As au­thor Har­jin­der Singh Dil­geer chal­lenges the Akal Takht or­der an­nounc­ing his so­cial boy­cott and ban on his books in the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court, he has per­haps opened a Pan­do­ra’s box which will be dif­fi­cult to cur­tail in the times to come.

70 year old scholar alumni of the Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity, re­searcher and his­to­rian, Nor­we­gian cit­i­zen- Dr. Har­jin­der Singh Dil­geer, with a score of books to his credit, has openly chal­lenged the au­thor­ity of the Sikh apex body the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and the Jathedar of Takhts, in­clud­ing the pre­sent in­cum­bent of Akal Takht Jathedar Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh for is­su­ing the 27 July edict ask­ing the Sikh san­gat -con­gre­ga­tions to boy­cott him so­cially and that his books be banned be­cause of the foul and ir­re­li­gious lan­guage used in them in a pe­ti­tion be­fore the Pun­jab and Haryana High court early this week, filed by hu­man rights lawyer Navki­ran Singh and re­turn­able on 29 No­vem­ber, 2017.

The pe­ti­tion is likely to cre­ate a stir in the re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal func­tion­ing of the SGPC and the Akal Takht Sahib. While the SGPC has been asked to file a re­ply, all five Jathedars have also been made re­spon­dents by the pe­ti­tioner.

Ac­cord­ing to the Jathedars, “there is great re­sent­ment in the Sikh san­gat about his writ­ings about Pan­thic Maryada (re­li­gious code of con­duct), re­spect to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Am­rit and Nit­nem, …..he has used low level lan­guage for Am­rit, Nit­nem, Ar­das, Kakaar, Dasam Bani, care and man­age­ment of ho­li­ness of the re­li­gious places and Damdami Tak­sal.”

The Five Singh Sahibans -Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh, Jathedar Akal Takht, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh, Jathedar Takht Patna Sahib, Gi­ani Jag­tar Singh Act­ing Head Granthi Dar­bar Sahib, Gi­ani Harpreet Singh, Jathedar Damdama Sahib, Gi­ani Malkiat Singh, Head Granthi Akal Takht Sahib with­out giv­ing de­tails had said in a state­ment that, as per the re­ports of the Com­mit­tee formed to look into the writ­ings of Dr. Dil­geer, “the au­thor has used low level lan­guage on var­i­ous Sikh is­sues and so a de­ci­sion is taken that till he ap­pears be­fore Sri Akal Takht Sahib and gives his ex­pla­na­tion he should be boy­cotted by the Sikh San­gat and should not be al­lowed to speak on any re­li­gious/​so­cial/​po­lit­i­cal plat­form and com­plete ban is im­posed on the books writ­ten by him.” 

“Dr. Dil­geer wants to be a know-all, his lan­guage is def­i­nitely un­par­lia­men­tary, and on the other side the Jathedars in­stead of clear­ing the is­sue by point­ing out what ex­actly is wrong in his writ­ings, have im­posed a blan­ket ban.”

Af­ter get­ting no re­sponse to the no­tice sent to the SGPC and the Akal Takht Jathedar, the pe­ti­tioner has gone to the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court and sought quash­ing of his “ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion or­der” on grounds of right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion as guar­an­teed un­der Ar­ti­cle 21 of the In­dian Con­sti­tu­tion. He also claimed that the Takht Jathedars and SGPC have failed to pro­vide him de­tails of the im­pugned sec­tions. 

Sikh cir­cles are caught in a cleft-stick. On the one side of the spec­trum are Sikh schol­ars and ac­tivists who sup­port the con­tentions of Dr. Dil­geer but do not sup­port his move to go to an In­dian court of law, oth­ers be­lieve that he was pushed to the wall and had no choice while there are oth­ers who strongly feel that there is ar­ro­gance on both sides of the fence and that both should be made to see rea­son in the best in­ter­ests of main­tain­ing the sov­er­eignty of Akal Takht Sahib.  They say, “Dr. Dil­geer wants to be a know-all, his lan­guage is def­i­nitely un­par­lia­men­tary, and on the other side the Jathedars in­stead of clear­ing the is­sue by point­ing out what ex­actly is wrong in his writ­ings, have im­posed a blan­ket ban.” One ac­tivist said that he should not for­get that not very long ago, he ac­cepted ho­n­ours from the Akal Takht.

There is no doubt many a de­ci­sion of the Jathedars taken at the be­hest of their po­lit­i­cal mas­ters -namely the Badals, par­tic­u­larly the “par­don” to Sacha Sauda Dera Sirsa chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, has grossly eroded the au­thor­ity of the Akal Takht Jathedars, but we have to think “Have we not opened a Pan­do­ra’s box by go­ing to court which could have been avoided by tak­ing the more ef­fec­tive step of go­ing to the San­gat?”

“Dr. Har­jin­der Singh Dil­geer has to be tem­per­ate in his lan­guage. He can­not be seen as the sole Sikh au­thor­ity on every­thing and that as a his­to­rian and au­thor while con­tend­ing for his right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion, he can­not be abu­sive and right­eous in the ap­proach.”

There are yet an­other cat­e­gory of re­li­gious ac­tivists, thinkers with their heart in the right place, who strongly con­tend that “Dr. Har­jin­der Singh Dil­geer has to be tem­per­ate in his lan­guage. He can­not be seen as the sole Sikh au­thor­ity on every­thing and that as a his­to­rian and au­thor while con­tend­ing for his right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion, he can­not be abu­sive and right­eous in the ap­proach.”  This cat­e­gory of Sikhs, who were at one time sup­port­ers of the au­thor, also ques­tion his den­i­gra­tion of the in­sti­tu­tion of Akal Takht and var­i­ous time-tested tra­di­tions which the au­thor ques­tions.

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The Panth awaits with a gasp­ing breath the next move.

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