NEW leadership of the SGPC marks a departure from post-Tohra phase, could be more acceptable to different streaks

 

 

 

Tohra associates chosen to lead SGPC signals qualitative shift towards Panthic domain

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

The annual election of the office bearers of the statutory Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee this time has been characterised by a qualitative shift in the Panthic matrix.

This perhaps is the first time that the central leadership of the Akali Dal controlling this body has not attracted any criticism after a long time.

Constituted under the Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1925, the SGPC manages the sanctified Sikh historical shrines in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh. The office bearers of this body of its only kind in the world to manage religious institutions are elected annually at the general body meeting barring the first set of office bearers after the general election who have a term of two years.

Like in any parliamentary system, it is the party that gets the majority that reserves the right to elect office bearers and as such, there is nothing wrong  in the system per se. It is the majority party in the Assembly that finalises the name of the chief minister or the prime minister in the parliamentary system. No other political formation has succeeded in challenging the supremacy of the Shiromani Akali Dal in this domain over years.

However, the office bearers are expected to function independently.

Going by the history of this more than 100 years old body set up on November 15, 1920, the SGPC has played a very active role in religio-political affairs of the Sikhs including that of demanding the Sikh State and opposing the Pakistan demand of the Muslim League. The political interventions of the SGPC got diluted in the recent past.

Both Harjinder Singh Dhami and Karnail Singh Panjoli who have been  elected as the president and the general secretary respectively belong to those who were tempered by Akali stalwart Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra who lorded over the SGPC for more than quarter of a century and represented the Panthic streak in the Sikh religio-political domain. His ideological contribution is unmatched during that period. He represented politics of commitment to the Panth and practiced the same.

He was the bridge among different ideological formations in the Sikh religio-political matrix but did not allow discernible intervention from the party in the functioning of this body.

It is because of this reason that the election of Dhami and Panjoli is significant and that too amidst continuing attack on Shiromani Akali Dal leadership of having damaged the Sikh institutions. Both the SGPC and the Akal Takht had come under strong criticism during the narrative relating to the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari in 2015. Punjab was under the rule of Akali Dal at that time.

The choice of the present office bearers can be attributed to the move to restore the credibility of these two institutions with the perception of these two leaders representing the Panthic values.

Not that outgoing president Bibi Jagir Kaur did not belong to the Panthic domain but somehow, her perception was not of a leader active more in Panthic domain as she could easily move about in both Panthic as well as political domains like Tohra. However, Tohra never contested the Assembly election. He did contest the Lok Sabha election in 1977 when the party fielded all the senior leaders in view of the importance of that election at the national level to defeat Indira Gandhi after the Emergency.

The Shiromani Akali Dal carries the baggage of Bargari and the investigation relating to these cases is still to move towards the logical conclusion.

The SGPC is the bridge between the Sikh masses and the Akali Dal.

A  strong SGPC with credible leadership can go a long way in supplementing the Akali Dal.

Now is the time to make a new beginning.