Pan­thic con­sul­tancy and con­sen­sus has been a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion for ap­point­ment of Jathedars which has been dis­re­garded by the pre­sent SGPC lead­er­ship by its uni­lat­eral ap­point­ment of Jathedars, thereby erod­ing the au­thor­ity of Sikh in­sti­tu­tions writes the spokesper­son of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary po­lit­i­cal party, Dal Khalsa. He pre­sents ef­forts made to evolve a method­ol­ogy which can be re­fined for uni­ver­sal ac­cep­tance by the Khalsa Panth.

A few days back, the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee (SGPC) ap­pointed Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh as Jathedar Kesgarh Sahib fol­low­ing the demise of Gi­ani Mal Singh, the pre­sid­ing Jathedar.  For the record, it may be men­tioned that the de­ceased Gi­ani Mal Singh was one of the three Takht Jathedars who was ‘dis­cred­it­ed’ for par­don­ing Sirsa dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim in a sac­ri­lege case in Sep­tem­ber 2015. All Pan­thic ef­forts to dis­lodge the pre­sent Jathedar of Akal Takht have so far failed even though he too was guilty of mis­lead­ing the Sikhs. 

The SGPC has once again taken the de­ci­sion to ap­point Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh on its own with­out both­er­ing to con­sult the Panth. SGPC did not con­sider it nec­es­sary to take any Pan­thic or­ga­ni­za­tion, in­sti­tu­tion and age-old Sam­par­das into con­fi­dence be­fore nam­ing the Jathedar. There was no sem­blance of an ef­fort to build or show a con­sen­sus. Ear­lier also, the SGPC took the uni­lat­eral de­ci­sion to re­place Gi­ani Gur­mukh Singh with Gi­ani Harpreet Singh as Jathedar of Takht Damdama Sahib af­ter the for­mer did not re­lent from call­ing a spade a spade with re­spect to the role of the Badals who still con­trol the SGPC, even though they are out of po­lit­i­cal of­fice.

The moot point here is the ar­bi­trari­ness of ap­point­ment by the SGPC and not the wis­dom, cred­i­bil­ity or ca­pa­bil­ity of the newly-elected Jathedars.

Across the Panth, from Sikhs out­side Pun­jab and out­side In­dia in the global Sikh Di­as­pora, there is grow­ing re­sent­ment to SGPC ab­ro­gat­ing all pow­ers with­out con­sul­ta­tion. Tech­ni­cally, SGPC rep­re­sents vot­ers of Pun­jab, Haryana, Hi­machal Pradesh and Chandi­garh al­though his­tor­i­cally its writ runs across the Sikh world. How­ever, since the last decades, uni­lat­eral and ar­bi­trary de­ci­sions have eroded the le­git­i­macy and uni­ver­sal ac­cept­abil­ity of the SGPC and the suc­cumb­ing of the re­li­gious lead­er­ship to the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship by tak­ing wrong and mis­lead­ing de­ci­sions and po­si­tions has added fuel to the fire.  Across the Di­as­pora, col­lec­tive fo­rums are com­ing up in re­spec­tive coun­tries and con­ti­nents in an ef­fort to be­come um­brella or­gan­i­sa­tions of the Sikhs in those ar­eas to ad­dress is­sues rather than take them all to the SGPC. Sur­pris­ingly, the SGPC lead­er­ship seems obliv­i­ous to this.

The SAD con­trolled SGPC has mis­er­ably failed to evolve a code of ap­point­ment, a code of con­duct and a fool­proof sys­tem of re­moval or im­peach­ment of Jathedars, should the need arise. The pre­sent re­quire­ment is only un­ques­tion­ing loy­alty to the po­lit­i­cal party -Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal and its chief and this is tear­ing into the needs of the Panth to have a bold leader ca­pa­ble of lead­ing the com­mu­nity through thick and thin.

“Schol­ars mooted a col­le­giate pat­tern called the Khalsa Dar­bar of 100 in­di­vid­u­als be con­sti­tuted, rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent shades of Pan­thic opin­ion from which an 11-mem­ber se­lec­tion com­mit­tee will be formed, which will choose a panel for the post of the Jathedar, which shall be for­warded to the Dar­bar once again for con­fir­ma­tion and rat­i­fi­ca­tion. The Khalsa Dar­bar shall choose one per­son from the panel and the SGPC will be asked to ap­point that per­son.”

Way back in March 2000, when Gi­ani Jogin­der Singh Vedanti af­ter his ap­point­ment in place of Gi­ani Pu­ran Singh had in­structed the SGPC to lay down the pro­ce­dure for the ap­point­ment, re­moval and work­ing spheres of Takht Jathedars, the SGPC cold-shoul­dered his call.

In a Dal Khalsa ini­tia­tive, schol­ars in­clud­ing Dr Prit­pal Singh Ka­pur, Bhag Singh Ankhi, Prof Bikram Singh, Dr So­han Singh, Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, Jas­pal Singh Dhillon, Tarsem Singh Delhi and Prin­ci­pal Har­sim­ran Singh opined that it should not be the sole dis­cre­tion of the SGPC to ap­point or re­move the Jathedars at will though it may play the role of a co­or­di­na­tor among the var­i­ous Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions.

