The demand for a separate Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (HSGPC), is not new. Nor, unfortunately, is its politicisation. In 2005, the Haryana Congress included it in its manifesto, and ever since, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) in Punjab has accused the Congress of playing politics with a “panthic issue”, while unsubtly attempting to stoke, prod and inflame it to its own political advantage. The resurfacing of the issue now, in the run-up to the Haryana assembly polls later this year, therefore, fits a dismal pattern. On July 11, the Haryana assembly passed a law, giving the state a separate gurdwara panel and Governor Jagannath Pahadia assented to it on July 14. Now SAD leaders in Punjab are loudly challenging the law and attempting to work up popular passions on the issue — the party has called a mega Sikh conference on July 27. In the process, the issue at the heart of the matter — the need to democratise and decentralise the management of Sikh shrines and to make it more transparent and responsive to devotees’ concerns — seems relegated. It has been edged out by the two embattled chief ministers who are monopolising the frame — one facing an uphill battle to retain power in the upcoming assembly election, and the other recently snubbed by the electorate in the Lok Sabha polls.
Look beyond the posturing of Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Parkash Singh Badal, however, and the fact is that a law has been passed by an elected assembly. If it is to be challenged, it must be done in a court of law, not on the street.
Instead of caving in to its ally’s pressure and issuing directives to the Haryana governor, the BJP-led Centre must counsel restraint — as Manmohan Singh, the then prime minister did when the issue flared in 2008, forcing a Congress dispensation, the Hooda government, to retreat before tensions could escalate. The fact also is that regardless of its immediate circumstances and inescapable politicisation, the demand for the HSGPC points to a deeper building discontent among the Sikhs over the Amritsar-based SGPC’s stranglehold over the management of Sikh shrines in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. The formation of the SGPC was a milestone in the gurdwara reform movement of the early 1920s. Yet, today, it is seen to have shrunk into a fief of the SAD and its factions, and more recently, of its first family, the Badals.
Long after this round of political squalling has subsided, and whichever way it goes on the law, the SGPC will have to respond to the uncomfortable questions posed by Haryana’s demand for an SGPC of its own.
