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Makkar-Badal let down Sikhs
Nanakshahi calendar goes Bikrami
Jagmohan Singh
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This open
letter to SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar tells him that by
amending the Nanakshahi Calendar he has committed a grave sin and
that the only way things can improve for the Sikhs is to plan and
execute a well-orchestrated campaign to dislodge him and his party
from the forthcoming SGPC elections. |
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 Dear Avtar Singh
Ji
Waheguru Ji Ka
Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!
So you have done
what was fully expected of you. The Nanakshahi calendar is no longer
the Nanakshahi calendar or it is Nanakshahi calendar only in name,
but has many contents of the retrograde Bikrami calendar, which you
will force the Sikhs to follow. Pal Singh Purewal explained it in
great detail to you and the Sikh world that if we follow the
Bikarami methodology, we would end up defying Gurbani as enshrined
in Baramaha Tukhari and Baramaha Maajh in Guru Granth Sahib, for in
the years to come the days and months will not be the same as
mentioned in these Banis.
It has been so
obvious that you do not care for Gurbani and Guru Granth Sahib. Do
you? Actually we, the Sikhs were fools to have expected you to do
otherwise. In fact, we are stupid. You have not done anything
otherwise in the last five years in SGPC and in the last two decades
as a ‘loyal lieutenant’ of the Badal Dal, it was naive of us to have
expected a Panthic approach from you.
I am convinced
as most Sikhs are, that the only way to do things otherwise, to get
things done in Panthic interest is to get you and all the cronies of
your party dislodged from the SGPC in the coming general house
elections to the SGPC. What I am not convinced about is the
methodology, approach and strategies of those opposed to you. Their
intentions are fine, but that is not all. Unfortunately, you also
know that.
The height of
your shamelessness was demonstrated in your approach at the SGPC
executive committee where you took this decision. You said, “we are
here not do discuss what is right and what is wrong with the
Nanakshahi calendar; the core group of the party or the party
high-command as it is routinely and rightly called, has said that
these changes have to be made and so they have to be made, it is a
question of party discipline” Loyalty to party and leader, betrayal
to God and Guru, isn’t it?
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The height of your shamelessness was demonstrated in your approach
at the SGPC executive committee where you took this decision. You
said, “we are here not do discuss what is right and what is wrong
with the Nanakshahi calendar; the core group of the party or the
party high-command as it is routinely and rightly called, has said
that these changes have to be made and so they have to be made, it
is a question of party discipline” Loyalty to party and leader,
betrayal to God and Guru, isn’t it? |
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While you revel
in your purported ‘achievement’ of having brought the Takhts
together on one platform, your party, the Damdami Taksal and you
have divided the Sikh nation on an issue which had brought the Sikhs
on one platform after a very long time in 2003.
Importantly, if
you think you have brought the two Takhts ‘into the fold’ by
altering the calendar, how about completing this mission by ensuring
that the two Takhts and the Deras whom you want to pacify or appease
for electoral reasons, would also follow the Sikh Rehat Maryada
adopted by the Sikh Panth way back in 1945 and which most Sikhs
continue to follow to this day! Or should we start fearing that you
may think about amending that too!
Last week on the
first day of the Common Era New Year, I wrote to you requesting you
to enable the Sikhs to remain cheerful throughout the year, but as
the turn of events have shown, you had made up your mind long back.
Back-stabbing is an art you people have learnt so well, that
well-meaning Sikhs still get deceived by you.
I am amazed at
the gems of argument produced by the Badal Dal propaganda machinery
–‘the new Nanakshahi calendar is meant to bring the Panth together
–all organisations who have opposed the SGPC are bogus –the move of
the SGPC is to bring the Sant Samaj within the fold of Sikhism (as
if it was outside the fold earlier) –if a few days can be celebrated
on certain dates, what harm does it cause to the Sikhs –all those
are dissenting are agents of the Congress I party’, ad nauseam.