Schol­ars mooted a col­le­giate pat­tern called the Khalsa Dar­bar of 100 in­di­vid­u­als be con­sti­tuted, rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent shades of Pan­thic opin­ion from which an 11-mem­ber se­lec­tion com­mit­tee will be formed, which will choose a panel for the post of the Jathedar, which shall be for­warded to the Dar­bar once again for con­fir­ma­tion and rat­i­fi­ca­tion.  The Khalsa Dar­bar shall choose one per­son from the panel and the SGPC will be asked to ap­point that per­son. To en­sure that there is no di­ver­gence, the onus for the sum­mon­ing the Dar­bar shall lie with the SGPC.

The draft sug­gested that the Jathedar should be in­de­pen­dent of all kinds of po­lit­i­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive pres­sures and ma­nip­u­la­tions and an­swer­able only to the Panth. It sug­gested that the Jathedar should be in­de­pen­dent of any pe­cu­niary au­thor­ity. The Panth should cre­ate a fi­nan­cial cor­pus for his sus­te­nance and for the af­fairs of the Akal Takht sec­re­tariat.

Among the or­ga­ni­za­tions, par­ties, in­sti­tu­tions that would con­sti­tute the Dar­bar were to in­clude SGPC, DS­GMC, Takht Sri Patna Sahib Board, Takht Hazur Sahib Board, Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha, Damdami Tak­sal, Chief Khalsa Di­wan, Sant Samaj, Sikh Ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions, Kendri Singh Sabha, Sikh po­lit­i­cal par­ties and groups within In­dia and abroad.

“Your Quote HereTo re­store the aura, su­premacy and dig­nity of the in­sti­tu­tion, the Panth needs to evolve and im­ple­ment spe­cific, con­sid­ered and log­i­cal guide­lines re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment, re­moval and work­ing sphere of Jathedar of the Akal Takht and other Takhts.”

Sim­i­larly, the rules and pro­ce­dures for re­moval, defin­ing pow­ers and work­ing sphere and cri­te­ria and qual­i­ties to se­lect a per­son for the top post was also laid down in the draft. The pro­posed draft was cir­cu­lated among a se­lect group and in­di­vid­u­als for fur­ther de­bate, sug­ges­tions and rat­i­fi­ca­tion. A se­ries of meet­ings, dis­cus­sions, work­shops were arranged to get feed­back.  

Con­tin­u­ing the di­a­logue, in March 2008 Supreme Court lawyer HS Phoolka, Wing Com­man­der (Retd) RS Chhat­wal, Damdami Tak­sal head Baba Har­nam Singh Khalsa, Ak­hand Kir­tani Jatha head Baldev Singh, Chief Khalsa Di­wan sec­re­tary Bhag Singh Ankhi, Di­rec­tor Jagdish Singh, for­mer SGPC sec­re­tary Man­jit Singh Cal­cutta, Narain Singh, Dr Gur­cha­ran­jit Singh from GNDU, KAC con­venor Mohkam Singh, Daljit Singh, chair­man of Dharam Par­char Com­mit­tee of the DS­GMC, for­mer Jathedar Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh and Jag­tar Singh Jachak, Khalsa Pan­chayat chair­man Ra­jin­der Singh and Prin­ci­pal Har­sim­ran Singh took part in the de­lib­er­a­tions. 

Sig­nif­i­cantly, dur­ing the en­tire process, Jathedar Vedan­ti’s call to cod­ify the post re­mained the cen­tral force. The or­ga­niz­ers and the schol­ars made it crys­tal clear that the blue­print will be handed over to the SGPC for broader con­sen­sus and im­ple­men­ta­tion. How­ever, the move could not see the light of the day as Jathedar Vedanti was re­moved un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously in Au­gust 2008. Un­for­tu­nately, his suc­ces­sor Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh was dis­in­ter­ested in tak­ing the is­sue to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion. 

Since then, the is­sue of cod­i­fy­ing the post is hang­ing in in the limbo. The dilly-dal­ly­ing ap­proach of the SGPC and sheer ar­ro­gance of the Akali lead­er­ship led by Sukhbir Singh Badal has taken the toll of the in­sti­tu­tion. A size­able sec­tion of the Panth re­fuses to rec­og­nize Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh as the Jathedar of Akal Takht. 

The Akal Takht is supreme and its su­premacy and sov­er­eignty can­not be chal­lenged and ques­tioned. How­ever, the con­cept of Sandesh, Gur­mata and Hukam­nama have be­come hazed over the years be­cause of the man­ner in which edicts have been handed over in re­cent times -from the bla­tant in­ter­ven­tion­ist to the ut­terly ridicu­lous and the po­lit­i­cally mo­ti­vated.

To re­store the aura, su­premacy and dig­nity of the in­sti­tu­tion, the Panth needs to evolve and im­ple­ment spe­cific, con­sid­ered and log­i­cal guide­lines re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment, re­moval and work­ing sphere of Jathedar of the Akal Takht and other Takhts.