How would the Sikh com­mu­nity, Pun­jabis at large and, in fact, all right-think­ing peo­ple, re­act if the Gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab was to make a law that it was legally manda­tory for peo­ple to visit the Gur­d­waras to pay obei­sance to a Sikh Guru? Don’t try and jump to a con­clu­sion – be­cause based on what is hap­pen­ing, it might not cre­ate any stir.

The rul­ing party in Pun­jab, Con­gress, has is­sued a whip to its MLAs, mak­ing it manda­tory for them to pre­sent them­selves in the Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly at 9:30 am for the As­sem­bly Ses­sion that is to be­gin at 10 am to­day, Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 3. The sin­gle ob­jec­tive of con­ven­ing this Ses­sion, as per the rul­ing party, is to com­mem­o­rate the 400th Parkash Purab of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur. It has been made clear that no leg­isla­tive busi­ness will be taken up in the spe­cial ses­sion.

So, the MLAs of the Con­gress have now been whipped to go to the As­sem­bly at an ap­pointed time to pay obei­sance to the ninth Sikh Guru.

Is the arrange­ment ac­cept­able to the Sikh com­mu­nity?
Is it ac­cept­able to the peo­ple of Pun­jab?

Are we set­ting this new prece­dent of whip­ping peo­ple into a build­ing to com­mem­o­rate the sac­ri­fice of a supreme mar­tyr?

Even the most po­lit­i­cally naive per­son knows that it ba­si­cally means drag­ging a Guru into s slugfest to serve a petty po­lit­i­cal ob­jec­tive! 

Is Amarinder Singh not guilty of de­lib­er­ately de­ploy­ing this cheap tac­tic of hid­ing be­hind the Parkash Ut­sav of a mar­tyr Guru to thwart the at­tempts of his op­po­nents to bash his gov­ern­men­t’s func­tion­ing, pos­si­bly bring in a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion and yet ful­fill­ing the manda­tory ob­jec­tive of hav­ing to call an As­sem­bly Ses­sion within the stip­u­lated time?

Why are the MLAs of Con­gress be­com­ing a party to some­thing that is clearly against the prin­ci­ples of Sikhism?  Leg­end has it that once a Chris­t­ian priest on a round of the jail where Bhai Rand­hir Singh was im­pris­oned, ‘di­rect­ed’ him to re­cite ‘Japji Sahib.’ Bhai Sahib, who spent 20 years in soli­tary con­fine­ment replied, “my Guru has man­dated us to re­cite Japji Sahib, but if you force me to re­cite it, I will not.”

The MLAs should be de­mand­ing more time to dis­cuss the peo­ple’s is­sues at a time when the state is in tur­moil. In­stead, they have not ob­jected to a whip that tells them to go to the As­sem­bly at 10 am to talk about the Sikh Guru.

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Ex­o­dus 20:7 (Ten Com­mand­ments)

Ti­tle photo: Rep­re­sen­ta­tional file photo