Be­hind-the-scenes con­fab­u­la­tions be­tween the Con­gress party lead­er­ship and AAP party leg­is­la­tor Harvin­der Singh Phoolka re­sulted in the Pun­jab As­sem­bly dis­cussing the fu­ture elec­tions of the Sikh As­sem­bly of the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh ques­tions the ra­tio­nale of do­ing so and points out la­cu­nae in the Sikh Gur­d­waras Act 1925, which are be­ing con­sis­tently ig­nored by the Sikh lead­er­ship –tra­di­tional, Pan­thic and the youth.

Yes­ter­day, when the Pun­jab As­sem­bly passed a res­o­lu­tion au­tho­ris­ing the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab to pur­sue the case of de­lay in the SGPC elec­tions with the Union gov­ern­ment, cer­tain facts were con­ve­niently for­got­ten or ig­nored.  Nei­ther did Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh, nor did the dilly-dal­ly­ing Mem­ber of the Pun­jab Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly Harvin­der Singh Phoolka men­tion on the floor of the house as to why and how does the Union gov­ern­ment de­lay elec­tions to the SGPC gen­eral house, time and again. This is not hap­pen­ing for the first time.

Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions within Pun­jab and in the Di­as­pora have al­ways been wor­ried about the degra­da­tion in the lead­er­ship and man­age­ment of the Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal body –the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee. As the body deals with mil­lions of ru­pees gar­nered from obei­sance money given by the de­vout across the many Gur­d­waras it gov­erns and funds from other sources –like rents, etc, the Sikh masses al­ways be­lieve, and rightly so, that these re­sources could be put to bet­ter use than to ‘up­keep’ and ‘main­tain’ Gur­d­waras alone.

The Sikh San­gat is ap­pre­hen­sive about the huge bu­reau­cratic struc­ture of the SGPC and it is peo­ple’s per­cep­tion that it is largely cor­rupt and a mas­sive ad­min­is­tra­tive fail­ure.

Whose game is the SGPC? Sikhs have to de­cide it them­selves. The stakes are high. The un­der­stand­ing is min­i­mal. The sharks are wait­ing to pounce on the Sikhs. Will the Sikhs al­ways be sit­ting ducks?

As for the peo­ple’s views re­gard­ing its pre­sent lead­er­ship, the less said the bet­ter. The lead­er­ship com­prises mem­bers of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal party and for all prac­ti­cal pur­poses; it is the party in­ter­est which is supreme. Since the last many decades this has been so and we have seen that the cause of the Sikhs and the in­ter­ests of the Sikhs have been fully com­pro­mised on or­di­nary and im­por­tant is­sues.

All of this has lead to var­i­ous fringe groups and in­di­vid­u­als to in­ter­vene from time to time and the in­ter­ven­tion of Harvin­der Singh Phoolka should be seen in this light only. Oth­er­wise, the AAP party MLAs and lead­ers hardly has any sense of the Sikh is­sues re­lat­ing to the SGPC and there­fore not much was ex­pected from them.

On the floor of the Pun­jab as­sem­bly, the mem­bers of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal have per­fected the art of ‘walk­ing out’ of the as­sem­bly rather than re­but­ting the fal­la­cious ar­gu­ments of the op­po­si­tion on any is­sue.

If the term of the gen­eral house of the SGPC was over in 2016, how come the SGPC con­tin­ued to func­tion? Is the func­tion­ing il­le­gal? Who al­lowed the SGPC to func­tion as it is?  Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal at the state level? Bharatiya Janata Party at the union level? The Ju­di­ciary? The Min­istry of Home Af­fairs? Dur­ing this whole pe­riod, why was the Sikh lead­er­ship sleep­ing?

And sig­nif­i­cantly, is this hap­pen­ing for the first time? How many times has it hap­pened in the past?

The Pun­jab As­sem­bly res­o­lu­tion is con­ceived in sin. The in­ten­tions of Sar­dar Phoolka may be good and he had to ‘re­lin­quish his res­ig­na­tion’, to raise ‘such an im­por­tant is­sue’, but we need to know more. The re­lin­quish­ment of his res­ig­na­tion was tem­po­rary or oth­er­wise we do not know.

Why has Harvin­der Singh Phoolka con­ceded the lead he has taken on the SGPC elec­tion is­sue to Capt. Amarinder Singh?

The Con­gress party and Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh has no love lost for the Sikhs and Sikh is­sues.  He has now been be­stowed with the man­tle to pur­sue the is­sue of SGPC elec­tions with the cen­tre. Un­der what law? Un­der what pro­vi­sions? Why the Chief Min­is­ter of the state, who is the leader of a ‘sec­u­lar’ party and whose party does not par­tic­i­pate in SGPC elec­tions at all?

Does the Chief Min­is­ter un­der­stand the nu­ances of the SGPC elec­tions? Apart from shoot­ing from the hip state­ments which can sound pleas­ing and sec­u­lar, Capt Amarinder Singh is med­dling in Sikh re­li­gious af­fairs. It is un­for­tu­nate that he has been given this op­por­tu­nity by Harvin­der Singh Phoolka whose prime in­ten­tion is early elec­tions to the SGPC.