So is it not
clear that for you the dictum is clear, “either you are with me or
against me”. Dissent is enmity; dissent is being anti-Panthic.
The manner in
which you have roped in the Supreme Temporal Authority –Akal Takht
Sahib into the imbroglio created by you and the manner in which the
present incumbent, Jathedar Sahib Giani Gurbachan Singh Ji has
ratified your suggestions has benumbed the Sikhs into silence and
the fear of a theocratic build-up within Sikhism which has no
religious, historical or traditional sanction.
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The manner in which you have roped in the Supreme Temporal Authority
–Akal Takht Sahib into the imbroglio created by you and the manner
in which the present incumbent, Jathedar Sahib Giani Gurbachan Singh
Ji has ratified your suggestions has benumbed the Sikhs into silence
and the fear of a theocratic build-up within Sikhism which has no
religious, historical or traditional sanction. |
I am aware that
your party and you are preparing to unseat Jathedar Balwant Singh
Nandgarh but are ‘waiting for the opportune time and occasion’.
The introduction
to the Nanakshahi Calendar published by the SGPC gives the timeline
of the calendar in great detail, cites 12 cogent reasons for having
the Nanakshahi calendar and the various resolutions of the SGPC
passed for adoption of the calendar. To recall, the first resolution
was that of the executive committee on 15 January 1998, then a
resolution of the general house of the SGPC on 18 March 1998. The
Dharam Parchar Committee of the SGPC passed a resolution on 5 June
2000, urging the Akal Takht Jathedar to resolve the differences
pertaining to the Nanakshahi calendar. After innumerable meetings,
twists and turns, the Nanakshahi Calendar was adopted on 28 March
2003 under the auspices of Akal Takht Sahib and the Jathedar wrote
to the SGPC saying among other things, “.....The Nanakshahi calendar
has been adopted in the meeting of 28 March 2003.....” After this
letter was presented before the general house of the SGPC on 29
March 2003 by Prof. Kirpal Singh Bandugar, amidst chants of
Jaikaras, the Nanakshahi Calendar was unanimously adopted.
A host of
Panthic scholars, activists, writers and devout Sikhs contributed
their thoughts and arguments, for and against, after which the
calendar was adopted, starting a new era of the Sikh almanac.
A whole array of
religio-political bodies from Punjab, Mumbai, Delhi, USA, UK, Canada
and Europe had appealed to your good sense not to push Sikhs into
the Brahmanical fold from which Guru Nanak and successor Gurus had
so effectively removed us from and the Nanakshahi Calendar is a
classic result of their unique contribution. You have rubbished them
all.
Pal Singh
Purewal –the pioneer of the calendar had succinctly pointed out that
more than 95 percent of the community had started using the
Nanakshahi calendar and that it would not be wise to make any
changes. You have mercilessly cheated him, even his plea for a
hearing before making the current changes was not responded to.
It has been
barely 6 years and we have not yet even basked in the glory of the
calendar which brought respite to the identity question and the very
being of Sikhs –badly brutalised in June and November 1984.
As I write to
you I worry about how the 77 year old Pal Singh Purewal –the chief
architect of the calendar must be feeling. I have reason to believe
that he is having sleepless nights. You have hurt him. You have
taken his work and twisted it topsy-turvy. This is what the SGPC did
to Prof. Gurmukh Singh, to Justice Harbans Singh –the chief
architect of the All India Gurdwara Act, to Sirdar Kapur Singh-whose
draft of the White Paper against the neo-Nirankaris was also changed
by the SGPC.
 Your
spinelessness has been demonstrated once again. The difficulty is
that you have harmed the spine of the Sikh nation. I am not sure how
much time it will take, but am pretty certain that it will take
years before the clock can be reversed –for the community, as for
you, you have committed a grave sin and treachery with the House of
Guru Nanak. Still, Rab Rakha.
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan
Singh is editor of World Sikh News. He may be contacted at
jsbigideas@gmail.com
6
January 2010
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