ASSEMBLY POLL '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS '98
ARCHIVES

Faith and loathing in Amritsar

George Iype in Amritsar

The tussle for supremacy between Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra to control the affairs of the Akal Takht, the highest spiritual and temporal seat of the Sikh religion, has upset many of the 16 million Sikhs worldwide.

Badal, leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal, is keen to don the religious mantle. Tohra, who treated the SGPC, the apex Sikh religious organisation, as his fiefdom for a quarter of a century, now wants a political career.

Observers say the no-holds-barred Badal-Tohra war could eventually split the Akali Dal. The bitter feud has also cast an ominous shadow over the year-long tercentenary celebrations of the founding of the Sikh religion beginning from April 13.

"Badal and Tohra are sworn enemies because both men want control of the political, religious and party affairs in Punjab," says Omkar Jagdev Singh, a retired bureaucrat settled in Amritsar.

Singh feels that both Akali leaders have to be equally blamed for bringing the political and religious leadership of Sikhs "to the present day deteriorating phase."

"Badal is trying to take over the SGPC and run the religious affairs of the Sikhs sitting in the secretariat building in Chandigarh. Tohra feels that despite his stature as the highest Sikh religious leader in the world, he has been humiliated and marginalised by Badal," Singh told Rediff On The NeT.

The rupture between the two men occurred soon after Badal was sworn in as chief minister on February 12, 1997. Knowing well that politics and religion are inseparable among the Akalis, Badal and Tohra worked out a pre-poll pledge.

They agreed that they would not encroach onto each other's territory. While the SGPC would be controlled by Tohra, he would have no say in running the state government.

But both Badal and Tohra soon began violating this pledge.

When Badal evolved a strategy to assume an active religious role by planting 10 of his supporters on the 15-member SGPC executive, Tohra retaliated by demanding a free hand in the party and government administration.

A local police officer says Tohra has wanted to be chief minister all his life. Sensing that he would not realise his political ambition, the SGPC president begun running the civil and police administration through the backdoor.

"In the last two years, Tohra virtually appointed police and civil officials in the districts of Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala and Ropar," the officer said.

"Tohra wanted to become the icon for Punjabi identity and the undisputed leader of the Sikh community. But being a shrewd politician, Badal has cut Tohra to size," the officer added.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government was being formed at the Centre in March 1998, Tohra demanded that his supporter, senior Akali MP Prem Singh Lalpura be inducted into the Union Cabinet.

But Badal refused and recommended former chief minister Surjeet Singh Barnala as the Cabinet minister and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as a minister of state. Angered, Lalpura refused to take oath as a member of Parliament.

Tohra retaliated by taking up cudgels against Badal on almost every issue -- be it the campaign against the inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar in the proposed Uttaranchal state or the growing number of suicides by farmers in Punjab. He accused the chief minister of running a non-responsive government and leading the state into a financial crisis.

To protest against Badal's style of administration, Tohra asked five of his supporters to quit the state ministry. Instead of persuading his colleagues to withdraw their letters, the chief minister accepted the resignations and forwarded them to the governor.

Matters came to head when Badal decided that the Punjab government would take the initiative to organise the Khalsa Panth celebrations. The chief minister announced a Rs 3 billion budget and set up the Anandpur Sahib Foundation to act as a nodal agency for the event.

Tohra's outbursts helped Badal clip his wings. In December, the Akali Dal Disciplinary Action Committee issued the SGPC chief a show cause notice why action should not be taken against him for indiscipline.

Soon after he received the show cause notice, the SGPC president met Akal Takht Jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh who issued a hukumnama (edict). It ordered both Badal and Tohra to desist from infighting till the Khalsa Panth celebrations.

Badal and his supporters in the SGPC refused to obey the jathedar's hukumnama. This led Ranjit Singh, a Tohra protégé, to order some 130 SGPC members to dedicate themselves to the highest temporal seat, and not to the chief minister.

Ranjit Singh also hit at the chief minister by summoning Punjabi daily Ajit editor Barjinder Singh Hamdard -- who is close to Badal and an Akali Dal Rajya Sabha MP -- to the Akal Takht for anti-Panth reports in his newspaper and for publishing 'blasphemous' extracts from a banned book, Vanity Incarnate.

Angered by the jathedar's offensive against him, the chief minister, with the help of his 10 SGPC executive supporters, suspended Ranjit Singh on Wednesday.

"The chief minister's gimmicks to force 10 SGPC executive members to suspend me as the Akal Takht jathedar is against all traditions of the Sikh religion," Ranjit Singh told Rediff On The NeT on Saturday.

"Badal and his government are forcibly trying to take over the Akal Takht. I am a devout Sikh. I will never allow the chief minister's evil designs in the affairs of the Akal Takht," the ousted jathedar said.

He said a number of gurdwaras and Sikh organisations across the world have condemned his suspension. "They continue to recognise me as the jathedar of the Akal Takht," Ranjit Singh said.

Badal, he charged, is speaking the language of religious fundamentalism. SGPC officials say the chief minister has ordered all SGPC members to baptise 300 Sikhs each before the Khalsa celebrations begins on April 13.

The Tohra-Ranjit Singh camp claims the support of some 50 gurdwaras and 10 Sikh organisations abroad. The organisations include the World Sikh Council, the Sikh Youth of America, the Sikh Organisaton of California and the United Sikh Human Rights Defence Committee.

"Some 9 million Sikhs do not fall under the SGPC's jurisdiction. Therefore, the chief minister's attempt to control the SGPC and take over the Akal Takht will not succeed," a Tohra loyalist told Rediff On The NeT.

According to Badal supporter and Akali Dal DAC chairman Jagdev Singh Talwandi, the chief minister decided to take on Tohra "because the SGPC president has been acting as the super chief minister of Punjab."

"Tohra has been blatantly interfering in the functioning of the government and often obstructing the administration," Talwandi told Rediff On The NeT.

"Badal has always respected Tohra as the highest leader of the Sikh religion as he has been heading the SGPC for the last 25 years. But Tohra has been acting like an immature religious leader," the veteran Akal leader remarked.

The Punjab state page

Tell us what you think of this report