The Akal Takht Jathedar calls a meeting to discuss dissident Akali Dal leaders seeking apology, raising credibility concerns. Past controversial decisions and political influences have weakened authority. The current crisis presents challenges in maintaining fairness and finding solutions to complex issues.
JALANDHAR: As the Akal Takht Jathedar , Giani Raghbir Singh, has called a meeting of five high priests on Monday to discuss the letter given by the dissident Akali Dal leaders seeking apology for the mistakes which implicate SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Sikh clergy will also be walking on a slippery turf while working on the multi-layered issue.
The Akali leadership, including Sukhbir’s camp as well as the dissidents, has been facing a credibility crisis in the Sikh community . The Sikh high priests too have been facing credibility issues, especially due to some of their decisions and the way these were taken in the last some years, which led to an erosion of their authority.
Though Akal Takht is considered the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, it has become clear that its jathedar can’t expect that directive or decision, issued by the high priests, would be accepted as the last word by the Sikh community, unless it is perceived fair and taken with due dilligence.
When the then Akal Takht Jathedar Gurbachan Singh and other high priests unilaterally “pardoned” Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim in Sept 2015, there was widespread criticism of the decision and protests by the Sikhs. This move brought the credibility and authority of the Akal Takht Jathedar to the lowest ebb. A few weeks later, the Jathedar had to rescind this controversial decision. Now, almost nine years later, the former Jathedar still faces criticism along with a few other unpopular decisions of his time.
On a few occasions, before and after the 2015 controversy, decisions made by the high priests have been facing criticism from within the community. The erosion in the authority of the Akal Takht Jathedar started after the then Jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh was unceremoniously sacked from the post by 10 SGPC executive committee in 1999. They had announced the appointment of the new acting Jathedar from Circuit House in Amritsar. It has been well documented that they were working as per the wishes of the then chief minister and SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal. Since then a strong impression was created in the community that the jathedars and SGPC work according to the wishes of the Akali Dal top brass, especially the Badals. What complicates the matter for the incumbent jathedar is that the “mistakes” dissident Akali leaders have pleaded guilty for also involve former Jathedar Gurbachan Singh and other high priests.
Moreover, religious as well political challenges before the Sikh community have grown and there does not appear a linear solution to this much-complicated crisis. The situation appears to be very delicate. The jathedar faces the challenge not only of appearing fair but also of finding an imaginative solution to the unprecedented crisis, when the community fears losing its own political organisation, the Akali Dal, through which it practised its politics for close to a century. In the past, the Akal Takht Jathedar, SGPC and SADl would actively engage with Sikh intellectuals but in the last few years a distance has grown between these institutions and the intelligentsia of the community.
