Union Government of India Allows Abolishing Sehajdhari Votes in SGPC Elections

NEW DELHI—Yesterday, a meeting of cabinet ministers under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an amendment to the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, which prohibits Sehajdharis from voting in SGPC elections. The SGPC is expected to return to business as usual after having halted its activities since 2011 due to a stay ordered by Supreme Court on SGPC’s general house. 

Following the reorganization of Punjab on November 1, 1966, the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925 became an interstate act. The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notice on October 8, 2003 canceling the voting rights of Sehajdharis in SGPC elections. Following this, the elections of SGPC general house were held in accordance with this amendment, which was later challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled against the amendment, and that ruling was later challenged by the SGPC in the Supreme Court of India.

Interstate acts, like the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, must be approved by the Indian Parliament. Chief Minister Parkash Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to present the amendment bill in parliament to stop potential legal obstacles to its success.  The amendment bill is currently being tabled for a few days in parliament after which, it will go to the Supreme Court for the final decision.

Akali leaders have said that the amendment bill will become a law after being approved by the Indian Parliament.  SGPC plans to then incorporate the amendment into the Sikh Gurdwara Act.  While the bill may pass through the parliament, it still needs to go through the Supreme Court where it can be challenged.  The petition challenging the existence of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhik Committee is also currently in the Supreme Court of India’s docket.  

Election of SGPC general house was put on freeze by the Supreme Court of India in 2011 after a petition by the the Sehajdhari Sikh Party, which sought voting rights in the SGPC elections.  Final approval by the Supreme Court of India would allow the SGPC general house to be re-elected, which could lead to appointment of a new SGPC President as well.  SGPC elections are expected to take place later this year or early in 2017.

12 COMMENTS

  1. Would anyone in the Mandir be accept to lead the mandir other than the pandit and likewise church without the Bishop or masjid without Maulvi…..
    Yes everyone is accepted to come in and prayer to the one and only Waheguru! hence four gates open at the Harimandar Sahib.

  2. How do you decide this spiritual Question ?

    The Golden Temple has its gates on all the four sides .

    There is no bar on prayers for any one on this planet earth .

    • We don’t decide this question. It was decided by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 when he created baptism (the Khalsa) and then later invested all spiritual authority into his final successor Sri Guru Granth Sahib who has only ever been attended to by the hands of baptised Sikhs in Gurdwaras in the three centuries since. Even those Sikhs who have Guru Granth Sahib in their homes in a separate exclusive room only do so as Amritdharis. Those who are cleanshaven and call themselves Sikhs are not permitted to touch Guru Granth Sahib and that precedent was established by Guru Gobind Singh when he created the Khalsa to ensure Sikhs could not be fair weather adherents to the faith as some clean shaven Sikhs escaping a battlefield told Mughal sentries that they were not Sikhs and had to be shamed into seeking the Guru’s forgiveness by their wives. Sehajdhari translates as a ‘slow adopter’, people who have a faint conviction and are not prepared to make the necessary commitment to the faith with all the doctrinal knowledge and discipline that implies. You don’t put slow learners into the driving seat – well maybe in Punjab buses owned by the Badals you do if you pay enough bribe.

      • Agree with you that Khalsa is the leadership of the Sikh Nation, and thus should have exclusive rights to Sikh governing bodies. But Khalsa should also be mindful of others, including Sehajdharis, otherwise numbers will continue to decline. Anyone can touch the Koran and Bible, including non Muslims and non Christians. Mussalmans will declare anyone part of their Ummah just by saying Shahadat. Gurus made a religion that includes all, Sikhs are making a religion that excludes all.

