sikh lead­er­ship, with­out car­ing for his­tory and leg­end re­lat­ing to Guru Nanak Sahib and deeply hurt­ing the sen­ti­ments of the Sikh com­mu­nity de­spite timely and con­certed protes­ta­tions. Their in­dif­fer­ence can­not be con­doled though it must be said that had the Sikh lead­er­ship pre­sented their case ap­pro­pri­ately to the power cen­tres in the Tem­ple ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Odisha gov­ern­ment, things may not have taken a wrong turn.

As per his­tor­i­cal records, Guru Nanak Sahib vis­ited Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple at Puri in 1506 CE, though some records put it as 1508, dur­ing his sec­ond Udassi -long spir­i­tual jour­ney, one of the four that he car­ried out in what makes 9 coun­tries of the pre­sent times.

There is no mis­tak­ing the fact that Guru Nanak Sahib, dur­ing the sec­ond Udassi -long jour­neys vis­ited Puri and in­ter­acted with the lo­cal Pan­das and other learned men. Upon see­ing the grandeur of the Aarti within the tem­ple precincts, Guru Nanak Sahib, in his typ­i­cal style, in­stead of an in­qui­si­tion of the tem­po­ral na­ture of the Aarti, re­cited the Sikh Aarti –“Gagan mein thaal rav chand deepak,” ex­tolling the Unity of God -Ik Onkar and telling hu­mankind that the Aarti of the Form­less One con­tin­ues day and night. All pre­sent were spell-bound by Arati sung by Guru Nanak Sahib to the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of Bhai Mar­dana’s Rabab.

“An easy way to ease the sit­u­a­tion and stream­line the con­struc­tion of the ac­tual Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib next to sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of the hos­pice called Mangu Mutt is to en­sure that the Odisha gov­ern­ment in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and ex­perts builds a Gur­d­wara in mem­ory of the visit of Guru Nanak out­side the main door of the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple, a few me­tres away from the Singh Dwar, which is around the place of the Mangu Mutt and which does not dis­turb the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and build­ing of the cor­ri­dor around the tem­ple which is be­ing car­ried out by the En­dow­ment Com­mis­sioner of the Tem­ple and the Odisha gov­ern­ment as per Supreme Court or­ders.”

The re­cent de­mo­li­tion of a big por­tion of the Mangu Mutt, ex­cept the sanc­tum sanc­to­rum by the Odisha gov­ern­ment de­spite con­certed at­tempts to save the Sikh her­itage in Puri, es­pe­cially the her­itage of Mangu Mutt, Nanak Mutt and Baoli Mutt which has a sig­nif­i­cant ref­er­ence to the visit of the first Mas­ter of the Sikh faith -Guru Nanak to the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple, as part of the Udas­sis -jour­neys of Guru Nanak, has brought into fo­cus the his­toric­ity and au­then­tic­ity of the Sikh claim.

“Every­one from among the Sikhs -from the Gur­d­wara lead­ers to the pre­mier Sikh bod­ies have to share blame for not tak­ing care of his­tory and her­itage,” said Dr Hi­madri Baner­jee -renowned Sikh his­to­rian, while speak­ing to WSN.

Anil Dhir has been ex­hort­ing the Sikhs to awaken to the de­signs of the Odisha gov­ern­ment for beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and ex­pan­sion, pur­suant to Pub­lic In­ter­est lit­i­ga­tions and Supreme Court or­ders, but sadly to no avail. Doc­u­ments ac­cessed by The World Sikh News scream about the start com­plic­ity of the Sikh lead­er­ship at all lev­els to sub­vert the truth.  Anil Dhir – a se­ri­ous re­searcher, with roots in Sul­tan­pur Lodhi, whose fa­ther was a mem­ber of the Bhubanesh­war Gur­d­wara Com­mit­tee, who walked on foot the path of Guru Nanak’s jour­ney from Kolkata to Puri as part of his Lord Ja­gan­nath Sadak ex­plo­ration has been cry­ing hoarse from rooftops. In all hu­mil­ity, he says, “I am a hum­ble scholar who has re­searched Sikhs roots for the last 6 years and what I have dis­cov­ered may only be the tip of the ice­berg.”

De­spite pres­sures from the ac­tivist fra­ter­nity, the Odisha Sikh Pra­tinidhi Board and the SGPC has been in a de­nial mode -ei­ther by not ac­knowl­edg­ing the sanc­tity and im­por­tance of Mangu Mutt or by en­ter­ing into a se­cre­tive pact with the gov­ern­ment of Odisha with the com­plic­ity of the SGPC. All this has been done in a sur­rep­ti­tious man­ner ac­tu­ally to up­hold the sanc­tity of one place -Gur­d­wara Baoli Mutt Sahib but leav­ing the Mangu Mutt and Guru Nanak Mutt open for de­mo­li­tion.

