The au­thor de­lin­eates the gen­e­sis of the Global Sikh Coun­cil and its de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­solve Pan­thic is­sues through di­a­logue, dis­cus­sion and de­bate.

Locally, coun­try­wide and glob­ally, fo­rums are be­ing formed to re­dis­cover the sheen and glory of Sikhism, ap­pear­ing to be lost or los­ing to pres­sures of time, in­ept Sikh lead­er­ship, in­ter­fer­ence of Brah­man­ism, a ma­te­ri­al­ist hold on an oth­er­wise so­cially aware com­mu­nity and of course the af­ter ef­fects of los­ing the Sikh king­dom more than a cen­tury ago.

The Global Sikh Coun­cil formed in the early years of the new cen­tury aims to en­join so­cially com­mit­ted, po­lit­i­cally aware and re­li­giously de­vout Sikhs across the con­ti­nents in a sin­cere ef­fort to re­solve the in­ter­nal con­flicts and ex­ter­nal chal­lenges fac­ing the com­mu­nity world­wide.

In­stead of get­ting ag­i­tated over the var­i­ous con­cerns and start­ing a tug of war be­tween or­gan­i­sa­tions, the Global Sikh Coun­cil is com­mit­ted to fol­low the path of Guru Nanak in re­solv­ing dis­putes through dis­cus­sion, di­a­logue and de­bate in search of truth and truth alone.

“The Global Sikh Coun­cil (GSC) was formed in 2014 as a re­sult of con­cerns felt by di­as­pora Sikhs over the mush­room­ing of var­i­ous de­ras run by sants and babas, who mis­lead gullible Sikhs to fol­low dis­torted ver­sions of our Gu­rus’ teach­ings.”

Pun­jab is no dif­fer­ent from the rest of In­dia when it comes to cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism and gross fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment by politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal par­ties. From In­di­a’s growth en­gine to a lag­ging state with ever mount­ing debts, Pun­jab’s is a sad story. Smaller states like Haryana carved out of Pun­jab in 1966 have done bet­ter and are main­tain­ing a sta­ble growth rate. Most peo­ple be­lieve that the plight of Pun­jab is en­tirely due to the mis­gov­er­nance in the last 25 years. The Con­gress has ruled this state for 19 and the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal for 22 years af­ter in­de­pen­dence.

The wide­spread cor­rup­tion and mis­gov­er­nance did not limit it­self to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the state; it also af­fected the so­cio-re­li­gious struc­ture of this thinly Sikh ma­jor­ity state. The SGPC also termed as the Sikh Par­lia­ment was con­sti­tuted in 1925 for the man­age­ment of Gur­d­waras in Pun­jab, Haryana and Hi­machal Pradesh. How­ever ow­ing to mas­sive funds at its dis­posal, the SGPC be­came a tool in the hands of Akali Dal whose mon­e­tary power comes through the con­trol of SGPC and its vast re­sources. Fac­tion­al­ism and feu­dal power plays have re­duced the SGPC to a citadel of cor­rup­tion and  it even played out in pub­lic like in 1999 dur­ing the 300 year cel­e­bra­tions of the Khalsa Panth.

Few among the Sikh in­tel­li­gentsia within the coun­try and abroad raised their voice against this bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of all norms. Frankly, most Sikhs do not care much for the SGPC elec­tions or who gov­erns it. They visit the Gur­d­wara be­cause of their faith, and are not po­lit­i­cally aware as they should be and as Guru Sahib asked them to. They rather want to be­lieve that the SGPC uses their das­vandh – con­tri­bu­tion of one-tenth of their earn­ings as per Sikh tra­di­tion – for the cause of the com­mu­nity. Yet Sikhs across the world sensed that SGPC was be­ing re­mote-con­trolled by forces work­ing against the ethos of Sikhism. While the voices grew louder, the Sikh di­as­pora started to get or­ga­nized against this mis­man­age­ment only to be met with chal­lenges from forces within Pun­jab and back home that started in­fil­trat­ing any ef­fort to ques­tion the SGPC or its style of func­tion­ing.

“In­stead of get­ting ag­i­tated over the var­i­ous con­cerns and start­ing a tug of war be­tween or­gan­i­sa­tions, the Global Sikh Coun­cil is com­mit­ted to fol­low the path of Guru Nanak in re­solv­ing dis­putes through dis­cus­sion, di­a­logue and de­bate in search of truth and truth alone.”

The col­lapse of World Sikh Coun­cil in 2005 at the hands of pow­ers that be in New Delhi and Pun­jab is one such ex­am­ple. The World Sikh Coun­cil op­er­ated as a par­ent or­ga­ni­za­tion to mul­ti­ple re­gional branches cov­er­ing var­i­ous parts of the world. With col­lapse of the par­ent or­ga­ni­za­tion, all other re­gional branches wound up ex­cept for the Amer­i­can Re­gion, which con­tin­ued its func­tion­ing be­yond 2005. They ini­ti­ated se­ri­ous ef­forts in 2008, to or­ga­nize a world­wide Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tion, a re­place­ment body to World Sikh Coun­cil. Kuldip Singh of Toledo, Ohio was re­quested to head this op­er­a­tion. In 2012 Gul­barg Singh Basi of At­lanta, US got in­volved in this ef­fort and with his per­sis­tent ef­forts and sup­port from Bawa Singh Jagdev of Aus­tralia, the first meet­ing of Na­tional level Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tions from dif­fer­ent coun­tries was hosted by Na­tional Sikh Coun­cil of Aus­tralia in Syd­ney on Feb 28 – March 2, 2014. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Aus­tralia, Thai­land, UK and US at­tended the meet­ing and ini­ti­ated the es­tab­lish­ment of Global Sikh Coun­cil with ba­sic un­der­stand­ing of the struc­ture and Vi­sion, Mis­sion, goals, and ob­jec­tives. 

