With two weeks to go for the gen­eral elec­tions to the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee -DS­GMC, sched­uled for 22 Au­gust, apo­lit­i­cal ac­tivists of The Sikh Fo­rum, ex­press­ing con­cerns at the man­age­ment of Sikh af­fairs in Delhi, have de­lin­eated a broad agenda and ap­pealed to en­listed Delhi Sikh vot­ers to par­tic­i­pate over­whelm­ingly in the forth­com­ing polls. WSN Delhi Desk’s Gurmeet Singh re­ports.

EXPRESS­ING DEEP CON­CERN at the un­prece­dented stale­mate in Delhi Sikh af­fairs as par­ties con­test­ing DS­GMC elec­tions con­tinue to in­dulge in mud­sling­ing, blame games and un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage both of­fline and through so­cial me­dia chan­nels, the Sikh Fo­rum has ap­pealed for calm and an agenda-based fight to choose self­less ser­vice-minded lead­ers to gov­ern the af­fairs of the body.

De­clar­ing it­self to be a watch­dog for the en­su­ing elec­tions, The Sikh Fo­rum has said that it would “over­see and mon­i­tor any vis­i­ble glar­ing vi­o­la­tion or wrong­do­ing by any­one… in the larger in­ter­est of the com­mu­nity.”

Call­ing the forth­com­ing elec­tions to be “the fi­nal op­por­tu­nity for the cur­rent con­tes­tants to dis­play their lead­er­ship and vi­sion for the fu­ture of the Khalsa Panth,” the Sikh Fo­rum has made a fer­vent ap­peal to the Sikhs of Delhi to vote ju­di­ciously and in large num­bers for can­di­dates with a clear record, in­tegrity and a mis­sion­ary zeal for self­less ser­vice. 

The Sikh Fo­rum has said that it would “over­see and mon­i­tor any vis­i­ble glar­ing vi­o­la­tion or wrong­do­ing by any­one… in the larger in­ter­est of the com­mu­nity.”

The body of for­mer de­fence per­son­nel, bu­reau­crats, pro­fes­sion­als and aca­d­e­mi­cians, has how­ever re­frained from en­dors­ing any par­tic­u­lar group or can­di­date.  

Act­ing Pres­i­dent Ravin­der Singh Ahuja and gen­eral Sec­re­tary Par­tap Singh, in a press re­lease, have urged one and all to stop un-Sikh like acts and be­hav­iour and pre­sent a time-bound achiev­able agenda. They also asked, “re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to pre­sent plans and poli­cies to be ex­e­cuted to im­prove gur­d­wara man­age­ment, ed­u­ca­tion and fi­nan­cial man­age­ment.”  

A nine-point pro­gram of re­forms has been pre­sented to in­clude safe­guard­ing fi­nances through trans­parency on go­lakh man­age­ment, proper ac­count­ing for all re­ceiv­ables -cash or kind, on­line or of­fline, due process for bud­get­ing and its ex­e­cu­tion and com­put­er­i­sa­tion of data.

Fo­cussing on the need for quan­tum change in the skill sets of DS­GMC staff in Gur­d­waras, The Sikh Fo­rum urged par­ties con­test­ing the elec­tions to work for “the needs of ed­u­ca­tion, liv­ing stan­dards, coun­selling, skill de­vel­op­ment of the se­vadars work­ing in the gur­d­wara com­mit­tee and to de­velop ac­count­abil­ity and re­spon­si­bil­ity in their per­for­mance.”

The Sikh Fo­rum urged par­ties con­test­ing the elec­tions to work for “the needs of ed­u­ca­tion, liv­ing stan­dards, coun­selling, skill de­vel­op­ment of the se­vadars work­ing in the gur­d­wara com­mit­tee and to de­velop ac­count­abil­ity and re­spon­si­bil­ity in their per­for­mance.”

Gen­eral Sec­re­tary DIG Po­lice (Retd.) Par­tap Singh em­pha­sized that there was an ur­gent need for the for­mu­la­tion of writ­ten Stan­dard Op­er­at­ing Pro­ce­dures for the train­ing of re­li­gious and other staff mem­bers work­ing un­der the com­mit­tee.  

A spe­cial ap­peal has been made for Gur­mat train­ing and com­mu­nity build­ing of the for­got­ten brethren like Sik­li­gars, Van­jaras and Lobanas. 

It has been ob­served that the Stan­dard Op­er­at­ing Pro­ce­dures in the Rules un­der the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1971 for fi­nan­cial func­tion­ing are not fol­lowed in let­ter and spirit as it is clear from re­cent de­vel­op­ments. This has re­sulted in in­nu­mer­able court cases and dirty linen be­ing washed in pub­lic. 

The man­age­ment of schools un­der the DS­GMC has been the talk of the town as the ed­u­ca­tional stan­dards of the once-pop­u­lar and pro­duc­tive Guru Harkr­is­han Sahib Pub­lic Schools has gone from bad to worse. Sikh Fo­rum sought “spe­cial fo­cus on the qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive out­put of schools with a fo­cus on the per­for­mance of teach­ers, bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture and fa­cil­i­ties and use of mod­ern tech­nol­ogy to em­power all sec­tions in­volved in the ed­u­ca­tional process.”

There is a dire need for The Sikh Fo­rum and other in­de­pen­dent bod­ies in Delhi to main­tain con­sis­tency in their role as watch­dogs for the Sikh San­gat, which is al­ready fed up with the on­go­ings of the DS­GMC.