Coin­cid­ing with the First Parkash Purab of Guru Granth Sahib as per the Akal Takht en­dorsed 2003 Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, Lon­don-based Global Sikh Coun­cil has greeted the Sikh world on the oc­ca­sion, cau­tioned In­dian lead­ers for quot­ing Sikh re­li­gion and his­tory out of con­text and also cau­tioned Jathedar Akal Takht and SGPC to take im­me­di­ately ini­ti­ate cor­rec­tive ac­tion on the cur­rent sub­stan­tive is­sues con­fronting the Sikhs.

THE IDEA OF SHABAD GURU -THE WORD AS THE GURU WAS AN EX­TRA­OR­DI­NARY CON­CEPT  in­tro­duced by the Gu­rus; unique to the his­tory of hu­mankind and a clear de­par­ture from wor­ship­ping a plethora of gods and god­desses, widely preva­lent in those times, says Lady Kan­waljit Kaur, the Pres­i­dent of the Global Sikh Coun­cil while greet­ing Sikhs and hu­man­ity on the oc­ca­sion of the First Rev­e­la­tion Day of Guru Granth Sahib in 1604.

Trac­ing the ori­gin of the idea, she adds “The founder of the faith -Guru Nanak Sahib was cat­e­gor­i­cal. Guru Nanak de­clared to the world that this Word -the Bani -the scrip­tures, en­shrined in Guru Granth Sahib, is a re­vealed way of life, given by God Almighty and nar­rated by Him to the world.”

ਜੈਸੀ ਮੈ ਆਵੈ ਖਸਮ ਕੀ ਬਾਣੀ ਤੈਸੜਾ ਕਰੀ ਗਿਆਨੁ ਵੇ ਲਾਲੋ ॥
As the word of the Lord comes to me, so do I ut­ter, O Lalo.
Guru Nanak, Raag Tilang, Page 722

The press re­lease of the Global Sikh Coun­cil says, “Leg­end has it that at the time of the First Parkash, Guru Ar­jan Sahib, went into a newly-dug deep well, ad­ja­cent to Dar­bar Sahib, Am­rit­sar, sig­ni­fy­ing that He was not im­por­tant, it was the Bani -the re­vealed scrip­ture, which was to be revered by the Sikhs. Such was the im­por­tance at­tached by the Guru to Guru Granth Sahib.”

“While the Sikhs are fac­ing chal­lenges from some forces within the Sikh fold and from ex­ter­nal forces, for the Sikhs -the dik­tat of the Guru that “Guru Ma­neo Granth” -’Be­lieve and Fol­low Guru Granth Sahib’ still stands uni­ver­sally true. Un­ques­tion­ably, Guru Granth Sahib is our Guru for all times, at all times, un­der all cir­cum­stances. No in­di­vid­ual, no or­gan­i­sa­tion, no gov­ern­ment au­thor­ity and no po­lit­i­cal leader has the priv­i­lege or au­thor­ity to change or di­lute this stand in any man­ner what­so­ever.”

“In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mod­i’s ref­er­ence to Sikh his­tory in a bi­ased and con­cocted man­ner is noth­ing short of blas­phemy.”

Lady Kan­waljit Kaur, Pres­i­dent, Global Sikh Coun­cil

With­out men­tion­ing his name but tak­ing the In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi to task for mis­quot­ing Sikh re­li­gious his­tory at the in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mony of the Ram Mandir weeks back, Kan­waljit Kaur cau­tioned, “Con­tem­po­rary writ­ings of Sikh, Mus­lim and Hindu chron­i­clers, dur­ing the Guru pe­riod, are un­doubt­edly his­tor­i­cal records, but all of them are not au­then­tic re­li­gious records. They are not in sync with the tenets of Sikhism and hence can­not be­come a ba­sis for ex­plain­ing the fun­da­men­tals of Sikhism.”

“Such vi­cious and pre­me­di­ated ut­ter­ances are noth­ing short of blas­phemy,” she added.

Ru­ing the fact that the Sikh re­li­gious lead­ers have not purged the Brah­man­i­cal ad­di­tions to some Sikh his­tor­i­cal writ­ings, she has stated that now it is the duty of the Jathedar Akal Takht and the SGPC to take ef­fec­tive steps to re­move mis­con­cep­tions re­gard­ing the Sikh re­li­gion, boldly chal­lenge the anti-Sikhism ut­ter­ances of the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of In­dia, take up the task of edit­ing ma­li­cious as­pects of his­tor­i­cal chron­i­cles and to ac­cept the Real Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar.

Dis­turbed at the Akal Takht ver­sus Ran­jit Singh Dhadhri­an­wale row, the Global Sikh Coun­cil has ap­pealed to Jathedar Harpreet Singh to de­moc­ra­tise the dis­pute res­o­lu­tion pro­ce­dure at Akal Takht Sahib.

Dis­turbed at the Akal Takht ver­sus Ran­jit Singh Dhadhri­an­wale row, the Global Sikh Coun­cil has ap­pealed to Jathedar Harpreet Singh to de­moc­ra­tise the dis­pute res­o­lu­tion pro­ce­dure at Akal Takht Sahib.

Speak­ing on the phone line from Lon­don, Lady Kan­waljit Kaur ex­pressed shock at the rews about Katha of Dasam Granth at Gur­d­wara Bangla Sahib and told this cor­re­spon­dent, “Di­as­pora Sikhs will not take this mis­ad­ven­ture ly­ing down. We join the voices in Delhi who are op­pos­ing this move by the DS­GMC and we ap­peal to Jathedar Harpreet Singh to stop this be­fore any more dam­age is done. GSC will soon lodge a for­mal com­plaint with the Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib.”

Global Sikh Coun­cil urges Jathedar Harpreet Singh to take ef­fec­tive steps to stop Katha of Dasam Granth at Gur­d­wara Bangla Sahib, Delhi.”

Lady Kan­waljit Kaur, Pres­i­dent Global Sikh Coun­cil

“The Sikh San­gat world­wide and es­pe­cially in Pun­jab has to keep its eyes and ears to the ground. We all know that Brah­man­i­cal forces in­im­i­cal to the Sikh re­li­gion started prop­a­gat­ing against Sikh con­cepts, right from the times of Guru Nanak. As long as we re­main stead­fast in our faith and be­liefs and chal­lenge dis­trac­tors, no one will be able to wean us away from ‘Shabad Guru.”