In a brazen dis­play of au­dac­ity, the Bhag­want Mann-led AAP gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab has un­abashedly med­dled in Sikh re­li­gious af­fairs, pass­ing an amend­ment to the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1925. This con­tentious move has stirred up a storm in Pan­thic cir­cles, rais­ing crit­i­cal ques­tions about po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tions and the sanc­tity of Sikh in­sti­tu­tions. Join this fiery de­bate, an­chored by se­nior jour­nal­ist and an­chor S. P. Singh, un­rav­el­ing the his­tor­i­cal back­drop and the po­ten­tial con­se­quences of this leg­isla­tive jug­ger­naut.

The newly in­serted S. 125A in Sikh Gur­d­wara Act 1925 – “it shall be the duty” of SGPC to make un­in­ter­rupted live feed, au­dio, video, of holy Gur­bani…avail­able free of cost to all me­dia houses, out­lets, plat­forms, chan­nels …. who­ever wishes to broad­cast any­where all over the world.

With Pun­jab’s rul­ing Aam Aadmi Par­ty’s pol­i­tics piv­oted on anti-Badal’ism elec­toral machi­na­tions, the lat­est move to os­ten­si­bly “free the Gur­bani tele­cast from the con­trol of a pri­vate chan­nel” by amend­ing the Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1925 and cast­ing aside an elected body like the SGPC, the po­lit­i­cal fault lines in panth and Pun­jab pre­sent a chal­lenge as well as an op­por­tu­nity to dwell on some key is­sues.

Three of Pun­jab’s fiercely in­de­pen­dent voices — se­nior jour­nal­ist-ac­tivist Hamir Singh, Sikh leg­isla­tive af­fairs ex­pert and World Sikh News ed­i­tor Prof Jag­mo­han Singh and pub­lic in­tel­lec­tual Dr Pyara Lal Garg — were on the panel dis­cus­sion mod­er­ated by se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh, dwelling upon the top­i­cal is­sue, con­nect­ing it to other con­tem­po­rary hap­pen­ings, and ex­plor­ing the his­tor­i­cal back­ground of the lat­est leg­isla­tive ex­er­cise.

For Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the move is a chance to tell the elec­torate it is tak­ing on the mighty Badals who con­trol all ma­jor Pan­thic plat­forms; for Badals’ de­trac­tors, it might ac­tu­ally help loosen SAD’s hold on the thou­sand-crore-bud­get SGPC; and for the panth, I has trig­gered a painful his­tory re­call of the regime’s in­ter­fer­ence in Sikh af­fairs.

Will AAP find ways to di­rectly, or in­di­rectly con­test SGPC elec­tions? Will it be a re­peat of the Sadh San­gat Board ex­per­i­ment launched in 1960 by the Con­gress party? Will it not ac­tu­ally be play­ing into the hands of the BJP which will have all the chips to set­tle any power bar­gain? Can AAP af­ford a ma­jor con­flict with Pan­thic forces? Will Pan­thic forces rather see it as a golden chance to loosen the vice-like grip of Badals and ac­tu­ally se­cretly cel­e­brate the new leg­isla­tive ex­er­cise?

Why is the Akali Dal shy­ing away from mass ac­tion on the streets? Why has the power of a party of mor­chas dis­si­pated to an ex­tent where it failed to put up a power show even af­ter such a di­rect at­tack?

This is the Pun­jab As­sem­bly di­rectly de­clar­ing an in­ter­fer­ence in Sikh af­fairs. It is a di­rect chal­lenge to decades of bal­ance achieved via an un­der­stand­ing be­tween Mas­ter Tara Singh and Jawa­har Lal Nehru at one time, and a de­ci­sion not to dither too far away from that line by later regimes.

Why is the SGPC or Akali Dal not press­ing for an All In­dia Sikh Gur­d­wara Act de­spite it be­ing at one time a top de­mand of the Dharam Yudh Mor­cha?

The SG­PC’s re­mit is much larger than merely man­ag­ing gur­d­waras. It ac­tu­ally draws much of its au­thor­ity not from just law, but from his­tory, from the con­duct of its lead­ers.

Can Akali Dal launch a suc­cess­ful fight against this lat­est po­lit­i­cal on­slaught with­out first re-as­sum­ing the own­er­ship of its core and fun­da­men­tal agenda of au­ton­omy of the Panth as well as Pun­jab? In sim­pler mod­ern po­lit­i­cal ter­mi­nol­ogy, it is called fed­er­al­ism.

Is Akali Dal even talk­ing about it?

Please watch this scin­til­lat­ing de­bate, and share it fur­ther, be­cause we be­lieve it is a de­bate that must travel and trig­ger a thou­sand con­ver­sa­tions. It’s been a long time since the Panth looked in­wards and searched where things got de-tracked.