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Haryana government’s interference won’t be tolerated: SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami
SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami said the Haryana government’s “interference and conspiracies against the Sikhs will not be tolerated”. He said, “This is a conspiracy that must be condemned.”
As the Haryana government has constituted a new 38-member ad hoc Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (HSGPC) under the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara (Management) Act, 2014, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chief Harjinder Singh Dhami said the Haryana government’s “interference and conspiracies against the Sikhs will not be tolerated”.
In reaction to the Haryana move that materialised weeks after the Supreme Court validated the Act for separate gurdwara committee for the state, Dhami said, “This is a conspiracy that must be condemned. The characteristic of the Sikh community is that they have always been autonomous to manage their gurdwaras and institutions”. The SGPC president rejected the separate gurdwara committee for Haryana and said this “artifice of the Haryana committee is a conspiracy to weaken the community, which can never be accepted”.
He said, “Sadly, the governments are plotting to divide the Sikhs and some Sikhs by not understanding these conspiracies are acting as government pawns. Government committee nominated for the management of gurdwaras of Haryana cannot prove to be beneficial for the interests of the community even today and in the future”.
The SGPC president appealed to the Sikhs and leaders of Haryana to understand this “conspiracy” of the government.
“The Sikhs of Haryana should understand that on one hand, the matter is of the patronage and leadership of Sri Akal Takht Sahib and the mother organisation of Sikhs, the SGPC, for which Sikhs made sacrifices, and on the other hand, it is the government’s arbitrariness and ill intention to manage the Sikh institutions by destroying them,” said Dhami.
He appealed to the Sikhs of Haryana to come to Akal Takht to solve this issue by understanding the difference between both these matters, because it can never happen that the government patronage that they like today will be able to continue with them in the future too.
He said similar government interference was done by the British government during the establishment of the SGPC, but the Sikhs never accepted it.
Dhami said, “If today we abandon our Panthic traditions and accept government intervention by forgetting the Panthic history, then the future of the community will never be as per the hopes of the Sikhs.”
