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Punjab’s oldest publishing house
shuns
printing of scriptures
WSN Bureau
Amritsar: For
years, the Akal Takht and the SGPC have been issuing appeals,
orders, directives and, at least once, even a Hukumnama from the
temporal seat, in a bid to exercise some sort of control on the
printing and sale of the birs of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
Now, the Punjab
Government led by Akali Dal president, CM Parkash Singh Badal, has
finally decided to ban anyone from printing the holy scriptures and
entrusted only the SGPC to do so.
The decision to
enact a law to ban private publishing houses from printing,
publishing and distributing 'Birs' has ensured that Punjab's oldest
publishing house, Jeewan Singh Chattar Singh announce a halt
to the publication of the Sikh scripture.
The publishing
house, established in 1880 in Amritsar, has
gone public in announcing that it was discontinuing the publication
of the scripture in view of the decision of the government. The
house was the leading publisher of the Guru Granth Sahib after the
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
While the SGPC’s
main objection was against this publisher, and the owners of this
publishing house had even been summoned to the Akal Takht a few
years back, it took a very controversial incident to force the
latest turn of events.
The publishers
had been having some sort of a problem with the clergy, and it had
come to notice even during the tenure of Bhai Ranjit Singh, who’s
Jathedarship of the Akal Takht was forcibly terminated in a turf war
between Badal and the late Gurcharan Singh Tohra. The abrasive
relationship between the publishing house and the clergy possibly
also had some financial angle to it, and it had rankled the
community for some time but then the issue died down.
While demands
for control on the printing and publication of the scriptures
continued, the issue was forced by the incident in which two
relatives of Harbhajan Singh, proprietor of the publishing house,
were recently dragged and beaten, allegedly inside the Golden Temple,
by certain hardliners when copies of the scripture published and
sold by them were being transported to Delhi. The hardliners had
contended that the scripture was not being transported as per the
Sikh 'maryada'.
Obviously, the
Parkash Singh Badal government, otherwise working overtime to don
the secular mantle, did not want to allow any opportunity for being
labeled ‘weak’ on panthic territory, and rushed to nothing less than
a ban. The state Cabinet in its meeting on October 10 gave its
consent to the framing of a law to ban private publishing houses
from printing and distributing the scripture through the
promulgation of an Ordinance.
“We want to know
from the state government whether the law will be applicable only
for
Punjab or
will it be enforced in other parts of the country,” Harbhajan Singh
said while pointing out that there were at least 60 odd private
publishers of the scriptures in the country. So far there is no
clear answer, but the entire episode has indeed left many unanswered
questions as well as issues which the Sikh community will have to
mull over in due time. The efficacy of the ban, the very need for
it, the SGPC’s monopoly over printing of birs, and the distribution
of the scriptures will all be issues which are not likely to become
a closed case even after the latest piece of legislation of the
Punjab Government. Matters of religion can neither be settled by
bashing up a couple of people, nor by passing laws overnight. This
episode only proves it.
17
October, 2007
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