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Badal chums Mattewals bent on
destroying Sikh identity
Gian Inder Singh
 CHANDIGARH: The
case regarding the essentiality of unshorn hair in the Sikh religion
being heard currently by a Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High
Court is keeping the Sikh community close engaged despite the best
efforts of the ruling Akali Dal to sweep it aside as a non-issue and
maintain a complete silence on the arguments being advanced.
In fact, Pavit
Mattewal, son of Hardev Singh Mattewal, Punjab's Advocate General
and close chum of CM Parkash Singh Badal, who does not even use
"Singh" with his name and describes himself as a Legal Adviser to
the CM, propounded an extremely dangerous argument in the high court
and wanted to prove that the first Sikh nine gurus did not believe
in having unshorn hair and laid no such injunction and thus while
keeping hair was a desirable thing, it was not essential for a Sikh.
Even as the high
court bench comprising of two Sikh judges and a Hindu judge deals
with the quintessential query about relationship of unshorn hair to
being a Sikh, there has been much attempt to present a lot of
liberal interpretation of the religion’s tenets in the high court. A
bid by the SGPC to do so earlier was reversed after much protests by
the Sikh intellectuals and the SGPC had to eat humble pie and
withdraw a controversial affidavit in the high court.
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Pavit
Mattewal, son of Hardev Singh Mattewal,
Punjab's
Advocate General and close chum of CM Parkash Singh Badal, does
not even use 'Singh' with his name but is playing a lead role in
the row. In the HC, he propounded an extremely dangerous
argument claiming the first Sikh nine gurus did not believe in
having unshorn hair and laid no such injunction and thus while
keeping hair was a desirable thing, it was not essential for a
Sikh. |
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The man behind
the impugned affidavit, Pavit Mattewal, is once again active now. On
Friday, he presented a 32-page synopsis on "Significance of unshorn
hair in Sikhism" which he claimed has been prepared according to
instructions of Giani Harinder Pal Singh, a Sikh cleric, who had
during previous hearings touched an emotional chord by asserting
that "those who don’t want to stay with Sikhism are free to leave,
but once they leave, they shouldn’t claim to be a Sikh and crave for
a place in the religion."
Pavit Mattewal
even tried to negate the concept of Patit and said the term implied
fall from grace and was never used by Gurus, but by a scholar and
that too in reference to some women.
"Everybody is a
Patit till he becomes Khalsa or pure. Perfect Sikh is Khalsa. Tenets
cannot be confused with goal and the final goal is union with God,
to become Khalsa, to become Guru’s image,’’ Pavit claimed and
wondered whether any reasonable differentiation could be drawn
between a Sikh and a non-Sikh on the basis of keeping or non-keeping
of unshorn hair.
Mattewal
submitted that as far as the issue of unshorn hair was concerned,
“there is a degree of desirability, bordering on essentiality, to
keep long hair and that there is no compulsion or express code of
conduct for maintaining the same as far as the first nine Gurus are
concerned”.
Pavit, by
arguing that the Gurus never ostracized a disciple who was unable to
learn or who was slow to learn, tried to claim that if a Sikh did
not keep unshorn hair, he does not stop being a Sikh.
Meanwhile, on
Monday, former Patiala MP Atinder Pal Singh and advocate Dr Malkiat
Singh Rahi told the Full Bench that unshorn hair are integral to a
Sikh and the fact was established by various scriptures and texts of
the faith. Also, they claimed, there is no mention of the word
“Sehajdhari” anywhere in Guru Granth Sahib.
The full Bench
comprising Justices Jagdish Singh Khehar, Jasbir Singh and Ajay
Kumar Mittal deferred the hearing till Wednesday.
Atinder Pal, to
substantiate his submission that all 10 Sikh Gurus had unshorn hair
submitted copies of wall paintings, including those in Ladakh. He
also pointed out that there was no reference to the word
“Sahajdhari” in any of the 1,430 pages of Guru Granth Sahib, in the
“Rahat Maryada” or “Gurmat Shabdkosh”, a dictionary containing Sikh
terminology .
Rahi termed the
assertion made by counsel Pavit Mattewal before the Bench on
October 22,
2008, as fraught with danger for Sikhism in so far as its distinct
identity was concerned, besides pushing its followers towards
assimilation with other communities.
The matter is
before the HC following a plea by one Gurleen Kaur who was denied
admission in MBBS in SGPC-controlled Sri Guru Ram Dass Institute of
Medical Education and Research on the ground that she plucked her
eyebrows despite being a Sikh.
25 March 2009
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