In a de­vel­op­ment that has sent shock­waves through­out the Sikh com­mu­nity, the Sikh San­gat of Patna has ur­gently ap­pealed to the high­est re­li­gious au­thor­ity, Jathedar Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh Ji of the Akal Takht Sahib, seek­ing im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion over the fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of Maryada – the Sikh Code of Con­duct – at Takht Sri Ha­ri­mandir Ji, Patna Sahib, dur­ing the re­cent visit of the In­dian Pres­i­dent Droupadi Murmu there. World Sikh News ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh re­ports on the ba­sis of pho­to­graphic and video ev­i­dence and af­ter speak­ing to mem­bers of the San­gat who were pre­sent in the sanc­tum sanc­to­rum and the San­gat which con­vened a meet­ing a day af­ter the visit of the In­dian Pres­i­dent.

LOOK AT THE MAIN PIC­TURE CLOSELY. The Pres­i­dent of In­dia is in­side Dar­bar Sahib, Takht Patna Sahib. Ex­cept for her se­cu­rity para­pher­na­lia and the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee team, there is not a sin­gle mem­ber of the Sikh San­gat.  There was no earth­quake in Patna or an­other calamity that there was no San­gat. The San­gat, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion gath­ered by The World Sikh News, num­bered around 70-80 a ma­jor­ity of which were women.

In re­sponse to the se­cu­rity um­brella of the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary, the Su­per­in­ten­dent of Takht Patna Sahib -Daljit Singh, act­ing high and mighty and us­ing strong words shooed away the San­gat from Dar­bar Sahib.  He was ob­vi­ously ex­e­cut­ing or­ders from the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, who were com­ply­ing with the ad­min­is­tra­tive de­mand for an empty area prior to the Pres­i­den­t’s visit.

In a move that demon­strated syco­phancy at its worst, the Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee fla­grantly dis­played their sub­servience to the ad­min­is­tra­tive and po­lit­i­cal sys­tem by hush­ing out the Sikh San­gat from Dar­bar Sahib, Takht Patna Sahib, grossly dis­rupt­ing the sanc­tity of the holy place.

Now have a close look at the photo above. In­dian Pres­i­dent Droupadi Mur­mao is sur­rounded by the mem­bers of the Takht Com­mit­tee, her se­cu­rity cover per­son­nel, and Se­wadars of the Takht Com­mit­tee on duty. There is not a sin­gle mem­ber of the San­gat in the Dar­bar Sahib.

WSN spoke to mem­bers of a fam­ily from Lud­hi­ana who were part of the San­gat in Patna and who were pushed out­side Dar­bar Sahib. The lady said, “I was to­tally dev­as­tated. This has never hap­pened any­where at any time. I join the San­gat in Patna seek­ing ex­em­plary pun­ish­ment for the Takht Com­mit­tee.”

“I was to­tally dev­as­tated. This has never hap­pened any­where at any time. I join the San­gat in Patna seek­ing ex­em­plary pun­ish­ment for the Takht Com­mit­tee.”

A Sikh lady from Lud­hi­ana who was part of the San­gat in­side Dar­bar Sahib, Takht Patna Sahib on 17 Oc­to­ber dur­ing Pres­i­dent of In­di­a's visit there

Sur­prised and shocked, Gur­sha­ran­jit Singh, a for­mer Se­nior Man­ager of Pun­jab and Sind Bank, who was also vis­it­ing Takht Sahib, told WSN that there was a Sikh lady from Sin­ga­pore, who re­sisted the push­ing by Se­wadars led by Daljit Singh Su­per­in­ten­dent, and that she was vis­i­bly up­set and an­gry.

Manohar Singh Bagga, a se­nior leader of the Sikh com­mu­nity from Patna, un­der whose lead­er­ship the meet­ing of the San­gat was held, vo­cif­er­ously ar­tic­u­lated the an­guish of the com­mu­nity, “In the long his­tory of our sa­cred in­sti­tu­tions, no dig­ni­tary’s visit, no mat­ter how es­teemed, has ever su­per­seded the sa­cred­ness of our tra­di­tions. This bla­tant de­vi­a­tion is not only un­prece­dented but deeply hurt­ful.”

