Con­tin­u­ing our in­ves­ti­ga­tion, WSN pre­sents an analy­sis of the work­ing and ac­count­abil­ity of SGPC and its ad­her­ence to Sikh val­ues by the au­thor who is an ac­claimed Sikh thinker, ed­u­ca­tor, founder and se­nior fel­low of Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute.

Con­tin­u­ing our in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the work­ing of SGPC, WSN pre­sents an analy­sis of the work­ing of the body in its re­la­tion­ship with Akal Takht Sahib by Sikh thinker and ed­u­ca­tor Harinder Singh, founder and se­nior fel­low of Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute.

Sikh lead­ers con­tinue to strive to very long ca­reers. They of­fer a de­press­ing cat­a­logue of in­com­pe­tence, malfea­sance, and gross mis­con­duct on pro­jects rang­ing from Gur­mat -the Gu­ru’s Way, aware­ness to iden­tity pol­i­tics to un­do­ing of Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib’s Akal Takht. Thanks to colos­sal mis­man­age­ment, the Sikh gov­er­nance has failed the Guru and the Sikhs.

SGPC -Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee’s  bu­reau­cracy is scle­rotic, in­ca­pable of pro­vid­ing nec­es­sary ex­per­tise in a timely fash­ion and un­able to dis­charge or dis­ci­pline in­com­pe­tent per­form­ers. Also no­table is not ad­dress­ing those lead­ing ne­far­i­ous anti-Sikh ac­tiv­i­ties. The lack of ac­count­abil­ity stems from the fact that de­ci­sions on ad­min­is­tra­tion are dri­ven more by po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­ency than by the val­ues it es­pouses.

“SGPC -Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee’s bu­reau­cracy is scle­rotic, in­ca­pable of pro­vid­ing nec­es­sary ex­per­tise in a timely fash­ion and un­able to dis­charge or dis­ci­pline in­com­pe­tent per­form­ers.”

The track record of SGPC is check­ered at best. How­ever, they do some in­valu­able work, es­pe­cially in the ar­eas of hu­man­i­tar­ian as­sis­tance re­cently. But more of­ten than not, it’s pow­er­fully aligned com­mit­tee mem­bers are un­able to rise above rul­ing Akali party pol­i­tics. Some mem­bers of this out­dated relic are bit play­ers at best.

The dis­mal af­fairs more gen­er­ally at the SGPC pre­sent a clar­ion call for ma­jor al­ter­na­tive. The size and scope of po­lit­i­cal di­ver­sity among 30 mil­lion Sikhs may defy any real at­tempt at change, but it must be given a chance. Too many en­trenched prac­tices and peo­ple have a vested in­ter­est in pre­serv­ing the sham­bolic sta­tus quo. The SGPC may not yet be near­ing the fate of its Ma­hants pre­de­ces­sors, but global rep­re­sen­ta­tive of some kind is in or­der.

“If Di­as­pora Sikh in­tends to help re­store some lus­ter to the Panth, they must cham­pion over­haul and use its in­tel­lec­tual and fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion as lever­age to in­still gen­uine Sikh gov­er­nance and en­cour­age oth­ers with sim­i­lar con­cerns in the home­land to fol­low.”

Se­lec­tion of the next Jathedars of­fers the op­por­tu­nity for new lead­er­ship but the low­est com­mon de­nom­i­na­tor process of se­lec­tion among the in­flu­encers for the ap­point­ment in­evitably em­pha­sizes bland over bril­liant. Nei­ther drive nor de­ter­mi­na­tion are high on the list of es­sen­tial at­trib­utes. In any event, the chal­lenge is be­yond the ca­pac­ity of a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual or school of thought, and will re­quire a con­certed ef­fort by mem­bers of the Sikh Qaum.

A com­plete as­sess­ment of poli­cies and processes must be a top pri­or­ity along with tighter ac­count­abil­ity mech­a­nisms. A full re­con­struc­tion of Akal Takht Sahib with Panj Pi­are that be­fits Gur­mat -Guru-granted Sikh par­a­digm, and 21st-cen­tury re­al­i­ties de­signed for ef­fec­tive ac­tion rather than paral­y­sis, is way over­due.

If Di­as­pora Sikh in­tends to help re­store some lus­ter to the Panth, they must cham­pion over­haul and use its in­tel­lec­tual and fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion as lever­age to in­still gen­uine Sikh gov­er­nance and en­cour­age oth­ers with sim­i­lar con­cerns in the home­land to fol­low.

A first step is to be­come an­swer­able only to the Guru. A sec­ond step is to de­mand zero in­ter­fer­ence at all lev­els of Sikh gov­er­nance by the state. A third step is to be­come vig­i­lant about all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, in­clud­ing Sikh par­ties, who end up ma­nip­u­lat­ing Akal Takht Sahib. A fourth step is im­prov­ing process for the Sar­bat Khalsa. A fifth step is to re­vive the in­sti­tu­tion of Panj Pi­are.

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None of these are new things, they are well es­tab­lished in Gur­bani (wis­dom), Tavarikh (his­tory) and Rahit (lifestyle). Now, more than ever, we need Sikhs of the Guru to act. “Movers and shak­ers” will even­tu­ally join the car­a­van. The es­sen­tial el­e­ment ini­tially re­quired to ad­dress all five is de­fi­ance