Out­raged at the saf­fro­ni­sa­tion of the DS­GMC, Jag­mo­han Singh -ed­i­tor of the World Sikh News, writes an Open Let­ter to Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Delhi seek­ing amend­ments to Delhi Sikh Gur­d­waras Act, 1971 bar­ring sit­ting mem­bers from con­test­ing polls for po­lit­i­cal of­fices or hold­ers of po­lit­i­cal of­fices from con­test­ing DS­GMC polls.

Shri Anil Bai­jal The Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor, New Delhi

Dear Gov­er­nor:

Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh!

I seek your in­dul­gence to use pow­ers vested in you un­der the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­waras Act, 1971 to get rules framed and amend­ments for­warded to the gov­ern­ment, as re­cent de­vel­op­ments aris­ing out of the non-work­ing of the newly con­sti­tuted Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee has raised the hack­les of the Sikh com­mu­nity in Delhi and across the globe.

The Sikh pop­u­la­tion of Delhi re­cently elected 46 mem­bers to the Gen­eral House of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee. They were elected un­der your aegis, by the Sikh elec­tors of Delhi in an elec­tion con­ducted by the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, Gov­ern­ment of Delhi. They were elected as per pro­vi­sions of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­waras Act, 1971, which was en­acted to pro­vide for the proper man­age­ment of the Sikh Gur­d­waras and Gur­d­wara prop­erty in Delhi and for mat­ters con­nected there­with. The ap­point­ment of the 46 elected mem­bers and 9 nom­i­nated mem­bers is done in your name as per Sec­tion 3 of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­waras Act, 1971

As the ed­i­tor of The World Sikh News, I write to you to bring forth con­cerns of the Sikh elec­torate in Delhi over re­cent de­vel­op­ments con­cern­ing the con­duct of cer­tain mem­bers re­cently elected to the DS­GMC. All mem­bers owe al­le­giance to the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal, pop­u­larly known as the Badal Akali Dal. Their guilt is self-ev­i­dent:

1. Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa elected from Pun­jabi Bagh con­stituency and made the Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the DS­GMC is con­test­ing by-elec­tions to the Delhi Vid­han Sabha from the Ra­jouri Gar­den con­stituency.

2. Paramjit Singh Rana elected from the Dev Na­gar con­stituency and ap­pointed chair­per­son of the Dharam Prachar Com­mit­tee of the DS­GMC, is con­test­ing the NDMC polls from the Ra­jin­der Na­gar con­stituency.

3. Amar­jit Singh Pappu, elected to the DS­GMC from the Fateh Na­gar con­stituency, nom­i­nated as the Joint Sec­re­tary of the DS­GMC, is con­test­ing the NDMC elec­tions from the Par­tap Na­gar con­stituency.

4. Iqbal Singh Raja is the brother-in-law of de­feated Badal Dal can­di­date -Capt. In­der­preet Singh (mem­ber in the last Com­mit­tee) and is con­test­ing the elec­tions from Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar. His wife is a sit­ting coun­cil­lor of the NDMC.

Apart from the above there are other ex­am­ples of nepo­tism:
5. Man­preet Kaur is the wife of Harmeet Singh Kalkaji -the re­cently nom­i­nated Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent of the DS­GMC elected from the Kalkaji con­stituency. She is con­test­ing NDMC polls from the Kalkaji con­stituency.

6. Gur­jeet Kaur is the wife of the re­cently elected mem­ber of the DS­GMC -Kul­want Singh Bath, elected from the Navin Shah­dara con­stituency. Kul­want Singh Baath con­tested the DS­GMC elec­tions even though he was the BJP Vice-Pres­i­dent.

7. Ra­min­der Singh Sonu -con­test­ing the NDMC polls from the Tilak Na­gar con­stituency, is the son-in-law of vet­eran DS­GMC mem­ber and of­fice bearer Av­tar Singh Hit, who was elected from the Hari Na­gar con­stituency.

By so do­ing, these mem­bers have not only ditched their elec­torate and Sikhs at large as they were elected for the very spe­cific pur­pose of fur­ther­ing the in­ter­ests of the Sikh re­li­gion as spec­i­fied un­der the Act. Rub­bing salt on our wounds, they are con­test­ing these elec­tions as Bharatiya Janata Party can­di­dates and do­ing all acts and rit­u­als in­im­i­cal to the Sikh faith.

Whether the Sikhs should have taken to po­lit­i­cal-style elec­tions route for the man­age­ment of their his­toric Gur­d­waras in Delhi can be dis­puted, but presently that is a fait ac­com­pli. Till there is a ma­jor up­heaval of un­der­stand­ing within the Sikh com­mu­nity, it is im­per­a­tive that we im­prove the sys­tems and rules as they ex­ist to­day.

The Sikh com­mu­nity in its wis­dom will evolve mea­sures to pre­vent this slide into worldly af­fairs at the cost of re­li­gious au­thor­ity be­stowed by the peo­ple but till that hap­pens, you have a sig­nif­i­cant role to play.