“In the long his­tory of our sa­cred in­sti­tu­tions, no dig­ni­tary’s visit, no mat­ter how es­teemed, has ever su­per­seded the sa­cred­ness of our tra­di­tions. This bla­tant de­vi­a­tion is not only un­prece­dented but deeply hurt­ful.”

Manohar Singh Bagga, Se­nior leader, Sikh San­gat, Patna

The San­gat pre­sent in­side the Takht Sahib en­grossed in the Gur­bani Kir­tan, were forcibly evac­u­ated to fa­cil­i­tate the Pres­i­den­t’s visit. Iqbal Singh Lucky Bagga, an­other in­flu­en­tial voice within the com­mu­nity, lamented, “The Gur­bani lis­ten­ers were dis­placed. This has never hap­pened be­fore, not even when other high-pro­file dig­ni­taries vis­ited.”

Iqbal Singh Lucky Bagga also pointed out the ha­rass­ment to the San­gat who were locked in­side their rooms and could not go to the Rail­way sta­tion for de­par­ture from Patna. He fur­ther ap­prised that school­child­ren re­turn­ing home were also pre­vented from en­ter­ing the Takht premises.

To ad­dress these grave con­cerns, a well-at­tended meet­ing of Sikh San­gat was con­vened in Patna. The gath­er­ing af­ter an all-round dis­cus­sion, with many lead­ers sharply crit­i­ciz­ing the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee’s al­leged mis­con­duct, re­solved to unan­i­mously pass a set of res­o­lu­tions, the most promi­nent amongst which, urged Gi­ani Ragh­bir Singh, Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib to sum­mon the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee to an­swer for their ac­tions.

“This is un­prece­dented. This did not hap­pen even when erst­while Pres­i­dent of In­dia vis­ited Takht Patna Sahib. We will not take it ly­ing down. The Com­mit­tee will have to pay a heavy price for this.”

Iqbal Singh Lucky Bagga, Ac­tivist

The let­ter to the Jathedar Akal Takht says, “What’s as­ton­ish­ing and dis­tress­ing is that the cur­rent man­age­ment com­mit­tee, did not re­sist the di­rec­tions of ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials, which were con­trary to Sikh re­li­gious prac­tices and vi­o­lated the sanc­tity of the his­toric place.”

“Per­haps for the first time in the his­tory of the Takht Sahib, such an in­ci­dent has taken place. Ear­lier, many dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing the for­mer Pres­i­dent of In­dia, Ram Nath Kovind, had paid their re­spects at the birth­place of the Tenth Guru, Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji, but the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee had never stooped to this level.”

An ac­tive mem­ber of the Sikh San­gat, who was ex­tremely un­happy at the turn of events Iqbal Singh Lucky Bagga told WSN, “We have urged our Jathedar Sahib to sum­mon the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee mem­bers and of­fi­cials, who are con­tin­u­ously vi­o­lat­ing the code of con­duct, to the Akal Takht Sahib and pun­ish them ac­cord­ing to the Sikh code so that no other leader dares to com­mit such gross dis­hon­our in the fu­ture.”

Ma­haraja Singh Sonu, for­mer Ju­nior Vice Pres­i­dent and cur­rently of­fi­ci­at­ing as­so­ci­ate mem­ber high­lighted ad­di­tional con­cerns, rang­ing from the de­layed elec­tions to the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee to al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in pur­chases for the Takht Lan­gar. “These se­ries of events, when viewed to­gether, paint a grim pic­ture. Im­me­di­ate ac­tion is the need of the hour,” he as­serted.

“De­lay­ing elec­tions, cor­rup­tion in pur­chases, mis­be­hav­iour with San­gat, giv­ing free ac­cess to po­lice and ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials at Takht Sahib -all of this makes us put our heads in shame. We ap­peal to San­gat world­wide to wake up and join hands to undo this huge dam­age to our sa­cred Sikh in­sti­tu­tions.”

Ma­haraja Singh Sonu

WSN learns that the charges of cor­rup­tion and malfea­sance have been lev­elled against Gurvin­der Singh, who has been il­le­gally nom­i­nated as a mem­ber of the Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, even be­fore the elec­tions to the new Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee are held.

