As the Badal Dal lead­er­ship de­bunked the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, Jag­mo­han Singh -the ed­i­tor of the World Sikh News wrote an open let­ter to the then SGPC pres­i­dent Av­tar Singh Makkar telling him un­mis­tak­ably that by amend­ing the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar he has com­mit­ted a grave sin. The pre­sent in­cum­bent of SGPC had ini­ti­ated the ef­forts for adop­tion of the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar. It would be in­ter­est­ing to see if he will re­spond to ef­forts be­ing made to re­store the cal­en­dar, par­tic­u­larly af­ter the hu­mil­i­at­ing Badal Dal de­feat at the hus­tings.

Dear Av­tar Singh Ji Wa­he­guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wa­he­guru Ji Ki Fateh! So you have done what was fully ex­pected of you. The Nanakshahi cal­en­dar is no longer the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar or it is Nanakshahi cal­en­dar only in name, but has many con­tents of the ret­ro­grade Bikrami cal­en­dar, which you will force the Sikhs to fol­low. Pal Singh Pure­wal ex­plained it in great de­tail to you and the Sikh world that if we fol­low the Bikarami method­ol­ogy, we would end up de­fy­ing Gur­bani as en­shrined in Baramaha Tukhari and Baramaha Maajh in Guru Granth Sahib, for in the years to come the days and months will not be the same as men­tioned in these Ba­nis.  

It has been so ob­vi­ous that you do not care for Gur­bani and Guru Granth Sahib. Do you? Ac­tu­ally we, the Sikhs were fools to have ex­pected you to do oth­er­wise. In fact, we are stu­pid. You have not done any­thing oth­er­wise in the last five years in SGPC and in the last two decades as a ‘loyal lieu­tenant’ of the Badal Dal, it was naive of us to have ex­pected a Pan­thic ap­proach from you.  

I am con­vinced as most Sikhs are, that the only way to do things oth­er­wise, to get things done in Pan­thic in­ter­est is to get you and all the cronies of your party dis­lodged from the SGPC in the com­ing gen­eral house elec­tions to the SGPC. What I am not con­vinced about is the method­ol­ogy, ap­proach and strate­gies of those op­posed to you. Their in­ten­tions are fine, but that is not all. Un­for­tu­nately, you also know that.  

The height of your shame­less­ness was demon­strated in your ap­proach at the SGPC ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee where you took this de­ci­sion. You said, “we are here not do dis­cuss what is right and what is wrong with the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar; the core group of the party or the party high–com­mand as it is rou­tinely and rightly called, has said that these changes have to be made and so they have to be made, it is a ques­tion of party dis­ci­pline” Loy­alty to party and leader, be­trayal to God and Guru, isn’t it? 

While you revel in your pur­ported ‘achieve­ment’ of hav­ing brought the Takhts to­gether on one plat­form, your party, the Damdami Tak­sal and you have di­vided the Sikh na­tion on an is­sue which had brought the Sikhs on one plat­form af­ter a very long time in 2003.  

Im­por­tantly, if you think you have brought the two Takhts ‘into the fold’ by al­ter­ing the cal­en­dar, how about com­plet­ing this mis­sion by en­sur­ing that the two Takhts and the De­ras whom you want to pacify or ap­pease for elec­toral rea­sons, would also fol­low the Sikh Re­hat Maryada adopted by the Sikh Panth way back in 1945 and which most Sikhs con­tinue to fol­low to this day! Or should we start fear­ing that you may think about amend­ing that too! 

Last week on the first day of the Com­mon Era New Year, I wrote to you re­quest­ing you to en­able the Sikhs to re­main cheer­ful through­out the year, but as the turn of events have shown, you had made up your mind long back. Back–stab­bing is an art you peo­ple have learnt so well, that well–mean­ing Sikhs still get de­ceived by you.  

I am amazed at the gems of ar­gu­ment pro­duced by the Badal Dal pro­pa­ganda ma­chin­ery –’the new Nanakshahi cal­en­dar is meant to bring the Panth to­gether –all or­gan­i­sa­tions who have op­posed the SGPC are bo­gus –the move of the SGPC is to bring the Sant Samaj within the fold of Sikhism (as if it was out­side the fold ear­lier) –if a few days can be cel­e­brated on cer­tain dates, what harm does it cause to the Sikhs –all those are dis­sent­ing are agents of the Con­gress I party’, ad nau­seam.

