In an awe-in­spir­ing re­vival of Sikh her­itage, a mo­men­tous gath­er­ing at Sri Anand­pur Sahib shat­tered the chains of time to res­ur­rect the age-old tra­di­tion of Gur­matta (col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing) which was lan­guish­ing in ob­scu­rity for over a hun­dred years. This his­toric event her­alded a new era of self­less and sov­er­eign lead­er­ship guided by the sa­cred Sikh prin­ci­ples of col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing. A re­sound­ing tes­ta­ment to Sikh re­silience, the echoes of this ex­tra­or­di­nary meet will res­onate in the times to come, as­serts WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh.

IN A MO­MEN­TOUS DE­VEL­OP­MENT that has im­pacted a vast sec­tion of the Sikh na­tion, aware of its rights, du­ties and oblig­a­tions, a his­toric gath­er­ing took place at Sri Anand­pur Sahib, res­ur­rect­ing the tra­di­tional prac­tice of Gur­matta (col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing) af­ter more than a cen­tury.

This ground­break­ing event, held in the back­drop of Takht Kesgarh Sahib -the Sikh throne which em­bod­ies the unique sta­tus and form of the Khalsa Panth, wit­nessed the adop­tion of a Gur­matta that not only re­jected the cur­rent man­age­ment of Sri Akaal Takhat Sahib but also called for the es­tab­lish­ment of a self­less and sov­er­eign Jatha to en­sure the al­ter­na­tive ad­min­is­tra­tion of Sri Akaal Takhat Sahib, guided by the prin­ci­ples of Gur­matta-based de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Years of ded­i­cated grass­roots work and ex­ten­sive or­ga­niz­ing ef­forts paved the way for this sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in con­tem­po­rary Sikh his­tory. Pan­thic Jathas (groups) from across the world whole­heart­edly par­tic­i­pated, mak­ing it one of the most note­wor­thy Sikh gath­er­ings in re­cent times and if fol­lowed through in the same spirit and zeal, in a con­sis­tent man­ner, it holds in its do­main the pos­si­bil­ity of a last­ing im­pact on the fu­ture of the Panth.

At the com­mence­ment of the gath­er­ing, a col­lec­tive Ar­daas (prayer) was per­formed by the Panth Se­waks who had called for this his­toric meet­ing. They fa­cil­i­tated the pro­ceed­ings as col­lec­tive Sakhis (wit­nesses) to the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process led by five Singh rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Open dis­cus­sions were con­ducted re­gard­ing the suit­abil­ity of each nom­i­nated in­di­vid­ual to be part of the Panj (col­lec­tive body).

The cen­tral fo­cus of the de­lib­er­a­tions re­volved around re­ju­ve­nat­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Sri Akaal Takhat Sahib, lib­er­at­ing it from the in­flu­ence and con­trol of the In­dian state, and restor­ing its sta­tus as the cen­tral hub of col­lec­tive lead­er­ship for Guru Khalsa Panth world­wide.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous or­ga­ni­za­tions, Jathe­ban­dis (bod­ies), and Sam­par­das (re­li­gious or­ders) were in­vited to pre­sent their views to the San­gat (con­gre­ga­tion), on the con­di­tion that they par­tic­i­pated solely for the col­lec­tive ben­e­fit of the Panth, set­ting aside per­sonal in­ter­ests.

Af­ter thor­oughly hear­ing the per­spec­tives of the San­gat, the Panj Singh rep­re­sen­ta­tives re­flected on the sug­ges­tions in ac­cor­dance with Sikh tra­di­tion and sub­se­quently an­nounced the col­lec­tive de­ci­sion to the San­gat.

