Mixing religion with politics

Indeed, theirs is a long saga of confrontation and sacrifice. Yet it has got tangled in other things. The community is still in the throes of division and dictation, feudalism and fundamentalism. The Golden Temple at Amritsar, Harminder Sahib, the Sikhs' Vatican, saw early this week how the community was in the midst of unrest and turmoil.

I was present at the huge gathering at the Manji Sahib Hall in the temple complex. Shiromani Gurdawara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) was observing the 400th year of setting up of the Akal Takht, the highest Sikh temporal seat. I had been invited, along with Vijay Pratap, a human rights activist, to receive from Akali Dal president Prakash Singh Badal an award for having fought against the emergency (1975-77) and gone to jail in the process.

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The award ceremony went off peacefully in the presence of thousands of people. It was declared at that time that some more people would be given awards and also the opportunity to address the gathering. Listed among the people were the supporters of Simranjit Singh Mann, Badal's inveterate opponent and an advocate of militancy.

It appeared that Mann's men became impatient and did not want to wait for their turn. A few among them rushed to the stage and roughed up SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar and tried to capture the podium. Swords were drawn and turbans went flying as people from both sides clashed. Supporters of Mann pushed forward while the SGPC leaders pleaded with them to have their separate stage if they were insistent to have things in their own way. The clash scared the congregation and people began to disperse. No amount of exhortation could bring them back. Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book, was removed from the hall and the visibly disturbed Badal was taken to some safe place in the temple complex.

It had a bad impression on me when the sacrilegious act took place in the 'presence' of the Guru Granth Sahib. I feel that the Sikh community is its own enemy. Groups within groups, quarrel against one another to get a place of vantage in the religious hierarchy or in Gurudwaras which give them the limelight and funds. However unworthy some may be to occupy these positions, they have to go through a process of election. There are laws in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi to elect from Sikh electoral collage a set of people who administer the Gurudwaras in their respective states. The problem arises when those ousted do not accept the majority verdict and indulge in such activities which hamper the management from doing its work. True, it is not all that altruistic, but it needs to be so. What is required is discipline.

In fact, it is commendable how the community, only 1600 years old, has faced bravely the challenge to their tradition -- turbaned and bewhiskered as they are. In numbers, they are only six million but they have made their presence felt wherever they have gone.

They are spread all over the world. But their homeland is India. Punjab, where most of them live, has experienced many agitations because only through the state's division and re-division could they get a majority. With the influx of labour from Bihar and elsewhere, the Punjabi-speaking population is nearly losing its majority. This may create problems in the future.

Coming back to the Manji Sahib hall incident, it has evoked condemnation all over, particularly from the Sikh organisations. Several people rang me up from Canada and the UK because the proceedings were televised live. However, this is not the first incident. Nor will it be the last one. The Sikh community has to ponder over the incident because it disturbed a religious function held to commemorate the establishment of the Akal Takht. Obviously, those who did it had politics in their mind. State elections are only six months away. The Congress which is in power is collecting all forces and using all tactics to stall the opponents, the Akali Dal, from winning at the polls.

I wonder if the incident is the beginning of the Giani Zail Singh-type politics. Then the Congress found the extremist Bhindranwale and lionised him to fight against the Akalis. Things went beyond control and the result was disastrous. One, the army attacked the Gold Temple where Bhindranwale had tried to build a state within a state. Two, the Sikh guards assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

This retaliation led to another fiendish kind of retaliation: the killing of innocent Sikhs in broad daylight, 3,000 in Delhi alone. What is called the Sikh problem got more aggravated. The elevation of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister has solved it to a large extent and that Mrs Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, has brought about it has made all the difference.

But the notion of mixing miri and piri, religion with politics, is the real bane. When Guru Hargobind Sahib rationalised the joining of politics with religion, his purpose was to instill the sentiments of social service among his followers. He wanted the Sikhs to pay attention to the lowest in the land. No doubt, the Sikhs are far ahead in this field compared to the other communities. Still their contribution is not in proportion to the wealth at their command. Why the community cannot channelise money to productive avenues so as to absorb lakhs of unemployed Sikhs, who are prone to drugs. One cause of last militancy in Punjab was the unemployment of Sikh youth.

The Sikh community still dreams about what India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said: the Sikhs would have a place of their own where they would enjoy the 'glow'. Every agitation begins and ends at that. The much-decried Anandpur Sahib resolution is a watered down version of Article 370 which gives a special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Sikhs, by and large, have come to accept the provincial autonomy like the rest of the Indians. But the problem with the Sikh community is that it tends to mix religion with politics. It is not opposed to secularism but it overemphasises the religious identity. Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikh religion, preached pluralism and put together the sayings of Hindu, Muslim and other saints in the Guru Granth Sahib. It is pluralism the Sikhs should be pursuing and upholding, not religious jingoism. When they get carried away by passions as was seen at the Manji Sahib hall, they exhibit a trait which only impairs the community's image.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.