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Sehajdhari and Parlok! Har Har
Mahadev
Sach Kanwal
Singh
 In a complete
expose, the World Sikh News brought out last week the sinister
attempt by the powers-that-be in the SGPC to open floodgates for
non-Sikhs, particularly the RSS-BJP lobby, for intermingling and
penetrating the core institutions of Sikhism in the garb of non-keshadhari
Sikhs.
In an affidavit
submitted to the
Punjab and
Haryana High Court, the SGPC gave such a twisted definition of the
word "Sehajdhari" Sikh that it virtually empowered any non-Sikh to
call himself a Sehajdhari and took away any obligation to even have
the outer symbols like unshorn hair.
As report after
report has suggested, the premier brain behind this entire saga and
the hand guiding that of Anurag Singh, the president of Sikh History
Research Board, is the office of the Punjab Advocate General Hardev
Singh Mattewal.
Mattewal,
Parkash Singh Badal's automatic choice for the top law officer job
in Punjab,
is a much honored man. He has never stopped reminding the Sikh
community that he has been rendering his services free of cost to
the SGPC and does not forget to quantify this cost. In 2006, the
SGPC led by Avtar Singh Makkar officially bestowed the honor on
Mattewal and Makkar said the AG had "always upheld the true ideals
and never compromised for personal interests."
Has he?
Well, it will be
best to believe Mattewal himself when it comes to what he has done
for the Sikh community's interests.
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 Punjab Advocate General and a self-proclaimed lifelong friend of
the Badals, H S Mattewal striongly argued for voting rights for
Sehajdharis, and is now leading the charge once again. He
threatens the Sikhs asking for disenfranchisement of Sehajdharis
of not only the wrath of the Badals or the saffron forces, but
even of the wrath of the Akal Purakh. "Those who create
animosity and division by mixing up matters of religion,
politics and society are bound to suffer here (lok) and in the
hereafter (parlok)." |
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As the Special
Report on Page 14-15 and our exhaustive coverage has brought out so
succinctly, the Sikh community and the SGPC itself has led a
determined fight to end the construct of Sehajdhari. The 1973
resolution of the SGPC and finally the amendment in the Sikh
Gurdwara Act, 1925 which disenfranchised the Sehajdharis to the
utter relief of the Sikhs is being consistently sought to be
overturned by Mattewal and his office.
That his efforts
are in consonance with the agenda of increasingly secularizing the
Badals-led Akali Dal and saffronising panthic organisations is
something for which the Badals are primarily responsible, but
Mattewal, being a man of lot many words, makes it easier for us to
understand when he picks up a pen.
On the Prakash
Gurpurab of the tenth Sikh Master, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, in 2003,
Hardev Singh Mattewal published a strongly argued article on the
editorial page of The Tribune, advocating that the Sehajdharis
should be given the right to vote. (Visitors to
www.WorldSikhNews.com will find a link to the original article when
they access this one on the website)
If his wont were
to have the writ, Mattewal would even fight for Sehajdharis' right
to vote incorporated even in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management
Committee elections where they were never allowed anywhere near Sikh
shrines' management.
So aware is
Mattewal of the import of what he was saying that he called it "a
fundamental question" and wanted nothing less than "the widest
possible discussion within the community". Obviously, the 1947 to
2003 broad spectrum discussions were not wide enough because they
did not allow the Sehajdharis to succeed. He termed the attempts of
the community as "the greatest danger to Sikhs" from "Sikhs
themselves".
Mattewal is
dissatisfied with the definition of the Sikh, particularly with the
1944 proviso added to the Section 49, that dealt with the
qualification of electors, by adding: “Provided that no person shall
be registered as an elector who (a) trims or shaves his beard or
keshas except in the case of Sehajdhari Sikhs; (b) smokes; (c) takes
alcoholic drinks.”
Mattwal suggests
several different formulations of the definition of Sikh. Quoting
one of the most moderate varieties of scholars, Khushwant Singh, as
saying that “the sense of belonging to the Sikh community requires
both the belief in the teaching of the Adi Granth and the observance
of the Khalsa tradition initiated by Guru Gobind Singh and there is
no such thing as a clean shaven Sikh, he is simply a Hindu believing
in Sikhism” (Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs), Mattewal even
calls that "an extreme view."
He said, and he
actually wrote this to be published in The Tribune, that Khushwant
Singh's view was not just "an extreme" one but that "it excludes
both the Keshdharis and Sehajdharis from the Sikh Panth and is not
generally accepted."
Note the phrase
"is not generally accepted". After which "widest possible discussion
within the community" that Mattewal so eagerly wants, did he decide
that it "is not generally accepted" that a Sikh should be Keshadhari?
Just as the Badals indulge in "widest possible discussion" around
the dining table where everyone shares a surname and a blood
relationship, Mattewal seemed to have sat in the chamber with his
own flesh and blood, his son, a self proclaimed patit.
And then
Mattewal comes down to misquoting Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha to prove
his point that a Sikh is someone "who has embraced the Sikh
religion", "who believes in Guru Granth Sahib" and "believes in the
ten Gurus as one”. What kind of a Sikh embraces the religion without
following the universal code, what kind of Sikh believes in the ten
Gurus without believing in their injunctions, and believes that he
is on a "gradual path" (Sehaj path) towards Sikhism but wants the
freedom to keep wavering from the path with every visit to the
barber?
Read Mattewal's
thoughts, expressed in black and white and currently finding prime
place on his website also: "(T)o now restrict the right to vote only
to the Keshdhari Sikhs will be going against the long tradition of
accepting the Sehajdharis Sikhs as essential members of the Panth."
And then read
the legal corruption that Mattewal induces. He claims in the article
that not accepting the Sehajdharis Sikhs "as essential members of
the Panth" will not be in consonance with their "right to vote in
elections to the SGPC since its inception in 1925."
That is simply
not true. The biggest sin a lawyer can commit is to tell a lie on
oath. Mattewal, when he writes for public consumption, should be
presumed to be on oath that at least the facts will be true,
irrespective of his capacity to mutilate, twist or misrepresent
them. But a black lie is a bad argument. Mattewal knows fully well
that the Sehajdharis were given the right to vote only in 1959.
And Mattewal
threatens the Sikhs asking for disenfranchisement of not only the
wrath of the Badals or the saffron forces, but even of the wrath of
the Akal Purakh. It is not clear by what law or argument did he
arrogate the Akal Purakh on to his side, but he writes: "Those who
create animosity and division by mixing up matters of religion,
politics and society are bound to suffer here (lok) and in the
hereafter (parlok)."
And he snatches
away their right to call themselves even human beings, forget
aspiring to become a Guru Ka Sikh. "They do not deserve the title of
‘human beings’ much less the title of ‘God’s Progeny.’"
And the Indian
ultra nationalist sounds so much like LK Advani or Keshava Baliram
Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS when he concluded by saying: "Those
who belong to different religions and yet regard themselves as part
of one nation earn respect and honor."
That is the
quarter from where Mattewal wants to earn respect and honor. Not the
Sikh community. Mattewal is aiming right. And the Badals have chosen
the right law officer to smoothen the secularization project. If
only Mattewal carries a trishul in hand when he appears before the
bench, he will be making a clearer statement about where he stands.
Not that he lacks in such clarity himself. Thanks for writing that
article, Hardev. Har Har Mahadev!
Read H S
Mattewal’s original article in The Tribune, please click here
17 December
2008
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