MANN ON THE WARPATH

THE PUNJAB CM POSITIONS HIMSELF AS AN AGGRESSIVE LEADER BY PUSHING THROUGH THREE CONTENTIOUS BILLS. BUT HAS HE BITTEN OFF MORE THAN HE CAN CHEW?

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

On June 26, members of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or SGPC, the elected apex body managing the religious affairs of Sikhs-assembled at its headquarters in the Teja Singh Samundri Hall at the iconic Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. It was a special general house session of the SGPC convened with a single-point agenda: to condemn the recent amendments in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, pushed by the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) regime in Punjab.

Just a week earlier, the state assembly had cleared a bill to make it mandatory for the SGPC to broadcast Gurbani from the Golden Temple uninterrupted by advertisements and available to all media platforms across the world for free. Mann justified the move, claiming it would liberate the telecast of Gurbani from the undue control of "modern-day masands", alluding to the officially appointed tithe collectors in early Sikhism in an edgewise swipe at Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Badal and his loyalists. (The SGPC, in 2012, had given the exclusive rights to air Gurbani from the Golden Temple to the Badal-controlled PTC network. The agreement ends in July.)

Though many in the SGPC had in the past and even during the special session on June 26 questioned the working of the gurdwara body, especially the control exercised by the Badals, the cohort stood united in vehemently condemning the AAP government's move, calling it a direct interference with their working and the provisions of the British-era Act.