No­table or­ga­ni­za­tions and jathas that par­tic­i­pated in per­son in­clude Shi­ro­mani Panth Akali Budha Dal, Damdami Tak­sal Aj­nala, Misl Sha­heed’aan Har­i­an­bela, Panth Se­wak Jatha, SGPC mem­ber Bibi Ki­ran­jot Kaur, Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha, Ni­hang Dal Panth Ar­b’aan Khar­b’aan, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Dal Panth Chamkaur Sahib, Kendri Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Dal Khalsa, Jatha Sir­lath Khalsa, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satikar Com­mit­tee, Satkaar Sabha Haryana, Nir­mal Sam­parda, Guru Ki Ma­teeli Bagha Pu­rana, Dal Baba Bidhi Chand ji Surs­ingh, Am­rit San­chaar Jatha Damdami Tak­sal, Damdami Tak­sal Jatha Lan­giana, Loh Lan­gar Kar­tarpur Sahib, Kaar Seva Khadur Sahib, Kaar Seva Dukhni­waran Sahib, Akal Fed­er­a­tion, Sikh Youth of Pan­jab, Ek Noor Khalsa Fauj, All In­dia Sikh Stu­dents Fed­er­a­tion, Dar­bar-E-Khalsa, Am­rit San­char Jatha, Guru Aasra Trust Mo­hali, Pan­thic Akali Lehar, Gur­mat Vidyala Damdami Tak­sal Janer, Miri Piri Seva Dal, Misl Sha­heed’aan Tarna Dal Kotha Guru, Sikh Jatha Malwa, Panth Se­vak Jatha Doaba, Chhauni Sha­heed Bhai Ma­haraj Singh Nau­rangabadi, Damdami Tak­sal Jatha Kanakwal, Waris Pan­jab De, Gosht Sabha Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity Pa­tiala, Sikh Youth Fed­er­a­tion Bhin­dran­wala, Gatka Akhara Tibba Sahib Hoshiarpur, Sikh Youth Power of Pan­jab, Sath, Safi, and Budha Dal Jatha Hoshiarpur.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Sikh jathas world­wide also par­tic­i­pated, in­clud­ing Sikh Fed­er­a­tion Ger­many, Bab­bar Khalsa Ger­many, Sikh Coun­cil Bel­gium, Sikh Fed­er­a­tion Bel­gium, World Sikh Par­lia­ment (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Sikh Cen­ter Frank­furt (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Shri Guru Dashmesh Singh Sabha Cologne (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Shri Guru Nanak Ni­was Stuttgart (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Mis­sion Ne­un­burg (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak Dar­bar Mu­nich (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Singh Sabha Leipzig (Ger­many), Gur­d­wara Singh Sabha Re­gens­burg (Ger­many), Sikh Fed­er­a­tion Amer­ica (USA), Sikh Youth of Amer­ica (USA), Gur­d­wara Sikh Sabha Glen Rock NJ (USA), Gur­d­wara Sahib Sikh Cul­ture So­ci­ety New York (USA), Philadel­phia Sikh So­ci­ety (USA), Gur­d­wara Sahib Fre­mont (USA), Free Akal Takht Move­ment, Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute, Sikh Fed­er­a­tion UK, Sikh San­gat of Vic­to­ria (Aus­tralia), Sid­ney Sikh San­gat (Aus­tralia), Sikh Se­vak Jatha Perth (Aus­tralia), Paris Sikh San­gat (France), Sikh Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil UK, Panch Pard­hani UK, Na­tional Sikh Youth Fed­er­a­tion (UK), Ade­laide Sikh San­gat (Aus­tralia), Wind­sor Sikh Pan­thic Jatha (Canada), Bris­bane Sikh San­gat, Bab­bar Khalsa France, and World Sikh Par­lia­ment (France).

Pal­pa­bly, these gen­uine and suc­cess­ful ef­forts to re­ju­ve­nate Sikh tra­di­tions of lead­er­ship and de­ci­sion-mak­ing from the grass­roots level, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of di­verse Pan­thic jathe­ban­dis from around the world, in­clud­ing promi­nent in­sti­tu­tions and lo­cal jathas, hold im­mense sig­nif­i­cance and lay the ground­work for the even­tual re­vival of the Sar­bat Khalsa (Supreme Sikh as­sem­bly) in its truest and most mean­ing­ful form.