WSN pre­sents a crit­i­cal analy­sis of the func­tion­ing of the pre­mier in­sti­tu­tion of the Sikhs -the SGPC -Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee, which is cel­e­brat­ing its for­ma­tion day and is mov­ing to­wards its cen­ten­nial year in the com­ing decade.

SGPC -the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee is ap­pro­pri­ately called the Sikh Par­lia­ment. Since its for­ma­tion, on 15 No­vem­ber, 1920, as part of the Gur­d­wara Re­form move­ment, af­ter huge sac­ri­fices by Akali work­ers and lead­ers, it has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal af­fairs.

Defin­ing the sphere of the SGPC, Jas­pal Singh, in his the­sis sub­mit­ted to the Pun­jabi Uni­ver­sity Pa­tiala on the SGPC work­ing from 1925-1984 says in his open­ing re­marks that, “though ap­par­ently a re­li­gious body, the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee since its birth has been ar­tic­u­lat­ing the so­cio-re­li­gious, cul­tural, eco­nomic as well as the po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests of the Sikhs, be­cause these fea­tures of the so­ci­ety can­not be di­vorced from each other.”

“The mem­bers of the SGPC hold of­fice for five years from the date of its con­sti­tu­tion or un­til the con­sti­tu­tion of a new body, whichever is later. The Cen­tral gov­ern­ment con­ducts elec­tions and it usu­ally de­lays. Af­ter 1965, elec­tions were held in 1979, 1996 and 2004, af­ter a gap of 14, 17, 8 and 7 years. A manda­tory pro­vi­sion is re­quired in the Act to con­duct the elec­tions on sched­ule.”

Dr. Kash­mir Singh, for­mer head Law De­part­ment, Guru Nanak Dev Uni­ver­sity, Am­rit­sar

Set­ting up Sikh ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions far and wide, En­gi­neer­ing and Med­ical col­leges, Guru Granth Sahib Uni­ver­sity, mis­sion­ary col­leges, rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Sikh at var­i­ous fora, lead­ing var­i­ous Mor­chas broad­cast­ing of live Kir­tan across the world, chal­leng­ing the gov­ern­ment of In­dia when­ever it has at­tempted to den­i­grate the Sikhs or de­mean Sikhism in any way are sin­gu­lar achieve­ments of the SGPC in the past but its en­tire work­ing is now un­der the scan­ner of the Sikh San­gat, schol­ars and re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists who keep a tab on the work­ing of this pre­mier in­sti­tu­tion of the Sikhs.

In re­cent times, the amend­ment to the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1925 dis­en­fran­chis­ing the so-called “Se­ha­jd­hari Sikhs” by the In­dian Par­lia­ment more be­cause of the prox­im­ity of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party is a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment of the SGPC, though in fair­ness it must be men­tioned that the process was ini­ti­ated by the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Mann), twenty years ago.

On the other hand, the SGPC has mon­u­men­tally failed to han­dle the Sacha Sauda Dera Sirsa is­sue and its var­i­ous flip-flops on the in­de­pen­dent work­ing of Akal Takht Sahib is too well known.  Ris­ing apos­tasy among the youth, un­stop­pable drugs and al­co­hol abuse in rural and ur­ban ar­eas, sin­is­ter in­ter­fer­ence of the RSS and BJP in Sikh af­fairs, in­abil­ity to stop the pseudo-Dera cul­ture, cor­rup­tion in the SGPC bu­reau­cracy, suc­cumb­ing to po­lit­i­cal pres­sures while ap­point­ing and re­mov­ing Jathedars of Takhts, pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on sub­stan­tive is­sues re­lat­ing to Dasam Granth, Rag­mala are a few of the many se­ri­ous chal­lenges that the SGPC should con­front and come up with so­lu­tions as per Sikh tenets, Sikh tra­di­tions, ac­cept­able to the Sikh com­mu­nity.

“SGPC has mis­er­ably failed to pro­tect all Sikh re­li­gious shrines, his­tor­i­cal places, his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments, Sikh arte­facts, Sikh her­itage and the fu­ture of the Sikhs.”

Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan, Sec­re­tary, Global Sikh Coun­cil

Flaws in the cen­tury old Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1925 un­der which it was given a le­gal shape, haugh­ti­ness of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal lead­er­ship that has since been con­trol­ling the af­fairs, greed of var­i­ous Pres­i­dents to stick to power in full com­plic­ity of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia have over the decades di­luted the im­por­tance of the body lead­ing to voices of dis­sent and se­ri­ous at­tempts to form an­other global or­gan­i­sa­tion to ef­fec­tively rep­re­sent the Sikhs all across the world.

Tenure over­run­ning is not new to the SGPC. This time again on No­vem­ber 29, the gen­eral house of the SGPC will meet in the his­toric Teja Singh Samundri Hall within the Dar­bar Sahib com­plex in Am­rit­sar to “elect” its Pres­i­dent and Ex­ec­u­tive for one year. Prof. Kir­pal Singh Badun­gar was elected last year for a sec­ond tenure af­ter the year af­ter a 11-year-long year-to-year “elec­tion” of Av­tar Singh Makkar as Pres­i­dent. The elec­tion of the SGPC Pres­i­dent has been teas­ing called, the “the en­ve­lope Pres­i­dency” as ac­tu­ally the name of the Pres­i­dent as de­cided by the Pres­i­dent of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal -this time Sukhbir Singh Badal, comes dur­ing the course of the SGPC meet­ing in an en­ve­lope and sub­se­quently that name is pro­posed and his pres­i­dency an­nounced and “unan­i­mously elected.”

