Putting up a brave face in the wake of wide­spread al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and un­der­cur­rents of in­fight­ing since in­cep­tion two years ago, DS­GMC is in dis­ar­ray.

Infight­ing amongst the lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­larly be­tween Pres­i­dent Man­jit Singh GK and Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa, cor­rup­tion charges against Pres­i­dent Man­jit Singh GK and the ad­min­is­tra­tive staff of DS­GMC, the beat­ing of Pres­i­dent Man­jit Singh GK at the hands of the vol­un­teers of Sikhs For Jus­tice in USA and his rab­ble rous­ing in­ter­views af­ter that, the elec­tion of Paramjit Singh Rana -mem­ber of the Dharam Par­char Com­mit­tee and other mem­bers as Bharatiya Janata Party mu­nic­i­pal coun­cil­lors and Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa be­com­ing a mem­ber of the Delhi State as­sem­bly –all these and more have marked the last around two years since the for­ma­tion of the DS­GMC in 2015.

The vast cor­rup­tion in the func­tion­ing of the DS­GMC on all fronts is an open se­cret. Whether Gurmeet Singh Shunty will be able to prove that in court or whether that will de­gen­er­ate into a pres­sure tac­tic, only time will tell. Paramjit Singh Sarna and his brother have been mak­ing the right noises but there has been an in­signif­i­cant im­pact on the Sikh San­gat in Delhi.

Man­jit Singh GK’s call to say that he and the whole ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee is re­sign­ing is def­i­nitely not a large-hearted ex­er­cise to face al­le­ga­tions as he claims, but ac­tu­ally un­der in­flu­ence of the “high com­mand” (read Sukhbir Singh Badal) from Pun­jab, it is only a dam­age con­trol ex­er­cise. The re­cent ab­sten­tion of the Pres­i­dent with del­e­gat­ing pow­ers to an­other of­fice bearer was only a de­flect­ing tac­tic.

To its credit, the le­gal cell of the DS­GMC has been tak­ing up the right is­sues re­lat­ing to Sikh af­fairs dur­ing this tenure, par­tic­u­larly their in­ter­ven­tion on be­half of the Sikhs in Shil­long and the Gur­d­wara Sahib in Gu­rudong­mar in Sikkim.

The DS­GMC in­ter­ven­tion in af­fairs re­lat­ing to No­vem­ber 1984 geno­ci­dal cases may be seen as an at­tempt to fol­low the foot­steps of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal and shed croc­o­dile tears. Pro­vid­ing le­gal aid or para-le­gal aid to vic­tims of the gross hu­man tragedy of that pe­riod is not some­thing DS­GMC should be proud of; it was part of their rou­tine duty and tak­ing credit through face­book posts is not only shoddy but down­right sin­is­ter and in­hu­man.

The rev­e­la­tion of Av­tar Singh Hit -the DS­GMC mem­ber and now Pres­i­dent of Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib that a to­tally new com­mit­tee will be formed, may set at rest any pol­i­tick­ing that the two war­ring lead­ers may at­tempt to put up to fur­ther mud­dle the fight for lead­er­ship.

Formed in 1971 to rep­re­sent the sec­ond high­est pop­u­la­tion of Sikhs out­side of Pun­jab, the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, -DS­GMC is un­der scrutiny of the Sikh San­gat, its own par­ent body -the Badal Dal -which con­trols it from Pun­jab and the In­dian ju­di­ciary which will de­cide about cor­rup­tion cases.

The de­mo­c­ra­tic func­tion­ing of the DS­GMC is openly a sham. The brave face of the lead­ers is only that. The ma­jor­ity which con­trols the DS­GMC does not have the guts to call a spade a spade and do what it is sup­posed to do. Vir­tu­ally all Badal Dal mem­bers are chips of the same block.

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In Delhi -the na­tional cap­i­tal of In­dia, a one-time cen­tre of Sikh-rule, al­beit for a very short span, the DS­GMC has the po­ten­tial to serve as the am­bas­sador of the Sikh na­tion, pro­vided its fo­cus changes to Pan­thic from per­sonal. The San­gat bet­ter be on its toes.