Through you, I seek the fol­low­ing amend­ments to the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­waras Act, 1971:

1. Sec­tion 8 to con­tain a clause that a per­son who holds a po­lit­i­cal of­fice -mu­nic­i­pal, leg­is­la­ture or par­lia­men­tary can­not con­test Gur­d­wara elec­tions till he re­signs from that of­fice.

2. Sec­tion 10 (1) to con­tain a clause that in case a per­son af­ter elec­tion as a mem­ber of the DS­GMC com­mit­tee chooses to con­test any po­lit­i­cal elec­tion, he may have to first re­sign from his mem­ber­ship and then con­test the po­lit­i­cal elec­tions. The pro­pri­ety of the Gur­d­wara elec­tions and role of the elected mem­bers is at stake. The pow­ers and func­tions of the Com­mit­tee are clearly spelt out in Sec­tion 24 of the Act and this step of the mem­bers elected less than a month back does not help in fur­ther­ing any of the stated ob­jec­tives.

3. Sec­tion 26 of the Act clearly spells out that the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee shall not make any fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to any po­lit­i­cal party. Just as the com­mit­tee can­not make a mon­e­tary con­sid­er­a­tion, sim­i­larly an elected mem­ber can­not de­vote even his pri­vate time to ful­fill­ing his du­ties as re­quired by a po­lit­i­cal party. The life of a Sikh, any or­di­nary Sikh and more so of a leader elected by the peo­ple, is seen in to­tal­ity. He can­not be a split per­son­al­ity serv­ing two dif­fer­ent mas­ters. He can­not be wear­ing the Tur­ban as well as putting the ver­mil­lion tilak on his fore­head ex­tolling the right-wing el­e­ments in so­ci­ety. This is an­ti­thetic to the Sikh faith and de­tested by Sikhs.

An­other alarm­ing fear of the Sikh San­gat is whether or not these lead­ers will be elected to their re­spec­tive po­lit­i­cal of­fice, they will con­tinue to med­dle in Sikh af­fairs. They are us­ing vic­tory in Gur­d­wara elec­tions as a step­ping stone for their po­lit­i­cal ca­reers. They are also known to use Gur­d­wara funds for po­lit­i­cal pur­poses. This di­chotomy is against the spirit of the de­mo­c­ra­tic func­tion­ing of Gur­d­wara com­mit­tees. In­stead of be­ing role mod­els for other com­mit­tees at the re­gional level, these mem­bers by this mis­de­meanour are set­ting a wrong prece­dent and this has to be stopped in the ranks. Notwith­stand­ing the re­sult of their po­lit­i­cal ac­tions, they should not be al­lowed to con­tinue as mem­bers and there should be fresh elec­tions to their re­spec­tive seats.

Sec­tion 36 of the Act says that every mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee, the Ex­ec­u­tive Board or any sub-com­mit­tee, the Di­rec­tor Gur­d­wara Elec­tions and every other of­fi­cer and em­ployee of the Com­mit­tee shall be deemed to be a pub­lic ser­vant within the mean­ing of Sec­tion 21 of the In­dian Pe­nal Code. The Mer­riam-Web­ster Dic­tio­nary de­fines a pub­lic ser­vant as a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial or em­ployee. The Collins dic­tio­nary de­fines a pub­lic ser­vant as a per­son who is ap­pointed or elected to a pub­lic of­fice. It is ab­solutely wrong that they draw salary/​perks/​al­lowances/​con­stituency funds from two of­fices. Dur­ing the NDMC polls, they can be clearly seen us­ing Gur­d­wara fa­cil­i­ties for their elec­tions.

As you are aware, each elected mem­ber has taken an oath as pre­scribed in Sec­tion 15 (3) wherein he/​she has sworn on oath that they would “faith­fully, hon­estly and con­sci­en­tiously dis­charge the duty upon which I am about to en­ter in the best in­ter­est of the Sikh re­li­gion.” The in­ter­ests of the Sikh re­li­gion are in jeop­ardy if they con­tinue to tram­ple on Sikh ide­ol­ogy through po­lit­i­cal of­fice elec­tions and vi­o­late the very prin­ci­ples for whose pro­tec­tion they were elected. This con­flict of in­ter­est can be re­solved by mak­ing the above-men­tioned amend­ments to the Act.

Thank you for your kind in­dul­gence.

Sin­cerely

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor-in-Chief
The World Sikh News
www.the­world­sikhnews.com
For ref­er­ence and ac­tion to:

1. Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh Ji, Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib, Am­rit­sar
2. S. Man­jit Singh GK, Pres­i­dent, Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Gur­d­wara Rak­ab­ganj Sahib, New Delhi.
3. Shri Man­ish Siso­dia,
   Deputy Chief Min­is­ter-cum-Law Min­is­ter
   Gov­ern­ment of Delhi
4. The Di­rec­tor, Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, Gov­ern­ment of Na­tional Cap­i­tal Ter­ri­tory of Delhi, Room No. 201-2015, II Floor, “F” Block, Vikas Bhawan, I. P. Es­tate, New Delhi -110002
5. Prof. Kir­pal Singh Badun­gar, Pres­i­dent, Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Teja Singh Samundri Hall, Am­rit­sar.