Sus­tained ac­tiv­ity over three days by Lok In­saaf Party MLAs Bal­winder Singh Bains, Simar­jit Singh Bains, hu­man rights ac­tivist and WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh re­sults in Odisha gov­ern­ment as­sur­ance of ac­cept­ing Sikh de­mands to re­tain Sikh her­itage sites at Mangu Mutt, Pun­jabi Mutt and Gur­d­wara Baoli Sahib Mutt.

LEAD­ERS OF THE LOK IN­SAAF PARTY from Pun­jab and Sikh San­gat prayed at Mangu Mutt, met and pe­ti­tioned Gov­er­nor Odisha Gov­er­nor Ganeshi Lal, held a protest march from Gur­d­wara Singh Sabha to Can­teen Square and a protest sit-in at Can­teen Square with lo­cal Sikh San­gat in Bhubaneswar, cul­mi­nat­ing in sub­mis­sion of a strongly worded sub­mis­sion to Odisha Chief Min­is­ter through Odisha Min­is­ter of State for Home Cap­tain Di­vya Shankar Mishra.

Odisha three-time MLA Bobby Das and the of­fi­cial Tem­ple ad­min­is­tra­tor of Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple Mr Kr­ishna, ac­cepted the con­tention of the del­e­gates and ac­cepted the Sikh de­mand re­gard­ing restora­tion and preser­va­tion of Sikh her­itage in Puri.

The Sikh com­mu­nity can heave a sigh of re­lief that on 23 De­cem­ber 2019 that the de­mands of the Sikh com­mu­nity, re­gard­ing build­ing Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib at the Mangu Mutt place, an ap­pro­pri­ate memo­r­ial or Gur­d­wara Sahib at the Pun­jabi Mutt area and con­struc­tion of the Gur­d­wara Baoli Mutt with­out de­stroy­ing its char­ac­ter and old de­sign has been ac­cepted.

I thank the gov­ern­ment of Shri Naveen Pat­naik for clear­ing the air and ex­pressly stat­ing that the gov­ern­ment will ho­n­our Sikh sen­ti­ments and take full steps to es­tab­lish Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib at the Mangu Mutt site.

-Simar­jit Singh Bains, MLA

This has come as sweet news for con­ser­va­tion ac­tivist Anil Dhir and so­cial ac­tivist and ad­vo­cate Sukhvin­der Kaur who have put their heart and soul to pro­tect and re­store Guru Nanak’s glo­ri­ous her­itage. These two ac­tivists who have been tire­somely up­hold­ing the cause ac­com­pa­nied the del­e­ga­tion through­out the three days.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh who was part of the del­e­ga­tion, Simar­jit Singh Bains said, “I thank the gov­ern­ment of Shri Naveen Pat­naik for clear­ing the air and ex­pressly stat­ing that the gov­ern­ment will ho­n­our Sikh sen­ti­ments and take full steps to es­tab­lish Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib at the Mangu Mutt site.”

SGPC mem­ber and MLA Bal­winder Singh Bains said, “Guru Nanak’s bless­ings have pre­vailed and we will spare no ef­fort to take this to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.”

WSN has most re­li­ably learnt that the  Acti g Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib Gi­ani Harpreet Singh di­rected the fa­ther-son duo of Shamsher Singh and Jagdip Singh to change the name of the Gur­d­wara they have con­structed years ago on the seafront and which has the mis­nomer Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib.

Guru Nanak’s bless­ings have pre­vailed and we will spare no ef­fort to take this to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.

Bal­winder Singh Bains, MLA

De­spite mak­ing time, Jagdip Singh failed to meet the Pun­jab del­e­ga­tion. It re­mains to be seen if he will ac­cept the di­rec­tion odd the  Akal Takht Sahib or adopt a con­fronta­tion ap­proach.

The Tem­ple ad­min­is­tra­tor Mr Kr­ishna and  MLA Bobby Das as­sured that there will be no fur­ther de­mo­li­tion and they will re­visit the agree­ment with SGPC re­gard­ing the re­con­struc­tion of Gur­d­wara Baoli Sahib and while draw­ing the de­sign and lay­out of the cor­ri­dor around the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple, to in­cor­po­rate Sikh in­ter­ests.

The mem­o­ran­dum to the Chief Min­is­ter read, “This his­toric Mangu Mutt is ac­tu­ally the Gur­d­wara Aarti Sahib bear­ing the sig­na­ture of the foot­steps of Guru Nanak when he reached the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple for in­ter-faith di­a­logue as part of his long jour­neys -Uda­sis in the fif­teenth cen­tury.”

“The gov­ern­ment of Odisha may take up the de­vel­op­ment of a his­toric Guru Nanak Her­itage Cor­ri­dor -the path taken by Guru Nanak Sahib dur­ing his visit to var­i­ous parts of Odisha and East­ern In­dia. This will cat­a­pult Odisha into the fore­front of com­mem­o­ra­tive ac­tiv­i­ties of the 550th Birth an­niver­sary of Guru Nanak Sahib and will be cher­ished by the Sikhs world­wide in the same spirit as the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor.”

Jag­mo­han Singh, Hu­man rights ac­tivist

WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh pointed out that the Sikh com­mu­nity is so dis­turbed that since the day a big chunk of the Mangu Mutt was de­mol­ished, Sikh Jathas have started vis­it­ing the place in Puri and we are wit­ness to tears and emo­tional out­bursts on see­ing the de­mol­ished place, with relics ly­ing in the de­bris and a hur­ried con­struc­tion un­der­way to oblit­er­ate all signs of the past.”

The ex­haus­tive doc­u­ment pre­sented by the Lok In­saaf Party started, “These Mutts -hos­pices bear full ref­er­ences to the visit of Guru Nanak to Puri and it is our clear con­tention that it would be a trav­esty of his­tory to ei­ther de­mol­ish or dis­ori­ent these his­toric and re­li­gious places in a neo-mod­ern de­sign as part of an ill-con­ceived beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and ex­pan­sion pro­gramme to cre­ate a cor­ri­dor around the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple in Puri.”

Not only this, the Bains broth­ers warned that “Our sub­mis­sion to you is an ex­pres­sion of the yearn­ings of the Sikhs and we wish to cat­e­gor­i­cally de­clare that by ig­nor­ing Sikh con­cerns you will find the Sikh com­mu­nity at your door protest­ing and con­test­ing these il­le­gal steps of the Odisha gov­ern­ment in the typ­i­cal Sikh for­mat of a sus­tained Mor­cha in the near fu­ture.”

Hu­man rights ac­tivist Jag­mo­han Singh as­serted to the Home Min­is­ter that “the gov­ern­ment of Odisha may take up the de­vel­op­ment of a his­toric Guru Nanak Her­itage Cor­ri­dor -the path taken by Guru Nanak Sahib dur­ing his visit to var­i­ous parts of Odisha and East­ern In­dia. This will cat­a­pult Odisha into the fore­front of com­mem­o­ra­tive ac­tiv­i­ties of the 550th Birth an­niver­sary of Guru Nanak Sahib and will be cher­ished by the Sikhs world­wide in the same spirit as the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor.”

The Lok In­saaf Party del­e­ga­tion in­cluded Jaswinder Singh Khalsa, Jaswant Singh Gaj­jan­ma­jra, Jaswant Singh, Jar­nail Singh Sibia, Gur­jot Singh and Shri Vinayak from Lud­hi­ana.

The del­e­ga­tion also vis­ited Bi­ram­chipur vil­lage, nearly 150 kilo­me­tres from Bhubaneswar where Guru Nanak Naam Leva Odiya brethren have pre­served  Kara, which they claim was handed over to their fore­fa­thers when Guru Nanak trav­elled on foot on the Old Ja­gan­nath Road. They also had a hand­writ­ten man­u­script of Asa di Vaar.

A me­dia team from Pun­jab also ac­com­pa­nied the del­e­ga­tion.