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SGPC chief's new line on All
India Gurdwara Act: Delay is Good
WSN Network
CHANDIGARH: At a
time when wide sections of the Sikh community think that imbroglios
like the one concerniong the demand for a separate SGPC for Haryana
Sikhs can be easily avoided if an All India Gurdwara Act, demanded
by the community for decades, is put in place, the SGPC has taken a
queer stance.
Last week, the
Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Avtar Singh
Makkar, never earlier tired of accusing the Centre of deliberately
delaying the proposed Act, justified the delay saying such an Act by
Parliament could be misused by the Congress-led UPA regime at the
Centre to interfere in Sikh religious affairs.
"We are not
against the proposed legislation, but it is better if for the time
being it is not pushed ahead," the SGPC chief said at a "Meet the
press" programme at Chandigarh Press Club last Thursday. He was
responding to a question on why the SGPC was not pursuing the matter
of the legislation, hanging fire for over a decade now.
The statement is
significant, considering that the All India Gurdwara legislation has
gone through repeated drafting efforts and the last draft was around
10 years back. Makkar's stance that an Act is better delayed because
it may possibly be misused is curious, considering that his stance
could have been to seek certain amendments in the proposed draft so
that it is no more vulnerable to misuse.
It is a comment
on the media that no one asked Makkar about the fate of the Act if
it is passed under a non-Congress regime and then the Congress comes
back to power after a few years down the line.
The flip flop
stance of many Akali leaders on the All India Gurdwara Act also
shows a certain disengagement or complete lack of engagement in the
first place with a crucial aspect of Sikh legislative affairs.
Ever since the
then Gurdwara Election Commissioner Justice Harbans Singh (now
deceased) prepared the draft, the response from the Akali Dal and
the SGPC has been disappointing. Except for some leaned souls within
the Sikh community, efforts to engage with the exercise have been
few and far between, and certainly bereft of political will power
and support.
9
September 2009
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