      • The Koran and Bible are the holy scriptures of the Islamic and Christian faiths respectively. They are NOT afforded the same position as Prophet and Messiah in those religions. In Sikhism Sri Guru Granth Sahib is NOT just Holy Scripture of the Sikhs but the 11th, final and eternal GURU of the Sikhs having been investitured with that spiritual authority by the 10th Guru himself so you cannot treat Him as just a Holy Book that anyone can touch and handle as they please. Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa and the notion of baptism to specifically create a transformation both outwardly and inwardly of his Sikhs. ‘Sehajdhari’ is NOT a religious sanction anymore than ‘Amritdhari’ is in Sikhism as Guru Gobind Singh in creating baptism was not saying you can still be my Sikh even though you do not have the commitment, the knowledge and discipline required. He wanted Sikhs to be transformed from sparrows into hawks, to become Sant Sipahi, to take Amrit. Those that did earned the epithet ‘Singh’ and ‘Kaur’. Unfortunately we have a huge number of people who have just adopted and taken entirely for granted Singh and Kaur appended to their names – usually in the middle which totally defeats the anti-caste point that Guru Gobind Singh was making. Those people who call themselves Sikhs and religiously and culturally identify themselves as being Sikh but aren’t prepared to make the necessary steps to being baptised are not Sikhs. They may wish to be and there is nothing wrong with that. Indeed it would be foolish for them to take on the discipline of becoming a Khalsa when they are not prepared or equipped knowledge wise and motivation wise to be a Sikh. Similarly we have plenty of people who look like Sikhs outwardly wearing dastaars and keeping their hair uncut but who do not behave as Sikhs should and they too do not deserve to be called Sikhs. If you allow either of these people both calling and thinking of themselves to be Sikhs but unwilling to actually practise Sikhi then Sikhism becomes nothing more than a ritualistic festival centred religiosity instead of a day to day guide on how to live your life. The Sehajdharis have to ask themselves how much service and how much damage are they doing to Sikhi by presenting this notion that you can be cleanshaven (and thus ignore Guru Gobind Singh’s baptism) and still be equally validated as being a Sikh. It’s far easier for non-Sikhs who have a desire to undermine Sikhi to do so in a cleanshaven guise – we had this month a cleanshaven spy dressed up as a Nihang caught in Anandpur Sahib. As I have told ‘Harinder’ you can’t personally just pick and choose which bits of Sikhi are convenient to you and ignore the others because you are effectively rejecting Gurmat given by Guru Gobind Singh Ji and then making it far easier for Harinder’s Hinduvta mafia to declare baptised Sikhs as being orthodox, militant, extremist, hardliners in comparison to all these ‘reasonable, move with the times’ Sehajdharis who don’t go the extreme length of adopting the ‘traditional, outdated’ 5 kakkars. It is the readily visually identifiable Sikhs who have consistently been called terrorists and anti national and targeted for extra judicial kidnapping, torture and murder in the past 30 years but that doesn’t mean we hide from our religion by cutting our hair and just melding into the background. If you don’t want to make the commitment and dedication to what Sikhi demands of you then choose another religion because a faint conviction is of no use and actually causes harm to Sikhs who have the courage to be baptised and stand out and stand up for the values of Sikhism. You can still be a God loving and good human being without being a Sikh – there are plenty of saintly Muslims and Christians in this world who don’t have to bear the 5 articles of Sikh faith. As for your comment ‘Mussalmans will declare anyone part of their Ummah just by saying Shahadat’ you are on very tricky ground with that if you’re trying to use it as an argument to increase Sikh numbers as it just shows how easy it is to become a Muslim but hides how impossible it then is to leave as an apostate in Islam is doctrinely subject to violent retribution. I find Sikhi’s approach much better in that you have to show real commitment and dedication (which comes with empowering yourself with knowledge of what it is you are subscribing to) through baptism and if you find you cannot meet that standard you walk away and find another path. You don’t dumb down in other words as that just spreads ignorance.

      • Just to clarify I am NOT saying Sikhism is just for Khalsa. The message of Sikhi is for all humanity and Sehajdharis or cleanshaven or people of other faiths or no are all welcome to come to the Gurdwara even if it is just for langar. As long as they take off their shoes, cover their heads and are not imbibing intoxicants they are equally free to sit in the Darbar and listen to Gurbani. They just have no right to touch Sri Guru Granth Sahib or be involved in determining Sikh religious affairs or running Sikh institutions – that also applies to those who outwardly dress up as Sikhs but inwardly do not behave as Sikhs should.

  3. By bringing Sehjdhari’s it will dilute what Sikhi stands for – what example they be setting to the Sikhs and others that its ok lead the Sikh ruling party even if you are not sikh yourself. I have had this argument withour local Gurdwara here as well as their members are not Amritdhari. This should not be allowed as our next generations will accept this.

  4. Let SGPC maintain cleanliness and upkeep of North Indian Gurdware, Sikh temporal affairs are the domain of Guru Granth and Khalsa Panth worldwide, not just India.

    • During the last quarter of the 19th century Sikh leadership became conscious of their history and culture as there was a serious attack on Sikh separate identity begun by the Arya Samajes. This resulted in the the rise of the Singh Sabha movement to free their Gurdwaras from anti Sikh elements such as the self serving mahants who were using the golaks of Gurdwaras as trust funds for their personal fiefdoms. The SGPC came into existence under the Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925 to stop all that corruption but the the SGPC has become increasingly unable to play the role assigned to it since that time culminating last year in a string of revelations and incompetent if not outright corrupt decisions such as pardoning a heretic Ram Rahim under political pressure from the Akali Badal and perhaps most unforgiveably its repudiation and denigration of the spiritual and leadership authority of the Panj Pyare.

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