A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Politics by proxy --
Punjab politicos clash over Sikh citadel SGPC

S P Singh

For a body whose birth was marked with extreme religious fervour, and which was seen by the martial Sikh community as a product of quasi-religio-political battle against the British Raj, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) is currently a battleground for unfiltered partisan politics in all its ugly forms. 

As spitfire verbal duels between mainstream opposition Akali Dal led by former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his successor Amarinder Singh become the staple media story, the former accusing the latter of using blood-and-gore language, political pundits have come to see the November 12 joust for SGPC top post as a deciding factor for future of Badal, as also the course that the state polity would take in the days ahead. 

"Control over SGPC has always denoted panthic bonafides, since the SGPC itself evolved from a struggle for gurdwara reforms. Having lost power, Badal knows his last fig leaf of being a panthic leader would be torn away, hence the desperation to keep his loyalists hidden in farmhouses," said renowned Sikhism scholar Gurtej Singh. 

If it's a do-or-die battle for Badal, by natural corollary, it is so for his sworn foes –  Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Ravi Inder Singh. While Tohra, who lorded over the SGPC for nearly a quarter of a century during an ever-uneasy relationship with Badal, now heads the All India Shiromani Akali Dal (AISAD), Ravi, a close friend of Amarinder, is being seen as the mastermind of latest storm over SGPC polls. 

Ravi, who has worked for years alongside Badal in the Akali Dal, has ever hidden his contempt for Badal or his friendship with Amarinder, and is being increasingly seen as the fulcrum for all things happening anti-Badal in state's polity. 

With a whopping Rs 200 crore budget and an empire spread over hundreds of gurdwaras across Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, SGPC has been historically seen as a resource pool for the Akali Dal, a role that men lording over SGPC played for decades with pride-tinged brazenness and without much subtlety. That the SGPC increasingly ignored its prime objectives of good administration of gurdwaras and propagation of Sikh faith is an oft-quoted rarely-heeded fact. 

The November 12 election has a limited electoral college of 176 SGPC general house members who are to elect one among them as president apart from four other office bearers and a ten-member executive. The '120 with Badal, 52 with Tohra and four men belonging to Simranjit Singh Mann' mathematics has since changed. It is difficult to tot up sums when loyalties are affected by the hour -- by mid-night knocks at the door by cops, SGPC members being whisked away to Haryana, or being smuggled back, or disqualification threats looming large in the air. 

Track II politics in Punjab over SGPC turf has seen the emergence of a so-called third group, a motley band of 21 SGPC members claiming to be working for de-politicisation of the SGPC. Headed by Mal Singh Ghuman, who was a Badal acolyte till recently but has joined hands with key Tohra men to raise the banner of revolt, the front is now posing as a vigilante pressure group. 

While Badal has rejected this group as a front of Ravi-Tohra combine, several of his members have either joined the group or, as is being alleged by Badal, forced to do so. 

Realpolitik however has witnessed a clear division, and it is getting personal – Badal fighting for his political future against an Amarinder-Ravi-Tohra combine arraigned on the other side of the fence, a divide marked with years of simmering bitterness which has become more pronounced in a personalised partisanship. 

With Amarinder launching daily diatribes against Badal, accusing him of corruption and promising to put him in jail, and Badal returning the compliment with 'wait till I'm back in power' kind of remarks, political idiom mainly comprises street lingo. Or of intrigues, as pro-Badal SGPC members fear disqualification by Sikh Gurdwara Judicial Commission allegedly at the instance of vested politicos. 

For Badal, the job is cut out clear. Dig into history, raise bogey of government interfering in Sikhs' internal affairs, shout 'Panth in danger'.

For his opponents, the effort would be to prove Badal as being engulfed in graft charges, denigrading panthic institutions like Akal Takht and using religion for politics. 

As Badal mulls over plans about how to safely get his SGPC members inside the Teja Singh Samundari Hall yards away from the religion's holiest shrine Golden Temple, and Amarinder warning against attempts to bring in 10,000 strong crowds, any disinterested watcher will conjure up the SGPC’s image as that of a citadel. "Of course it very much is, as of today," said a senior Congressman. Till November 12, most will agree.■ 

November 2002

Print this article

     
Home     Latest Column     SP Singh's Columns     Spice Of Politics     People     This Land Of Ours     Ballot Field     Across Radcliffe     Punjab's Religio-Politics

     
Cinema~Books~Life     Three Lines At A Time     Guest Column     Glossary     Archives     Grapevine    SP Singh     Contact     Search     Site Index     Site Map     Feedback

      © 2006       All rights reserved        Site design by Big Ideas