The next meet­ing was held on July 31 – Au­gust 2, 2015 in Lon­don UK. By this time the Global Sikh Coun­cil had six na­tional level Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions, one each, from Aus­tralia, Canada, Malaysia, Pak­istan, UK, and US as the found­ing mem­bers. The rep­re­sen­ta­tives from cur­rent and po­ten­tial mem­ber or­ga­ni­za­tions for­mally ap­proved the GSC Con­sti­tu­tion and se­lected an ad-hoc com­mit­tee con­sist­ing of Gul­barg Singh Basi of US as Pres­i­dent, Lady Kan­waljit Kaur of UK as Vice Pres­i­dent, Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan of Switzer­land as Sec­re­tary, Har­cha­ran Singh of Malaysia as Trea­surer and Jatin­der Singh Up­pal of Thai­land as In­charge Me­dia and Pub­lic Re­la­tions. 

The first of­fi­cial meet­ing of the GSC was held in Paris, France on March 18-20, 2016.  By this time na­tional level Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions from In­dia and Dubai had al­ready joined GSC. Then, GSC started to dis­cuss the is­sues fac­ing the world­wide Sikh com­mu­nity. Gur­dial Singh of France had in­vited a large num­ber of ac­tive Sikh com­mu­nity mem­bers from var­i­ous other coun­tries. Many an im­por­tant res­o­lu­tions were passed keep­ing in line with the motto of “One Granth, One Panth” and stress­ing the uni­ver­sal im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar of 2003 in ad­di­tion to ini­ti­at­ing ef­forts on pro­jects like de­vel­op­ing bilin­gual Sikh Par­charaks. Na­tional level Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions from France, Ger­many, Italy, Kenya, Por­tu­gal, Spain, and Switzer­land joined the GSC. The Global Sikh Coun­cil had a good ground by the end of this meet­ing.

The Global Sikh Coun­cil (GSC) was formed in 2014 as a re­sult of con­cerns felt by di­as­pora Sikhs over the mush­room­ing of var­i­ous de­ras run by sants and babas, who mis­lead gullible Sikhs to fol­low dis­torted ver­sions of our Gu­rus’ teach­ings.

GSC is a world­wide Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tion with mem­ber­ship of na­tional level Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions from around the world. No self ap­pointed lead­ers or an agent of any po­lit­i­cal party, re­li­gious clergy or gov­ern­men­tal agency can be a mem­ber of GSC. It’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives are se­lected by the mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tions to form the Gen­eral Body of the Global Sikh Coun­cil. The mem­ber rep­re­sen­ta­tives in turn se­lect the Board, and the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee.

The Con­sti­tu­tion of the GSC re­quires mem­bers to be true to the Gu­rus’ teach­ings, con­tained in the Guru Granth Sahib, and pro­mote the very uni­fy­ing fi­nal or­der of Guru Gob­ind Singh, ‘Sabh Sikhan ko hukam hai, Guru Manio Granth’. GSC be­lieves that Guru Granth Sahib is the only Guru of the Sikhs and strictly no other scrip­tures should be placed par­al­lel to the Guru Granth Sahib in any gur­d­waras or any Sikh events wher­ever or when­ever these might hap­pen in any part of the world. Re­hat Maryada states, ‘No other book should be af­forded the same rev­er­ence as the Guru Granth Sahib.’

The Global Sikh Coun­cil also be­lieves that the Sikh Re­hat Maryada pub­lished in 1945 by the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee is the code of con­duct to be fol­lowed by Sikhs in their daily life. GSC pro­motes the gen­eral guid­ance of the 1945 Re­hat Maryada in bring­ing the Sikh teach­ings con­tained in the Guru Granth Sahib into our daily life.

The 2017 Con­fer­ence and AGM of Global Sikh Coun­cil was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 24-26, 2017. The Malaysia Gur­d­wara Coun­cil un­der the lead­er­ship of Ja­gir Singh or­ga­nized and hosted this three-day meet. The con­fer­ence ad­dressed is­sues such as Con­tin­ued Dis­tor­tion of Sikhi mes­sage, The SGPC its ac­tual and as­sumed role, his­tory, au­thor­ity and sub­ju­ga­tion of Jathedars, Sikhi go­ing for­ward, stream­lin­ing Gur­mat ed­u­ca­tion, Sikhism and its prop­a­ga­tion as a fu­ture world re­li­gion.

Presently the fol­low­ing mem­bers serve on the 2017 Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee: Lady Kan­waljit Kaur of UK as Pres­i­dent, Ajmer Singh of Aus­tralia as Vice Pres­i­dent,  Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan of Switzer­land as Sec­re­tary, Har­cha­ran Singh of Malaysia as Asst. Sec­re­tary/​Trea­surer and Gur­preet Singh of In­dia as Me­dia and Pub­lic Re­la­tions In­charge.

Un­doubt­edly, GSC has a long way to go. As a whole gamut of re­li­gious, so­cial, eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal is­sues con­front the com­mu­nity and the task seems a daunt­ing one as forces in­im­i­cal to the com­mu­nity are far too strong, yet the strug­gle must go on and the re­sults will fol­low. “Nis­chay Kar Apni Jeet Karo”.