So is it not clear that for you the dic­tum is clear, “ei­ther you are with me or against me”. Dis­sent is en­mity; dis­sent is be­ing anti–Pan­thic.   

The man­ner in which you have roped in the Supreme Tem­po­ral Au­thor­ity –Akal Takht Sahib into the im­broglio cre­ated by you and the man­ner in which the pre­sent in­cum­bent, Jathedar Sahib Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh Ji has rat­i­fied your sug­ges­tions has be­numbed the Sikhs into si­lence and the fear of a theo­cratic build–up within Sikhism which has no re­li­gious, his­tor­i­cal or tra­di­tional sanc­tion.

I am aware that your party and you are prepar­ing to un­seat Jathedar Bal­want Singh Nandgarh but are ‘wait­ing for the op­por­tune time and oc­ca­sion’.

The in­tro­duc­tion to the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar pub­lished by the SGPC gives the time­line of the cal­en­dar in great de­tail, cites 12 co­gent rea­sons for hav­ing the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar and the var­i­ous res­o­lu­tions of the SGPC passed for adop­tion of the cal­en­dar. To re­call, the first res­o­lu­tion was that of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee on 15 Jan­u­ary 1998, then a res­o­lu­tion of the gen­eral house of the SGPC on 18 March 1998. The Dharam Par­char Com­mit­tee of the SGPC passed a res­o­lu­tion on 5 June 2000, urg­ing the Akal Takht Jathedar to re­solve the dif­fer­ences per­tain­ing to the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar. Af­ter in­nu­mer­able meet­ings, twists and turns, the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar was adopted on 28 March 2003 un­der the aus­pices of Akal Takht Sahib and the Jathedar wrote to the SGPC say­ing among other things, “…..The Nanakshahi cal­en­dar has been adopted in the meet­ing of 28 March 2003…..” Af­ter this let­ter was pre­sented be­fore the gen­eral house of the SGPC on 29 March 2003 by Prof. Kir­pal Singh Ban­dugar, amidst chants of Jaikaras, the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar was unan­i­mously adopted.  

A host of Pan­thic schol­ars, ac­tivists, writ­ers and de­vout Sikhs con­tributed their thoughts and ar­gu­ments, for and against, af­ter which the cal­en­dar was adopted, start­ing a new era of the Sikh al­manac.

A whole ar­ray of re­li­gio–po­lit­i­cal bod­ies from Pun­jab, Mum­bai, Delhi, USA, UK, Canada and Eu­rope had ap­pealed to your good sense not to push Sikhs into the Brah­man­i­cal fold from which Guru Nanak and suc­ces­sor Gu­rus had so ef­fec­tively re­moved us from and the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar is a clas­sic re­sult of their unique con­tri­bu­tion. You have rub­bished them all.

Pal Singh Pure­wal –the pi­o­neer of the cal­en­dar had suc­cinctly pointed out that more than 95 per­cent of the com­mu­nity had started us­ing the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar and that it would not be wise to make any changes. You have mer­ci­lessly cheated him, even his plea for a hear­ing be­fore mak­ing the cur­rent changes was not re­sponded to.  

It has been barely 6 years and we have not yet even basked in the glory of the cal­en­dar which brought respite to the iden­tity ques­tion and the very be­ing of Sikhs –badly bru­talised in June and No­vem­ber 1984.

As I write to you I worry about how the 77 year old Pal Singh Pure­wal –the chief ar­chi­tect of the cal­en­dar must be feel­ing. I have rea­son to be­lieve that he is hav­ing sleep­less nights. You have hurt him. You have taken his work and twisted it topsy-turvy. This is what the SGPC did to Prof. Gur­mukh Singh, to Jus­tice Har­bans Singh –the chief ar­chi­tect of the All In­dia Gur­d­wara Act, to Sir­dar Ka­pur Singh-whose draft of the White Pa­per against the neo-Ni­rankaris was also changed by the SGPC. 

Your spine­less­ness has been demon­strated once again. The dif­fi­culty is that you have harmed the spine of the Sikh na­tion. I am not sure how much time it will take, but am pretty cer­tain that it will take years be­fore the clock can be re­versed –for the com­mu­nity, as for you, you have com­mit­ted a grave sin and treach­ery with the House of Guru Nanak. Still, Rab Rakha. 

Jag­mo­han Singh

Jag­mo­han Singh is ed­i­tor of The World Sikh News. He may be con­tacted at the­world­sikhnews@gmail.com