Sub-Di­vi­sional Mag­is­trate of New Delhi dis­trict Vas­ant Vi­har -Ankur Prakash Meshram has or­dered six Gur­d­wara Sahibs, mosques and tem­ples in its ju­ris­dic­tion through an or­der on 12 July to fully com­ply with the or­ders or wear­ing masks, main­tain­ing so­cial dis­tance and a sub­stan­tially re­duced num­ber of devo­tees un­der the Delhi Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Act. Sikh bod­ies have re­acted protest­ing the or­der. WSN re­ports.

FACE MASK OR NO FACE MASK is now a bone of con­tention not just be­tween one con­sci­en­tious in­di­vid­ual and an­other but be­tween the state ma­chin­ery en­forc­ing a guide­line through law and the po­lice ma­chin­ery im­ple­ment­ing through fines, penal­ties and even through po­lice beat­ings.

In a strongly-worded warn­ing note, the SDM Vas­ant Vi­har has warned that in case of non-com­pli­ance or the or­der of not more than 10 devo­tees at a time, the Gur­d­waras and other re­li­gious places can be sealed and pe­nal ac­tion ini­ti­ated against the man­age­ment and staff of these in­sti­tu­tions. 

Is Delhi near­ing an­other lock­down? Nor­mally what is an ad­vi­sory is now in the form of a le­gal or­der.  Clause 2 (xi) of the cur­rent or­der reads, “Re­li­gious places shall be per­mit­ted to open but no vis­i­tors will be al­lowed.” 

The or­ders for the Gur­d­waras have been sent to the of­fice bear­ers of six Gur­d­waras in Vas­ant Vi­har, for the mosques, the or­der has been sent to the Moulana, Imam and Peace Com­mit­tee mem­bers in RK Pu­ram, Vas­ant Kunj and Vas­ant Vi­har.  Sim­i­lar copies have been sent to the Fa­ther, pres­i­dent of Churches, care­tak­ers in the said ar­eas. 

Last week Gaf­far Mar­ket, Sadar Bazar, Old Delhi Mar­kets were closed over the week­end cit­ing over­crowd­ing and fear of the spread of the delta virus. 

The Ke­jri­wal gov­ern­ment has much to an­swer:

Why such an or­der for only re­li­gious places of a par­tic­u­lar area of the Na­tional Cap­i­tal Ter­ri­tory of Delhi? 

Is the AAP Gov­ern­ment try­ing to move step by step to­wards call­ing for an­other lock­down?

Is it a new scare be­ing de­vel­oped for the im­po­si­tion of new re­stric­tions? 

The Cen­tre pro­poses and the state dis­poses of. The Min­istry of Health and Fam­ily Wel­fare and all other gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties and state gov­ern­ments do not seem to be work­ing in sync with each other.  A copy of guide­lines for Covid19 by the  Health Min­istry in clause 4.1 says, “per­sons hav­ing no symp­toms are not to use masks” and adds on to say med­ical masks are not to be used by a healthy per­son. Like­wise, an RTI  query by Saurav By­sack on 27 May 2021 has re­vealed that the use of a mask has not been made ex­plic­itly manda­tory. The same is the case with vac­cines where the RTI re­veals that it is a choice and not manda­tory to take a vac­cine. 

When con­fronted with this ques­tion, a doc­tor said, “It is part of SOP. Why should we wait till the gov­ern­ment makes wear­ing masks com­pul­sory?”

Sharp re­ac­tions have come in from Man­jit Singh GK, Pres­i­dent of Jago Party and other Sikhs.  He has al­leged that the gov­ern­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­ity have failed to man­age the sit­u­a­tion on the ground.

Sikhs are in a dilemma. While the Sikh San­gat has been pay­ing obei­sance at his­toric Gur­d­waras in­clud­ing Dar­bar Sahib Am­rit­sar, the wear­ing of masks there too has not been com­pul­sory, since the pan­demic’s first months in April 2020.  The SGPC pres­i­dent Bibi Ja­gir, how­ever, had ap­pealed to the San­gat to wear masks when com­ing to pray. Of late, WHO, IMA has cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that there should be no let-up in guard.

The Pres­i­dent of the Global Sikh Coun­cil -Lady Kan­waljit Kaur from the UK had writ­ten to the SGPC au­thor­i­ties urg­ing them to make the wear­ing of masks com­pul­sory so that we do not be­come su­per-spread­ers. 

Gur­d­waras in the West, in the USA, Canada, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, in­clud­ing those in South East Asia fol­low the full pro­to­col of wear­ing the mask in­side the Gur­d­waras. This was ev­i­dent in the most glar­ing man­ner when Sin­ga­pore Prime Min­is­ter Lee Hsien Loong re­cently in­au­gu­rated a Gur­d­wara with his face­mask on and the man­age­ment com­mit­tee mem­bers also draped as per Covid19 safety pro­to­col.

When WSN spoke to a Sikh med­ical doc­tor, he said, “Every­thing is volatile. This is a new virus and noth­ing can be stated with cer­tainty. How­ever, the Face­mask, hand­wash­ing hy­giene and so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­col must be fol­lowed. Gur­d­wara man­age­ment, staff, priests and the San­gat must all fol­low this. We are a pro­gres­sive com­mu­nity and we should not hes­i­tate in fol­low­ing guide­lines for the safety of our own selves, our fam­i­lies and the peo­ple around us.”

Up­date on this story: 

The or­der by SDM Ankur Prakash Meshram, drew sharp re­ac­tions on so­cial me­dia. Sikhs and other sec­tions of so­ci­ety were sur­prised and vo­cal against the or­der. APS Bindra, a mem­ber of the Delhi Mi­nor­ity Com­mis­sion re­acted by say­ing that the no­tice has been sent to all re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions and not par­tic­u­larly to Sikhs.

Sub­se­quently, with an eye on the Pun­jab elec­tions next year, the AAP party went into over­drive to with­draw the or­der as on the so­cial me­dia Sikhs had ex­pressed their sur­prise and anger at the move.  Yes­ter­day evening, an­other or­der was is­sued with­draw­ing the ear­lier or­der.

Mask Im­age Cour­tesy: https://​delilahs­dress­in­groom.com/