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AAP may be making mobilization for SGPC polls going by selective release of sacrilege probe report

 


Bargari sacrilege narrative has both criminal as well as religio-political dimensions

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

The Bargari narrative associated with sacrilege of Sikh Holy Text  Guru Granth Sahib  that dictated the election results in 2017 and 2022 hitting two incumbent chief ministers has returned to the centre stage of the highly sensitive religio-political matrix in Punjab.

The reason is the report of a special investigative team (SIT) into the sacrilege per se at Bargari on October 12, 2015 under the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal in his fourth term. There have been several such probes. There are separate probes into the incidents of police actions at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan as part of this narrative on October 14, 2015.

The report SIT report has interestingly been released by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann himself to a group of Sikh preachers who have not been actively associated with the agitations and protests over this issue over time. One of the most prominent among this group is Amrik Singh Ajnala who headed a breakaway faction of Damdami Taksal.

Is AAP proposing to enter the sensitive arena of election to the general house of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee by roping in a section of the Sikh preachers? The BJP is also learnt to be  making similar moves. The RSS, the parent body of the BJP, has always been interested in the Sikh affairs.

Unlike the earlier charge sheet filed by Inspector General of Police Kunwar Vijay Partap singh (Who later resigned from IPS and is now Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Amritsar), this report does not mention the names of Parkash Singh Badal or his son and then deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

The Shiromani Akali Dal leaders have a reason to go ga ga over this development.

The report into police firing at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan is awaited.

This narrative has two basic dimensions- criminal as well as religio-political.

First the narrative has to be recalled in brief.

The first phase relates to the period when the picture of Gurmit Ram Rahim attired like Guru Gobind Singh, the 10 Guru of the Sikhs, appeared in the newspapers in May 2007 within weeks of Badal having been taken over as the chief minister. This Dera had supported the Congress in that election. Punjab turned highly tense with the situation reminiscent of 1978 when the Nirankari sect had come into confrontation with the Sikh organisations at Amritsar on April 13, 1978 for the mishandling of which Punjab continues to pay the cost. The chief minister at that too was Badal.

The second part of the narrative is the theft of the Bir of Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village adjacent to  Bargari in Faridkot district on June 1, 2015 whose pages were found scattered on the streets of Bargari on October 12. Sukhbir Singh Badal was the Deputy Chief Minister and the Home Minister at that time.

The third phase include post-October 12 events that include police firing on protesters demanding justice on October 14, first at Kotkapura and three hours later at Behbal next to Bargari.

The Director General of Police in 2015 was Sumedh Singh Saini. The DGP is always the choice of the political leadership and it was a wrong choice as his name was associated with brazen human rights violations during militancy.

 

The Akali Dal-BJP alliance captured power in Punjab in February 2007 and formed government headed by Parkash Singh Badal in March. The Dera Sacha Sauda, a sect with headquarters in Sirsa in Haryana but having large following in adjoining Mawla area of Punjab, had openly supported the Congress in this election. This is the only sect that has been openly active in electoral domain and has a political wing.

The Punjab headquarters of this Dera is at Salabatpura village in Bathinda district. Dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim organised a function at Salabatpura and Punjab was suddenly rocked as full page advertisement appeared in some newspapers on May 13, 2007 of the Dera chief attired like Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh Guru.

In a swift action, the Sikh top clergy headed by Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti issued a Hukamnama (Directive) calling for boycott of this sect as action against its head. Here was the beginning. A case was registered against the Dera chief for this blasphemous act at a Bathinda police station on May 20, 2007.

The branches of this sect were shut down and the sect followers were not allowed to organise their congregations. This situation continued.

Another development followed but in the political domain.

Faridkot Lok Sabha seat, the family bastion of the House of Badals till then, was declared reserve. The Badals had to shift to Bathinda. Village Badal is about 20 kms from Bathinda city. The family nominee in 2009 was Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

There is no evidence that the support of Dera was sought.

However, the Dera at a media interaction at Patiala before the election on  November 6, 2008 offered support to the Akali Dal. The Akali Dal won this seat with a massive margin of more than one lakh votes.

The next development took place  days before the Assembly elections in February 2012.  The Bathinda police filed a cancellation report of the case against the Dera chief on  January 27, 2012. This marked the beginning of a new phase in this narrative. Was it a quid pro quo?

The Akali Dal-BJP combine retained power in 2012 elections.

The Dera chief turned producer and his first film hit the screens barring Punjab on February 13, 2015. This was due to Akal Takht Hukamnama of 2007. The Punjab government banned the film apprehending law and order situation.

In the meantime, the Guru Granth Sahib was found missing from village Burj Jawahar Singh Wala on June 1, 2015.  This was the first such case of theft of Guru Granth Sahib that is treated as the Guru Personified by the Sikhs but it  seemed to have been taken up like just a routine crime. No person of importance from the political domain visited Burj. No progress was made in the case.

Posters appeared in Burj and Bargari on September 24 and 25, 2015 claiming in abusing language that the Guru Granth Sahib was hidden in Bargari and challenged the Sikhs. The name of Dera surfaced at this stage.

Finally, pages of the Holy Book were found scattered in the streets of Bargari on October 12 morning triggering strong protests. Protesters shifted to nearby Kotkapura where police came into action on the morning of October 14 and three hours later at Behbal Kalan where two persons were killed in police firing. Police firirng at behbal Kalan could have been avoided in case the political leadership had directed police to observe restraint after Kotkapura incident.

It is pertinent to mention here that days earlier, the Dera followers had blocked railway lines at Bathinda for three days protesting against ban on the film but no action was taken. Still earlier, the agitating farmers had blocked Mansa railway station for days.

Punjab was in turmoil. However, Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal mocked the protesters saying they had nothing else to do. The Akali Dal organised counter conferences.

Again in June 2018 when Morcha was launched by the Sikh organisations demanding justice, the Akali Dal opposed the same.

The issue is not just whether the names of the Badals appears in the Bargari case charge sheet or not. The issue concerns the religio-political domain too.

In this context, to pave way for the release of the film, Chief Minister Badal in September 2015 summoned Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh and his associates to his official residence in Chandigarh to get pardon for Dera chief on a flimsy apology. This pardon was defended by Badal-controlled SGPC by spending about Rs 90 lakh on newspaper ads. Both these institutions were hit in the process. The Takht jathedars can’t be summoned in this way by anybody. This was brazen violation of the Sikh code of conduct. Both the Akal Takht and the SGPC are still to recover from that damage.

The badals have a lot of explaining to do in the religio-political domain.

The issue now is as to why Mann has released the SIT report to a select group of preachers who are not from the mainstream.

Is the Aam Aadmi Party already going ahead with the strategy to enter the domain of the election to the SGPC that could be held within the next few months?

The stock of the Shiromnani Akali Dal is at rock bottom.

Sangrur Lok Sabha election has witnessed the emergence of yet another dynamics with the return of hard-line leader Simranjit Singh Mann who has attracted the youth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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