As the SGPC continues to draw flak from Sikh circles for rushing to dismantle heritage structures, The Sikh Collective has started an online petition at change.org addressed to the SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur asking her to form a permanent committee of experts and to set up Standard Operating Procedures to review all Sikh and Punjab heritage sites prior to reconstruction and renovation. WSN reports and urges readers to sign the petition.

The online petition of the Sikh Collective addressed to the SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur urges conscientious Sikhs and those who have heritage close to their hearts to spare a few minutes to sign the online petition that should persuade the SGPC authorities and the Shiromani Akali Dal not to destroy Sikh heritage sites as they have been relentlessly doing since the last many decades. Let it be recorded that, “when heritage is destroyed with an excuse of achieving a development agenda, it is not really development, it is just planned destruction of heritage.”

“History must not record that this generation in its selfishness and stupidity, in its uncaring and disregard for heritage destroyed the imprints of the generations before it,” prays the petition.

The petition reads, “It is time to set up a committee of experts -independent of SGPC, which will go into the entire gamut of history, historicity, archival and heritage importance of every such new discovery before the place is reconstructed or renovated by anyone.  A strict, implementable and fool-proof Standing Operating Procedure for heritage conservation needs to be put in place.”

To save Sikh Heritage and legacy, The Sikh Collective invites you to sign a petition to #SGPC President Bibi Jagir Kaur seeking the formation of an Experts Committee and setting up Standard Operating Procedures for Heritage Conservation. #punjab https://t.co/5nrqMzsarB

— The World Sikh News (@WorldSikhNews1) July 19, 2021

The Sikh Collective Team registers the antagonism and anguish of the Sikhs at the brashness of the Kar Sewa volunteers, the stubborn mishandling by the SGPC Taskforce and the prevarication of the SGPC leadership.  

How true it is that “what has been lost because of whosoever’s lapse or conspiracy, cannot be retrieved, but what remains must be preserved at all costs, notwithstanding pressures, whims and fancies of any person.”

Unquestionably, the SGPC and its political masters in the Shiromani Akali Dal must come out of their ivory towers. They must remember that “they are mere custodians, and custodians cannot alter the original structure without the consent and express approval of Sangat and experts.”