The gov­er­nance of his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras across In­dia has been an is­sue of con­tin­ual de­bate and con­cern within the Sikh com­mu­nity. His­tor­i­cally, these Gur­d­waras, which are not just places of wor­ship but also piv­otal cul­tural and so­cial hubs, were man­aged by Ma­hants. How­ever, this sys­tem gave way to more struc­tured man­age­ment through var­i­ous leg­is­la­tions in the 20th cen­tury. De­spite these changes, there re­mains a press­ing need for fur­ther re­form, par­tic­u­larly re­gard­ing the elec­tion of teams for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of elec­tions for Gur­d­wara man­age­ment bod­ies. This es­say by WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, ex­plores the ne­ces­sity of these re­forms, em­pha­siz­ing the crit­i­cal need for es­tab­lish­ing a Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion.

AS OF TO­DAY, THE HIS­TOR­I­CAL GUR­D­WARAS in Pun­jab, Haryana, Hi­machal Pradesh, and Chandi­garh are gov­erned un­der the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1925 and the rules thereof. The his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras in Delhi are ad­min­is­tered un­der the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act of 1971. The his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras in Bi­har are gov­erned un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and By­laws of Sri Takht Har­min­dar Ji Patna Sa­heb, 1956. The His­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras in Ma­ha­rash­tra are man­aged un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and by­laws of the Nanded Sikh Gu­rud­wara Sachk­hand Shri Hazur Apchal­na­gar Sahib Act, 1956. The His­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras in Jammu and Kash­mir fall un­der the purview of the Jammu and Kash­mir Sikh Gur­d­waras and Re­li­gious En­dow­ment Act, 1973.

The newly-formed Haryana Sikh Gur­d­wara Prab­hand­hak Com­mit­tee has to still show its ef­fi­cacy.

Sim­i­larly, there is de­mand by Sikhs in Ra­jasthan, Ut­tarak­hand, and East­ern In­dia to have their own state leg­is­la­tions to run his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras and other Sikh Gur­d­waras.

Hereto­fore, there was a de­mand by Sikhs to frame the All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­waras Act to bring all his­tor­i­cal re­li­gious shrines un­der one ad­min­is­tra­tive or­der, for which late Jus­tice Har­bans Singh framed the first draft af­ter ex­ten­sively tour­ing the length and breadth of the coun­try and in­cor­po­rated the sug­ges­tions elicited from Sikhs dur­ing his tour.

Cur­rently, while the Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship is silent on the is­sue, in or­der to please the Sikhs from an elec­toral stand­point, In­di­a’s Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties is mak­ing moves to push the idea of an All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­waras Act.

It is my un­der­stand­ing that presently the BJP gov­ern­ment and its Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion are play­ing a sin­is­ter game aimed at di­vid­ing the Sikhs of Pun­jab with the Sikhs in other parts of In­dia by float­ing the All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­wara Act pro­posal. 

It is my un­der­stand­ing that presently the BJP gov­ern­ment and its Mi­nori­ties Com­mis­sion are play­ing a sin­is­ter game aimed at di­vid­ing the Sikhs of Pun­jab with the Sikhs in other parts of In­dia by float­ing the All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­wara Act pro­posal. The SGPC and other bod­ies must con­vey to the pre­sent gov­ern­ment of In­dia that it is for the Sikhs to de­cide whether they need an All In­dia Gur­d­wara Act or not and that the gov­ern­ment must not in­ter­fere in the re­li­gious af­fairs of the Sikhs at all.

All the leg­is­la­tions have se­ri­ous la­cu­nae -both from the Gur­mat and ad­min­is­tra­tive points of view. In their en­thu­si­asm to get rid of the Ma­hants, these leg­is­la­tions were ac­cepted nearly a cen­tury ago, but there was no in-depth think­ing or analy­sis of what the Sikhs were walk­ing into. These leg­is­la­tions did achieve their im­me­di­ate pur­pose and now is the time for re­form through com­pre­hen­sive amend­ments through ad­vo­cacy, leg­isla­tive, and ju­di­cial ap­proach.

All the leg­is­la­tions have se­ri­ous la­cu­nae -both from the Gur­mat and ad­min­is­tra­tive points of view. In their en­thu­si­asm to get rid of the Ma­hants, these leg­is­la­tions were ac­cepted nearly a cen­tury ago, but there was no in-depth think­ing or analy­sis of what the Sikhs were walk­ing into.

The Sikh Bod­ies Elec­tion Co­nun­drum
A glar­ing ex­am­ple of the sys­temic flaws in the cur­rent frame­work is the case of the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee (SGPC) elec­tions. The SGPC, a piv­otal body in Sikh re­li­gious gov­er­nance, has wit­nessed sig­nif­i­cant de­lays in its elec­tion process.

In the pre­sent phase for which elec­tions were an­nounced a few weeks ago, the am­bi­gu­ity sur­round­ing the fi­nal­iza­tion of elec­toral forms, in­dica­tive of ei­ther gov­ern­men­tal ap­a­thy or de­lib­er­ate ob­struc­tion, has re­sulted in ad­min­is­tra­tive con­fu­sion and stag­na­tion.

Elec­tions for the Takht Patna Sahib Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee were due early this year, but the Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee is re­sort­ing to sub­terfuge to de­lay the elec­tion process, while the Dis­trict Judge Patna has in­dulged in an il­le­gal act to in­flu­ence the yet-to-be-con­ducted elec­tions.