“The SGPC, the OSPB and Sri Akal Takht Sahib have to en­sure that the pseudo-Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib run by the Trust with­draws the name with­out ran­cour and ac­ri­mony in the best in­ter­ests of the Sikh com­mu­nity and in the true spirit of restor­ing the House of Guru Nanak where he re­cited the Sikh Aarti”

To fur­ther sub­vert the mat­ters, a fa­ther-son duo from Delhi made Puri their home and set up a pseudo-Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib, tac­itly ap­proved by Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh, Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib and Gi­ani Iqbal Singh, Jathedar Takht Har­min­dar Ji Patna Sahib.  More than a decade back, with the Sikh com­mu­nity in deep slum­ber, first un­der the tute­lage of Bhai Him­mat Singh Re­li­gious and Char­i­ta­ble Trust and then un­der the name of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji Re­li­gious and Char­i­ta­ble Trust (Regd.), the SGPC com­plicit and the OSPB aware and op­pos­ing but with­out any ac­tion and claim on Mangu Mutt, Baba Shamsher Singh and his son Jagdip Singh res­ur­rected ‘Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib’ on the seafront and ‘cre­at­ed’ his­tory with sup­port from petty-minded young pseudo-schol­ars, chron­i­clers and a sec­tion of the Sikh me­dia, who did not delve deep to sift the chaff from the grain.

Clearly this is a mis­nomer -a gross abuse of the use of the nomen­cla­ture to de­ceive in­no­cent Sikhs and to mud­dle Sikh his­tory and leave a per­verted his­tory for pos­ter­ity.

A video re­port by a YouTube chan­nel avail­able on the in­ter­net for quite some time did not raise the hack­les of our pre­mier bod­ies. Now, though the Akal Takht is in ques­tion­ing mode but still spe­cific, strong and im­me­di­ate steps are re­quired.

Though the SGPC and the Akal Takht Sahib has been send­ing no­tices to the founders of the pseudo-Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib, no strict ac­tion has been taken so far. In fact, the SGPC has been dilly-dal­ly­ing and the DS­GMC has been hob­nob­bing with the fa­ther-son duo who set up the Gur­d­wara, with the clear mal-in­ten­tion of de­ceiv­ing the Sikh masses.

Two del­e­ga­tions of the SGPC with the OSPB have not yielded any re­ports for the Sikh San­gat.  Every­thing is hush-hush with no clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the masses as to what has tran­spired with the gov­ern­ment and what the fu­ture holds for the Sikhs, vis-à-vis Sikh her­itage sites.

The SGPC claims to be the sole in­her­i­tor of every legacy of the Sikhs but has failed to fathom the move of the gov­ern­ment based on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Jus­tice B. P. Das Com­mis­sion sub­mit­ted to the Odisha gov­ern­ment as early as April 2017, which Com­mis­sion was set up in re­sponse to Pu­bic In­ter­est Lit­i­ga­tions filed in the Orissa High Court and the Supreme Court of In­dia and ac­tion was ini­ti­ated by the En­dow­ment Com­mis­sioner run­ning the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

With the Odisha gov­ern­ment, through the Min­is­ter of State for home Cap­tain Mishra, MLA Bobby Dass -in charge of Puri De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­ity and Mr Kr­ishna -Tem­ple Ad­min­is­tra­tor of the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple promis­ing to take the as­pi­ra­tions and con­cerns of the Sikh com­mu­nity into ac­count while fi­nal­is­ing the en­vi­rons of the Tem­ple, there seems hope that the true Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib will come up ad­ja­cent to the sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of Mangu Mutt, which is what re­mains of the Mutt af­ter the de­mo­li­tion of the sur­round­ing of the Mangu Mutt.

An easy way to ease the sit­u­a­tion and stream­line the con­struc­tion of the ac­tual Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib next to sanc­tum sanc­to­rum of the hos­pice called Mangu Mutt is to en­sure that the Odisha gov­ern­ment in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and ex­perts builds a Gur­d­wara in mem­ory of the visit of Guru Nanak out­side the main door of the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple, a few me­tres away from the Singh Dwar, which is around the place of the Mangu Mutt and which does not dis­turb the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and build­ing of the cor­ri­dor around the tem­ple which is be­ing car­ried out by the En­dow­ment Com­mis­sioner of the Tem­ple and the Odisha gov­ern­ment as per Supreme Court or­ders.

No sec­tion of the Sikh com­mu­nity should re­sort to set­tling scores and jointly fol­low up this mat­ter to en­sure that Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib comes up at the site of the Mangu Mutt.

With­out any de­lay, the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and all right-think­ing ac­tivists and con­ser­va­tion ex­perts must sub­mit spe­cific sug­ges­tions to the Odisha gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing the Mas­ter Plan of the en­vi­rons around the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple and re­live the com­mon and shared her­itage of this con­se­crated land.

The SGPC, the OSPB and Sri Akal Takht Sahib have to en­sure that the pseudo-Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib run by the Trust with­draws the name with­out ran­cour and ac­ri­mony in the best in­ter­ests of the Sikh com­mu­nity and in the true spirit of restor­ing the House of Guru Nanak where he re­cited the Sikh Aarti.