As the term of the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee is over, the San­gat in Patna has also re­quested Jathedar Akal Takht to form a sub-com­mit­tee to over­see the cel­e­bra­tions of the forth­com­ing Gur­purab of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji to en­sure that there is no abuse of power.

Re­fer­ring to col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­ity, the San­gat of Patna sought the dis­missal of Su­per­in­ten­dent Daljit Singh, say­ing, “This con­gre­ga­tion as­serts that mere ex­e­cu­tion of or­ders from the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee does not ab­solve Mr. Daljit Singh of his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. As a de­vout Sikh and a ded­i­cated of­fi­cial of Takht Sahib, it was, and re­mains, his para­mount duty to pro­tect and pre­serve the sanc­tity and deco­rum of the revered Takht Sahib. The San­gat firmly be­lieves that every Sikh, es­pe­cially those in po­si­tions of re­spon­si­bil­ity, must pri­or­i­tize the ho­n­our and tra­di­tions of our faith above every­thing else.

Though the Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­ted at­tempted to save its skin through a lame-duck apol­ogy by Daljit Singh, in turn, they ended up ac­cept­ing their lapse. Even a cur­sory read­ing of the so-called ex­pla­na­tion shows how the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee was asked to bend but they ended up crawl­ing. If this trend con­tin­ues, spine­less lead­ers will have spine­less staff and they will de­stroy the sanc­tity and deco­rum of the high­est re­li­gious cen­tres of Sikhism.

In a sup­port­ive ges­ture, Jathedar Gi­ani Harpreet Singh of Takht Damdama Sahib, in a re­cent video mes­sage, un­der­scored the se­ri­ous­ness of the mat­ter and em­pha­sized the need for the Takht Patna Com­mit­tee to seek for­give­ness for the over­sight. Re­port­edly, the San­gat is not sat­is­fied with this and has asked him also to seek strin­gent ac­tion against the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee.

“The Takht Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee pri­or­i­tized the pro­to­col of the Pres­i­dent over the re­spect and Maryada of the Takht Sahib.”

Clearly, as the pe­ti­tion to the Jathedar reads, “The Takht Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee pri­or­i­tized the pro­to­col of the Pres­i­dent over the re­spect and Maryada of the Takht Sahib. The Takht Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee failed to con­vey to the Pres­i­den­t’s pro­to­col of­fi­cials, lo­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion, and po­lice that the Sikh code of con­duct and the sanc­tity of Dar­bar Sahib at Takht Patna Sahib or any Gur­d­wara is sa­cred and sacro­sanct and can­not be com­pro­mised.”

How mean can the Takht Com­mit­tee gets can be gauged from the fact that when the Sikh San­gat wanted to hold a meet­ing in the meet­ing room at the Takht premises, the hall was locked and the keys were not made avail­able. It is to the credit of the San­gat peo­ple that they gath­ered out­side and con­ducted the pro­ceed­ings, in­clud­ing the adop­tion of the res­o­lu­tions.

WSN learns that the Akal Takht Sec­re­tariat has sought an ex­pla­na­tion from the Takht Patna Sahib Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee over the en­tire in­ci­dent re­lat­ing to the re­cent visit of the In­dian Pres­i­dent. How­ever, till the fil­ing of this re­port, the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee has main­tained si­lence over the mat­ter.

It may be men­tioned here that Pres­i­dent Mur­mao, alighted from her ve­hi­cles a few steps away from the main gate of the Takht en­trance and gen­tly and humbly, wav­ing to the gath­ered crowd walked into the premises.  Still, the overzeal­ous­ness of the Pro­to­col de­part­ment needs to be ques­tioned and the Pres­i­den­t’s of­fice will look into this to en­sure that this is not re­peated at any re­li­gious place of wor­ship.

The global Sikh com­mu­nity echoes the sen­ti­ments of the Sikh San­gat in Patna, am­pli­fy­ing the call for in­ter­ven­tion. As the story un­folds, the Sikh com­mu­nity world­wide awaits de­ci­sive ac­tion, reaf­firm­ing that their re­li­gious tra­di­tions and sanc­ti­ties re­main un­com­pro­mised, ir­re­spec­tive of po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence.