In clear vi­o­la­tion of or­ders of the Supreme Court of In­dia and the sen­ti­ments of the Sikh com­mu­nity, the Puri ad­min­is­tra­tion, un­der di­rec­tions from the gov­ern­ment of Odisha is all set to de­mol­ish the four cen­turies-old house of Guru Nanak -the Mangu Mutt, op­po­site the his­toric Ja­gan­nath Puri Tem­ple, where the founder of the Sikh faith had gone for in­ter-faith di­a­logue and the prop­a­ga­tion of Unity of God.

IN A FEW HOURS FROM THE TIME THIS RE­PORT IS PUB­LISHED, should bet­ter sense not pre­vail and it is un­likely, the tiny lit­tle space, con­se­crated with the foot­steps of Guru Nanak, which at one time had the Guru Granth Sahib too and which has been revered for cen­turies would be de­mol­ished to pave way for mod­ern con­crete roads and in­fra­struc­ture by an ill-ad­vised Odisha gov­ern­ment, whose Chief Min­is­ter Naveen Pat­naik is sup­pos­edly pro-peo­ple and who has Sikh lin­eage in his fam­ily.

From the pic­tures and de­tails made avail­able by ac­tivist ad­vo­cate Sukhvin­der Kaur, a por­tion of Mangu Mutt, ad­ja­cent to the Emar Mutt was de­mol­ished to­day morn­ing, mak­ing way for the full de­mo­li­tion of this abode of Guru Nanak, where he is be­lieved to have stayed and where the Aarti “Gagan main thall rav chand deep­ak’ is be­lieved to have been re­cited.

Though there is a Supreme Court or­der that no struc­tural changes be car­ried out with­out the ex­press per­mis­sion and co­op­er­a­tion of all stake­hold­ers, the Col­lec­tor of  Puri -Bal­want Singh Rathod, does not seem to be in a mood to ho­n­our ei­ther the or­der of the court or the ap­peal of the Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh, or the protests lodged by the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee and the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee.

“We have been cry­ing hoarse since the last three months. Not only is the ad­min­is­tra­tion not lis­ten­ing, but even the Sikh lead­er­ship also has not been se­ri­ous about the is­sue.”

Sukhvin­der Kaur, lawyer and so­cial ac­tivist

Even a per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tion by con­ser­va­tion ac­tivist Anil Dhir, so­cial ac­tivists Sukhvin­der Kaur and Gurmeet Singh and World Sikh News ed­i­tor and hu­man rights ac­tivist Jag­mo­han Singh to the Gov­er­nor of Odisha in the re­cent past does not seem to have any ef­fect on the pow­ers that be.

While friends of the Sikh com­mu­nity, across the world, are en­gaged in cel­e­brat­ing the spirit and works of Guru Nanak through mak­ing the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor, de­clar­ing Guru Nanak birth­day as Equal­ity Day and build­ing new in­sti­tu­tions, the Naveen Pat­naik gov­ern­ment of Odisha seems de­ter­mined to de­mol­ish the traces of Guru Nanak’s foot­steps in Odisha.

A shocked Sukhvin­der Kaur, on the phone line to World Sikh News, said, “We have been cry­ing hoarse since the last three months. Not only is the ad­min­is­tra­tion not lis­ten­ing, but even the Sikh lead­er­ship also has not been se­ri­ous about the is­sue.”

The si­lence of the Odisha Sikh Pra­tinidhi Board, which is work­ing in tan­dem with the SGPC on the mat­ter is rather con­fus­ing and the Sikh world is un­aware of any steps that they may have taken to pre­vent the de­mo­li­tion which is in all like­li­hood go­ing to hap­pen to­mor­row morn­ing.