Dec 7, 1998

Power games and controversy mar the beginning of the tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa Panth.

By Ramesh Vinayak

It was billed as a grand show to mark the beginning of the year-long tercentenary celebrations of the birth of the Khalsa Panth. Grand it certainly was, going by the religious fervour and the sea of turbans at Anandpur Sahib for the inauguration of the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex (KHMC) on November 22. But the exuberance failed to hide the undercurrent of acrimony in top Sikh religious and political circles. At the hub of the controversy is the Anandpur Sahib Foundation (ASF), a high-powered autonomous body floated by the state Government to oversee the celebrations.

The first discordant note was struck by Ranjit Singh, jathedar of the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikh faith, when he boycotted the function after snidely referring to it as a sarkari show. His ire against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is understandable. Badal nominated Ranjit's betes noires Barjinder Singh Hamdard, editor of the Punjabi daily Ajit, and Manjit Singh, jathedar of Takht Keshgarh Sahib, to important positions in the ASF. Feeling slighted, Ranjit plans to hold parallel celebrations in league with radical Sikh organisations opposed to Badal. He has already called for a three-day Khalsa march to Anandpur Sahib on December 4. He has also demanded the release of Sikh prisoners held under TADA in the tercentenary year.

Offering open support to him is Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) President G.S. Tohra who sees this as yet another opportunity to upstage Badal. Tohra, seeking a dominant role in the celebrations and projects, including the multi-crore KHMC, has made no secret of his plans -- to grab the show from the ASF. "How can the SGPC be reduced to only a langar-serving role in the whole show?" says Tohra. He has demanded that the Rs 100 crore sanctioned by the Centre towards the jamboree be given to the SGPC.

To add to Badal's woes, close confidant Hamdard resigned from the ASF just a day after the festivities kicked off. In a veiled attack against Ranjit and Tohra, Hamdard accused some people of "hatching a deep-rooted conspiracy to torpedo the historic event and shatter Badal's dream projects at Anandpur Sahib for their personal aggrandisement and petty greed for the office". His two-page letter has even flayed Badal for pusillanimity in checkmating the Tohra-Ranjit duo. With the body's chairman and senior IAS officer D.S. Jaspal already opting out on the pretext of a four-month medical leave, the future of the ASF is in jeopardy.

Another incident to cast a shadow on the Khalsa show has been the murder of Tara Singh Hayer, editor of the Vancouver-based Punjabi weekly, Indo-Canadian Times, allegedly by pro-Khalistanis. Hayer, a prominent moderate Sikh leader in Canada, was in the midst of a raging controversy after he defied the jathedar's religious edict on the langar issue and was excommunicated from the Sikh Panth by Ranjit. This is bound to dampen the participation of the NRI Sikh community in the celebrations and, more importantly, affect the flow of donations.

Badal now clearly faces a Hobson's choice. He can't afford to wash his hands of the show. For, allowing Tohra to monopolise the event is fraught with the risk of it being used to whip up fundamentalist passions. However, going ahead with the tercentenary plans would aggravate his clash with the formidable Tohra-Ranjit duo, meaning more controversy. At this stage, the Anandpur Sahib celebrations could well do without it.

© Living Media India Ltd