Badal8217;s statement on SGPC draws flak

CHANDIGARH, DEC 26: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who has emerged stronger in the factional feud in the ruling party, seems ...

CHANDIGARH, DEC 26: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who has emerged stronger in the factional feud in the ruling party, seems to have become vulnerable to criticism on account of his reported statement about the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee SGPC being a wing of the Akali Dal.

Badal said at Jalandhar on Thursday that the supremacy of the Akali Dal over the SGPC was beyond doubt. The logic he advanced was that the SGPC members had been elected on the Akali Dal ticket. However, the objection is to the impression he has given of the SGPC being a 8220;wing8221; of the Akali Dal.The chief minister, while making the statement, seems to have overlooked the historical reality. Though SGPC is not forthcoming, the fact is that the SGPC is a statutory body constituted under the Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1925. This is perhaps the only body entrusted with the management of the Sikh shrines which is elected through adult franchise under an Act. Another first claimed to the credit of this body is giving womenthe right to vote.

According to some observers, Badal might have been trying to give the impression that Gurcharan Singh Tohra, who heads the SGPC, is subservient to him. Badal is also the president of the Akali Dal.

It is a fact that it is the Akali Dal which allots tickets to its candidates. But then, those contesting the Vidhan Sabha elections as Akali candidates are also given tickets by the Akali Dal. This does not mean that the Vidhan Sabha, when dominated by the Akali Dal, functions as a wing of the party. And as such, the SGPC cannot be claimed to be a wing of the Akali Dal. It is a different matter that it is the mainstream Akali Dal which has been dominating this organisation, virtually ever since its inception as a statutory body.

And interestingly, it is the SGPC which constituted the Akali Dal in December, 1920.

The origin of the SGPC is traced to the gurdwara liberation movement. The widespread mismanagement and rampant corruption in the Sikh shrines provoked a mass agitation in 1920which lasted five years.

It was during the early period of the gurdwara liberation movement that an invitation had been sent from the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, to the representative Panthic organisations to discuss the gurdwara management in November, 1920.

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The two-day conclave on November 15 and 16, 1920 decided to set up a 175-member committee for the purpose and this body was named the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. It became a registered body on April 30, 1921.It was decided to constitute a permanent wing for continuing the agitation for the liberation of gurdwaras. Another meeting was convened at the Akal Takht on December 14, 1920. The Akali Dal was constituted for this purpose that day.

The culmination of the gurdwara liberation movement was the enactment of the Sikh Gurdwara Act in 1925 by the Punjab Government according statutory status to the SGPC. The first election was held on June 18, 1926. The release of Sikh political prisoners was one of the demandsmade by the general house of the SGPC at its first meeting on November 4, 1926.Today it is the Akali Dal which dominates the SGPC and tomorrow it could be some other political party. As such, Badal8217;s statement gives out wrong signals, say the observers.