A day after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann slammed Giani Harpreet Singh, the officiating head priest of Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, fugitive Amritpal Singh, chief of Waris Punjab De, put the Singh Sahib, as the Jathedar is called, at the front and centre of the present crisis in the state as he urged him to call a ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ (assembly of the Sikhs) on Baisakhi in a video relayed on Wednesday. Unable to offer any convincing reason for playing the cat-and-mouse game with the police, and seeing little groundswell of support in the state, Amritpal is now seeking refuge in the Akal Takht, which has come in the line of fire of the state government. The Akal Takht, he said, should call this special gathering of Sikhs from all over the globe to discuss the issues facing the community. While it’s a clever face-saver by a fugitive, on the run since March 18, it doesn’t bode well for the institution of the Akal Takht Jathedar and muddies the waters for the AAP government facing a significant bypoll in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat on May 10. Never has a chief minister come out so openly against the Akal Takht Jathedar, once regarded as the leader/spokesman of the Sikh community. Even though the institution has lost its moral authority due to the stranglehold of the Badals-led Shiromani Akali Dal on the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which appoints the head priests, most chief ministers past, including Capt Amarinder Singh, avoided an open confrontation with the Akal Takht. CM Mann has been doing the opposite. On Tuesday, he responded to the Jathedar’s ultimatum, asking the government to free all innocent Sikh youths and revoke the NSA, by accusing him of “furthering the cause” of the Badals (former CM Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir). While some felt the CM was merely calling a spade a spade, the general consensus was that it was a controversy best avoided in these sensitive times. But the state dragged it further when a tweet by the Jathedar was withheld in India on Wednesday. While an outraged Akali Dal said the CM should apologise for this transgression, Congress leader Sukhpal Khaira has accused Mann of “taunting the Akal Takht Sahib”. Much before Amritpal, the Mann government had its first run-in with the Jathedar when it pruned his security in May last year and tweeted about it, prompting an angry Giani Harpreet Singh to return the remaining securitymen. A few months later, CM Mann personally took on the Jathedar when he urged youngsters to undergo arms training, saying that he should encourage them to study instead. Amritpal’s video calling upon the Jathedar to call a “Sarbat Khalsa” could test the institution further, and expose its frailties. The SGPC, whose members are largely from the Akali Dal, is at daggers drawn with both the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee and the newly formed Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. The proposed assembly could also pose a challenge for the Mann government, which is bracing for an important bypoll in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat. The AAP government can ill afford a negative resolution by the Akal Takht, given that it lost its first Sangrur bypoll three months after its landslide win to the radical SAD (Amritsar) leader Simranjit Singh Mann last year. Above all, Amritpal continues to remain at large. Any more video messages will hurt the AAP government, which appeared to have won the battle of perception by destroying the credibility of the self-styled preacher who had taken on the state when he stormed the Ajnala police station on February 23.