Dr. Kash­mir Singh, for­mer head of the Law de­part­ment of the Guru Nanak Dev Uni­ver­sity in Am­rit­sar, in his re­view of SGPC work­ing pub­lished by the Ox­ford Book of Sikh Stud­ies, has pointed out that, “the mem­bers of the SGPC hold of­fice for five years from the date of its con­sti­tu­tion or un­til the con­sti­tu­tion of a new body, whichever is later. The Cen­tral gov­ern­ment con­ducts elec­tions and it usu­ally de­lays. Af­ter 1965, elec­tions were held in 1979, 1996 and 2004, af­ter a gap of 14, 17, 8 and 7 years. A manda­tory pro­vi­sion is re­quired in the Act to con­duct the elec­tions on sched­ule.”

This is how due to an anom­aly in the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1925, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the SGPC -singly or jointly con­tinue to work be­yond their tenures. It will be a shock and sur­prise to lean that along with the Gen­eral house elec­tions, there should be elec­tions to the lo­cal com­mit­tees of var­i­ous his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras. Elec­tion to the lo­cal com­mit­tees was held in 1996 af­ter a gap of 32 years! Since then the elec­tions to the lo­cal com­mit­tees has not taken place. So much for de­mo­c­ra­tic func­tion­ing. It must how­ever be said that Pan­thic or­gan­i­sa­tions too do not take this se­ri­ously and en­force the SGPC and the gov­ern­ment of In­dia to con­duct reg­u­lar elec­tions.

Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Narula, the ar­chi­tect of the first All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­wara leg­is­la­tion, a de­vout de­voted Sikh at heart, as Chief Com­mis­sioner Gur­d­wara Elec­tions sub­mit­ted many rec­om­men­da­tions to the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs but only a few were ac­cepted.

In 1995, the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Mann) led by Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann pe­ti­tioned the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties when Bal­want Singh Ramoowalia was its deputy head seek­ing re­forms in SGPC work­ing and were able to get seats re­served for women in the SGPC house, which by it­self no mean achieve­ment, though it is an­other story that hus­bands of most women mem­bers “func­tion” as mem­bers whereas the women mem­bers can be seen twice a year dur­ing the Ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings.

SGPC meets twice a year for a few hours -one meet­ing is to elect the Pres­i­dent and the Ex­ec­u­tive and the other is to pass the bud­get pro­pos­als. Com­pris­ing 190 mem­bers in­clud­ing reser­va­tion for so-called Sched­uled castes and women, 170 of which are elected, 15 nom­i­nated with the 5 Jathedars as ex-of­fi­cio mem­bers, the SGPC func­tions as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of the Sikhs.  

Over the last few years, its reach and im­pact has been ques­tioned and de­bated pri­mar­ily be­cause of the in­ef­fi­ciency of the Akali in­cum­bents, no steps to amend re­gres­sive sec­tions of the Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Act and to­tal lack of in­no­va­tion to be­come a fully rep­re­sen­ta­tive body of the Sikhs. Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to the World Sikh News, sec­re­tary of the Global Sikh Coun­cil, Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan said that, “SGPC has mis­er­ably failed to pro­tect all Sikh re­li­gious shrines, his­tor­i­cal places, his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments, Sikh arte­facts, Sikh her­itage and the fu­ture of the Sikhs. Ar­chi­tec­ture of the past is be­ing de­stroyed and be­ing placed with mar­ble and gold. There is very lit­tle or neg­li­gi­ble sup­port to the Sikh poor and un­der­priv­i­leged. The pup­pet man­age­ment un­der the tute­lage of the pre­sent po­lit­i­cal mas­ters must end and a course cor­rec­tion must set in, the pos­si­bil­ity of which ap­pears bleak. It is time to set up newer global fo­rums and mech­a­nisms to ad­dress global Sikh needs and is­sues.”

For­mer Sec­re­tary of the SGPC Man­jit Singh Cal­cutta who was in the thick of the SGPC dur­ing his tenure said, “The grip of the Badals on the SGPC has vir­tu­ally stran­gu­lated this au­gust body and se­ri­ous ef­forts have to be made to re­gain the glory and pres­tige of the body which has done so much for the Sikh na­tion.”

In its last ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, the SGPC said that that they would make ef­forts that Pun­jabi lan­guage gets it due place in Pun­jab? What have you been do­ing over the years? Why did this sit­u­a­tion come about? Is this not laugh­able?

The con­tri­bu­tion of Dr. Roop Singh as a scholar-ad­min­is­tra­tor is ex­em­plary, but to pro­mote him to the post of Chief Sec­re­tary for which there is no pro­vi­sion is to cre­ate an un­savoury sit­u­a­tion should some­one chal­lenge the same.

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SGPC has won many bat­tles for the Sikhs, raised rel­e­vant is­sues, played the role of a dar­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Sikh com­mu­nity on many an oc­ca­sion. If it could only de­moc­ra­tise its own func­tion­ing, meet more reg­u­larly and dis­cuss is­sues, not let burn­ing is­sues of the com­mu­nity re­main in the limbo for decades to­gether, ex­pand its scope be­yond Pun­jab, Hi­machal Pradesh, Haryana and Chandi­garh, it has the po­ten­tial to be­come the de jure Par­lia­ment of the Sikhs.

A few years from now, SGPC will ob­serve its cen­ten­nial work­ing year. It is time to make amend­ments to the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1925 and a course cor­rec­tion make it an ef­fec­tively func­tion­ing Sikh Par­lia­ment.