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Democratic Sikh mobilisation to seek justice for Bargari sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib collapses



Jagtar Singh

The Sikh religio-political discourse is confronted with a thought provoking  situation.
The democratic mobilisation to seek justice for sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari and the related cases has ultimately collapsed.
The failure of peaceful struggle that rocked the boat of the Shiromani Akali Dal  over the last four years is the inference that can be drawn from the three functions organised yesterday at Bargari and Kotkapura on its 4th anniversary. The Sikh organisations that had at one time aggressively taken up the cause are now disgustingly divided and hence the failure to share a common platform. The Sikhs refused to respond going by poor participation. Two of these functions were just symbolic.
It may be mentioned that the Bir of Guru Granth Sahib was reported missing from Burj Jawahar Singhwala gurdwara on June 1, 2015 and its pages were found scattered in the streets of neighbouring Bargari village on October 12. The police fired on the protesters staging peaceful sit in on October 14, first in the morning at Kotkapura and three hours later at Bahbal Kalan next to Bargari killing two persons.
The Akali Dal led government in the state at that time was headed by Parkash Singh Badal with his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as the Deputy Chief Minister.
The first arrest in this case was made after the change in government and those arrested were the devotees of Dera Sacha Sauda. The investigation is still to be taken to logical conclusion as the main conspirators managed to evade arrest and now nothing is known about them. The probe seems to have been sabotaged going by the confusion in the state government.
The Sikh organisation under the command of parallel Akal Takht acting Jathedar Dhian Singh Mand started indefinite dharna at Bargari from June 1, 2018 demanding action against culprits that was lifted on December 9 that year leaving everybody dissatisfied. These organisations were mainly from the hard-line  section in the Sikh religio-political matrix having little experience in the democratic domain.
Mand is a former MP who got elected to Lok Sabha in 1989 from Ferozepur backed by All India Sikh Students Federation. His family lost two of its members during militancy as they were eliminated in false encounters.
The protest over sacrilege had witnessed massive mobilisation of the Sikhs from time to time but were accompanied by failures  in the absence of competent leadership. It is the leadership that has failed the Sikhs in this case by not taking these  massive mobilisations to the logical conclusion.
Now it is the contradictions within the ruling Congress in Punjab on this sensitive issue that can precipitate the matter. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh is under tremendous pressure to give results but the signals that are emanating from within the government lead to the inference  that the issue has been dumped in the cold storage. Would it be revived near the next Assembly elections due in February 2022?
However, it is the strategic aspect of the failure of the democratic mobilisation  coupled with failure of the state government to deliver justice that are its sensitive dimensions in the context of the apprehensions of the Centre  about the bids to revive militancy in this border state. Punjab had been hit by militancy for more than a decade beginning 1980  that initially was rooted in the Sikh-Nirankari clash on the Baisakhi of April 13, 1978 at Amritsar. Badal was the chief minister at that time too. The State had failed to deliver justice in Nirankari case.
It is the Bargari narrative that had witnessed the shift in the Sikh political domain towards the Congress in February 2017 Assembly elections  leading  to massive mandate for this party that is held responsible for  military attack on Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in June 1984.
Would this section return to the Akali Dal in next elections? It might be too early to make any assessment but more important is the failure of the democratic struggle.
The investigation agencies have not even tried to question Dera chief Gurmit Ram Rahim in Rohtak jail after the earlier move was frustrated by the Haryana government.
Capt Amarinder Singh might come under increasing pressure from an aggressive section within the ruling party after the 550th anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev.
The House of Badals survives mainly because of incompetent non-Akali leadership in the Sikh religio-political domain.  


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