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India’s Supreme
Court says Sikhs not a minority
Soon Muslims may be next
Dilwala Singh
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India’s Supreme Court has dealt another blow to the status
of Sikhs in India by refusing to accept that Sikhs are a
minority community. With the Indian media refusing to
critically analyse the judgement and its impact , it is left
to the Sikhs to raise their voice against the move which
violates the spirit of the Indian constitution and the very
existence of the National Commission for Minorities |
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New Delhi: In a
significant development, India’s Supreme Court refused any immediate
relief to the Sikh community by refusing to suspend the Punjab and
Haryana High Court judgement that had declared Sikhs a majority
community in Punjab and had thus deprived them of the benefits that
accrued from that status. Now, the SGPC run institutions in Punjab
cannot have any reservation for Sikhs. And the decision comes at a
time when the government is placing huge ads in newspapers about
Prime Minister's New 15-point programme for welfare of minorities."
 The Punjab
Government, the SGPC and the Sikh community at large have
consistently maintained that a community can be judged to be a
minority only at the federal level and provincial demographic
figures were of little relevance.
The apex court bench
headed by India’s Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan brought in a new
twist in the tale by arguing that if they go by the argument of the
state government and considered only someone as a Sikh as per the
definition of a Sikh in the Sikh Gurdwara Act, the Hindus will be a
minority in India. Criticism of any judicial pronouncement in India
is almost missing in media as a rule and courts often resort to
powers of contempt at such criticism even though it is not expressly
prohibited as long as no aspersions are cast on the judiciary.
For long, Indian
media has been amiss in even criticizing lack of application of
judicial mind or poor application.
The SC bench also
said: “It’s very absurd to say that Sikhs in Punjab are in a
minority”. Incidentally, India’s National Commission for Minorities
considers five communities as “minorities”, and Sikhs are one of
them. Even the official logo of the NCM includes the religious
symbols of all five communities. With this one stroke, the High
Court and the Supreme Court have brought into question the entire
rationale of having such a commission and the functioning of a large
number of minority institutions.
 On its part, the
Supreme Court issued a notice to the Centre and Punjab government on
the issue, responding to an SLP filed by Punjab seeking stay and
review of High Court’s decision. It is learnt that the SGPC too will
be moving the apex court separately on the issue. The Punjab Govt
later rushed to say that the SC has not refused the stay but has
issued notices on the government's plea.
The Government also
took a rather curious plea that only those enrolled as voters for
SGPC polls be considered Sikhs. Within the community, the jury is
still out on that argument.
Earlier, the Punjab
and Haryana High Court had said that the Sikhs could not seek
admissions to Sikh institutions run by the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) in Punjab on the basis that they fall
under the minority category. Experts swiftly interpreted the ruling
to mean that the Muslims will lose their minority status in Kashmir
and so will the Christians in some North Eastern states.
The High Court’s
division bench, comprising Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice
Ajay Lamba, had struck out a notification issued by the Punjab
government allowing the SGPC-run institutions to reserve 50 percent
seats for members of the Sikh community saying the Sikhs cannot be
termed a minority in Punjab. The original petition against the
SGPC-run institution was filed by one Sahil Mittal, a resident of
Punjab`s Sangrur district.
 Significantly, the
High Court’s decision and the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay it are
in keeping with a move already initiated by the Indian Government to
re-define the term “minority” at the national level, an issue which
the UPA government will only tinker with at its own peril, in view
of the electoral equations in the country.
20
February 2008
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