At Takht Hazur Sahib in Nanded, the gov­ern­ment year af­ter year con­tin­ues to ap­point ad­min­is­tra­tors with­out con­duct­ing elec­tions. It may be men­tioned that even if elec­tions are held, by an amend­ment to the Act in 2015, the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra has usurped the power to ap­point the Pres­i­dent of the Board.

In Jammu and Kash­mir, se­cu­rity is the rea­son for the de­lay for the Gur­d­wara elec­tions as is the case for many other po­lit­i­cal prob­lems in the re­gion.

The SGPC is not an iso­lated case. Sim­i­lar pat­terns of de­lay and gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence can be ob­served in the elec­tions of other Gur­d­wara bod­ies, like the Takht Patna Sahib Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Takht Hazur Sahib Com­mit­tee, and the Jammu and Kash­mir Sikh Gur­d­waras. 

De­lay Tac­tics and Gov­ern­ment Com­plic­ity
The SGPC is not an iso­lated case. Sim­i­lar pat­terns of de­lay and gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence can be ob­served in the elec­tions of other Gur­d­wara bod­ies, like the Takht Patna Sahib Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, Takht Hazur Sahib Com­mit­tee, and the Jammu and Kash­mir Sikh Gur­d­waras. These de­lays are of­ten jus­ti­fied un­der var­i­ous pre­texts, rang­ing from state in­ter­ven­tion, and ju­di­cial over­reach, to se­cu­rity con­cerns. Such in­ter­fer­ences not only hin­der the de­mo­c­ra­tic process but also raise ques­tions about the au­ton­omy of these re­li­gious bod­ies.

The Im­per­a­tive for a Per­ma­nent Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion:
Un­ques­tion­ably, a per­ma­nent Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion ei­ther at the state level or a com­mon Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion can re­solve many is­sues re­lat­ing to the Gur­d­wara bod­ies which are ad­min­is­tered un­der var­i­ous laws and con­sti­tu­tions, es­pe­cially those, which are of his­tor­i­cal im­por­tance to the Sikh world. Such a Com­mis­sion may be formed in con­sul­ta­tion with Sikh re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­mu­nity.

Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1925. Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1971. Con­sti­tu­tion of Sri Takht Har­min­dar Ji Patna Sa­heb, 1956. Nanded Sikh Gu­rud­wara Sachk­hand Shri Hazur Apchal­na­gar Sahib Act, 1956. Jammu and Kash­mir Sikh Gur­d­waras and Re­li­gious En­dow­ment Act, 1973.

FIVE LEG­IS­LA­TIONS THAT NEED IM­ME­DI­ATE OVER­HAUL

Reg­u­lar and Fair Elec­tions
The cor­ner­stone of any de­mo­c­ra­tic sys­tem is reg­u­lar, fair, and trans­par­ent elec­tions. The ap­point­ment of a Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion could be a trans­for­ma­tive step in en­sur­ing the reg­u­lar con­duct of elec­tions for var­i­ous Gur­d­wara bod­ies. This in­de­pen­dent body would over­see the en­tire elec­toral process, from can­di­date nom­i­na­tions to vote counts, en­sur­ing ad­her­ence to de­mo­c­ra­tic norms and prac­tices.

Cor­rect­ing Anom­alies
The for­ma­tion of a Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion would also help ad­dress anom­alies in the cur­rent sys­tem. It could stan­dard­ize elec­toral pro­ce­dures across dif­fer­ent states, en­sur­ing a uni­form and fair process. By over­see­ing the elec­toral process, the Com­mis­sion would mit­i­gate the in­flu­ence of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests and gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tions that have his­tor­i­cally plagued Gur­d­wara elec­tions.

En­sur­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tion and Au­ton­omy
A prop­erly con­sti­tuted Elec­tion Com­mis­sion would not only en­sure timely elec­tions but also up­hold the prin­ci­ple of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. This would guar­an­tee that the man­age­ment of these his­toric and cul­tur­ally sig­nif­i­cant Gur­d­waras truly re­flects the will and as­pi­ra­tions of the Sikh San­gat.

The es­tab­lish­ment of a per­ma­nent Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion is a crit­i­cal step to­ward re­form­ing Gur­d­wara leg­is­la­tion and gov­er­nance. It would serve as a guardian of de­mo­c­ra­tic processes within Sikh re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions, en­sur­ing timely elec­tions and min­i­miz­ing ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ences. While there are broader is­sues of ad­min­is­tra­tive re­form that need ad­dress­ing, the com­mis­sion’s es­tab­lish­ment would be a sig­nif­i­cant stride to­wards en­hanc­ing the au­ton­omy and ef­fi­cacy of Gur­d­wara man­age­ment, align­ing it more closely with the de­mo­c­ra­tic ideals and prin­ci­ples of the Sikh com­mu­nity.

The es­tab­lish­ment of a per­ma­nent Gur­d­wara Elec­tion Com­mis­sion is a crit­i­cal step to­ward re­form­ing Gur­d­wara leg­is­la­tion and gov­er­nance. It would serve as a guardian of de­mo­c­ra­tic processes within Sikh re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions, en­sur­ing timely elec­tions and min­i­miz­ing ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ences.

Till we are able to re­store the tra­di­tional Gur­mata sys­tem of se­lec­tion of Se­wadars and Jathas of San­gat to run our re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions, we have to en­sure the smooth func­tion­ing of our bod­ies through the cur­rent sys­tem. Shy­ing away from this tan­ta­mounts to al­low­ing the gov­ern­ments of the day to have their say.

To use a cliché, eter­nal vig­i­lance is the price of lib­erty. Ru­ing the fail­ure of our in­sti­tu­tions will not help, work­ing to be­come har­bin­gers of change is the need of the hour.