The state­ment that has em­anated from the Chief Min­is­ter’s Of­fice says, “Hours af­ter he was au­tho­rized by the State As­sem­bly to take up with the Cen­tre the is­sue of de­lay in SGPC elec­tions, Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Cap­tain Amarinder Singh said peo­ple had the right to early polls to the supreme body con­trol­ling the Gur­d­waras.”

It fur­ther elab­o­rates, “Talk­ing in­for­mally with me­di­a­per­sons out­side the House, the Chief Min­is­ter termed the de­lay in the SGPC elec­tions as wrong and un­fair for the peo­ple of Pun­jab. It was the de­mo­c­ra­tic right of every Pun­jabi to vote in SGPC elec­tions which can­not be de­nied by Union Gov­ern­ment, he ear­lier said in the House, while re­spond­ing to the is­sue that was raised by AAP MLA HS Phoolka.”

“Since the Gur­d­wara Act was a na­tional leg­is­la­tion, it was the bounden duty of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to hold timely elec­tions to the SGPC, he said, seek­ing the per­mis­sion of the Speaker, on be­half of his gov­ern­ment, to adopt the res­o­lu­tion moved by the AAP MLA,” read the state­ment.

The lapse on the part of the In­dian state to con­duct the elec­tions reg­u­larly con­sti­tutes in­di­rect in­ter­fer­ence in the af­fairs of the Sikh peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly their re­li­gious af­fairs and for this an amend­ment to Sec­tion 51 of the Sikh Gur­d­waras Act 1925 should be done im­me­di­ately.

Sikhs will do well to re­call this. There is no pro­vi­sion for au­to­matic elec­tions to the gen­eral house of the SGPC af­ter a lapse of five years. The union gov­ern­ment, the state gov­ern­ment and the lead­er­ship of the party which gov­erns the SGPC have been col­lud­ing with each other to de­lay the elec­tions in the last few decades. There are no pro­vi­sions for reg­u­lar en­rol­ment of vot­ers, ver­i­fi­ca­tion of vot­ers and prepa­ra­tion of voter lists. No pro­vi­sions for by-elec­tions.

A sim­ple thing as ap­point­ment of the Chief Com­mis­sioner Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, which should be a per­ma­nent post is nei­ther men­tioned in the Act nor has any of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties or lead­ers taken up with the gov­ern­ment in a sin­cere and sus­tained man­ner.

The lapse on the part of the In­dian state to con­duct the elec­tions reg­u­larly con­sti­tutes in­di­rect in­ter­fer­ence in the af­fairs of the Sikh peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly their re­li­gious af­fairs and for this an amend­ment to Sec­tion 51 of the Sikh Gur­d­waras Act 1925 should be done im­me­di­ately.

If these pro­vi­sions are added through an amend­ment to the Sikh Gur­d­waras Act 1925, there would be no need for the “Chief Min­is­ter to take up the is­sue if elec­tions to the SGPC with the Home Sec­re­tary of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia’.

More­over it will not pro­vide an­other op­por­tu­nity for the Chief Min­is­ter and his CMO to add fur­ther fuel to the fire by is­su­ing a state­ment which says that, “It was the de­mo­c­ra­tic right of every Pun­jabi to vote in SGPC elec­tions.” Since when was this right granted to every Pun­jabi? Sikhs and only Sikhs who ful­fil the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a ‘Sikh’ can vote in the SGPC elec­tions. Pe­riod.

The Se­ha­jad­hari Sikhs, about whom the Chief Min­is­ter had made the wrong noises in the past, with­out un­der­stand­ing the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the Se­ha­jd­hari Sikhs, also stand dis­en­fran­chised -fully and for­ever.

“The ‘peo­ple’ of Pun­jab want SGPC elec­tions. Every Pun­jabi has the right to vote in the SGPC says Capt. Amarinder Singh? Is Cap­tain Amarinder Singh run­ning an RSS gov­ern­ment with a Con­gress mast­head?” 

The scion of the Pa­tiala royal house­hold has lost it. Af­ter mak­ing un­nec­es­sary gaffes in an at­tempt to be­fud­dle the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor is­sue by say­ing that ‘even non-Sikhs’ should be al­lowed to visit Kar­tarpur Sahib and some­times re­lat­ing it to cross-bor­der is­sues and now say­ing that ‘peo­ple of Pun­jab’ want SGPC elec­tions and “every Pun­jabi has the right to vote’, Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh is run­ning an RSS gov­ern­ment with a Con­gress mast­head.

Hav­ing taken up the mat­ter with the Union Home Min­is­ter, why did Harvin­der Singh Phoolka con­cede the lead­er­ship on this is­sue to the Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter, whose Con­gress party is now boast­ing of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the SGPC elec­tions?

Whose game is the SGPC? Sikhs have to de­cide it them­selves. The stakes are high. The un­der­stand­ing is min­i­mal. The sharks are wait­ing to pounce on the Sikhs. Will the Sikhs al­ways be sit­ting ducks?