The war of jathedars

With news of Akal Takht jathedar Ranjit Singh's dubious property transactions breaking out, his opponents, notably Jathedar Manjit Singh of the Keshgarh Sahib Takht, appear to be preparing for the kill.

PRAVEEN SWAMI
in Chandigarh

THE storm raging at the heights of the Sikh theocratic establishment shows no signs of abating. Akal Takht jathedar Ranjit Singh's campaign to become the sole arbiter of Sikh spiritual and temporal authority has been dramatically undermined after news broke of dubious property transactions by the religious head. His opponents, notably Jathedar Manjit Singh of the Keshgarh Sahib Takht, as well as centrist Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) politicians who have grouped around Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, appear to be preparing for the kill. Ranjit Singh's supporters, who include Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) president Gurcharan Singh Tohra and various far-right political factions, are in turn securing their defences. There are disturbing signs that the war could in the not-too-distant future, make its way out of Punjab's gurdwaras and be fought on the streets.

Newspaper reports on Ranjit Singh focussed on a 500-square yard (405-square metre) residential plot purchased by the jathedar in Chandigarh's Mohali suburb in December 1997. Ranjit Singh purchased the plot shortly after he was released from New Delhi's Tihar jail. He had been sentenced to life for the assassination of Nirankari sect leader Baba Gurbachan Singh, and the sentence was remitted reportedly at the intervention of Prime Minister I.K. Gujral. The long prison term had evidently not dented the one-time carpenter's financial position, for he was able to pay Rs. 8.5 lakhs for the plot. The payments were made through two separate drafts issued by a Punjab National Bank branch in Amritsar.

That the payment of an amount that formed just a third of the market price of the property was not in itself particularly suspicious, for property transactions throughout the country frequently involve undeclared funds. Curiously, however, the Akal Takht jathedar chose to conceal his identity. The two legal affidavits and an indemnity bond that he signed to secure the purchase describe him variously as R.S. Ghatohra or R.S. Ghataura, using a little-known surname. Jathedar Ranjit Singh said in these legally binding documents that he was a resident of House Number 598 of Mohali's Phase 10. In a tape-recorded interview to The Asian Age, Ranjit Singh claimed that the Mohali address was that of his maternal aunt. The owner of the house, Balbir Kaur, however, denies any form of kinship with the jathedar and says that Ranjit Singh used to visit her home occasionally.

S. ARNEJA
Jathedar Ranjit Singh.

The jathedar's explanations for his actions added to the controversy. He said that the Mohali plot had been sold to pay in part for the purchase of a second, built-up property in the suburb. In his interview to The Asian Age, Ranjit Singh said that the property was held in the name of his elder sister who had contributed some Rs. 7 lakhs towards the price. "I only paid what was needed over and above the amount mentioned in the sale deed," he explained, with a disarming naivete. Other admissions were, however, less innocent. The plot had been sold although mandatory procedures laid down by the Punjab Urban Development Authority had not been complied with. Ranjit Singh also admitted that he had filed no income tax returns for the donations that he received from sympathisers in India and abroad.

Such violations of law are perhaps routine, but they caused great distress to religious Sikhs. Adding to their anguish was the fact that the purchase documents carried photographs of the jathedar with his beard tied, a practice the ultra-orthodox Akal Takht has condemned as heresy. Worst of all from the jathedar's point of view, the controversy over his assets was largely his own creation. Ranjit Singh had made a declaration of his assets on September 19 in an effort to establish that his personal integrity was beyond question. All he possessed, the jathedar said, were a car and a jeep donated by supporters, and a house paid for by the Sikh sangat (community). Now, it seemed clear that this declaration of assets had at best been a half-truth, leaving as many questions unanswered as it resolved.

POLITICAL disputes had led Ranjit Singh to walk into the controversy over his assets. Early this year, complaints were heard after collections were made for the personal benefit of Damdama Sahib Jathedar Kewal Singh at a religious gathering. When critics argued that jathedars were paid employees of the SGPC and so such collections must be used for the benefit of gurdwaras, the SGPC president asked all jathedars to declare their assets and account for their expenditure. Ranjit Singh responded furiously. He returned all facilities provided to him by the SGPC. His argument was that the institution of the Akal Takht jathedar was beyond question by bodies like the SGPC or the law. Although the jathedar is legally a mere employee of the SGPC and can be removed by it at any time, Ranjit Singh refused to submit to Tohra on the grounds that he did not accept a salary for the job.

Tohra backed down. He could not take on Ranjit Singh because Amrinder Singh, president of the State unit of the Congress(I), had complained to the Akal Takht that Tohra had contacts with the Nirankari sect, which has been declared apostate by the SGPC. Ranjit Singh eventually exonerated Tohra of the charge, but the assets issues were to return. This time they centred around the World Sikh Council (WSC), set up by Manjit Singh as acting jathedar of the Akal Takht. After his return to the Golden Temple from jail, Ranjit Singh, in what is seen as something of a palace coup, appointed Kuldip Singh, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, WSC chairman in place of Manjit Singh. Ranjit Singh also wrote a strong letter to Manjit Singh demanding that accounts for the WSC's funds be handed over to him.

Provoked in part by dark allegations of embezzlement emerging from the Akal Takht, Manjit Singh's faction of the WSC moved the court. Manjit Singh and Kewal Singh boycotted a meeting of the three key Takhts on August 18. The heads of the two Takhts outside Punjab do not normally attend meetings of the clergy, and the joint decisions of the three Takhts within the State have been seen as representing collective religious opinion. The boycott by the Damdama Sahib Takht and the Keshgarh Sahib Takht escalated the battle, with Ranjit Singh banning his rivals from entering the Akal Takht. Allegations proliferated. Manjit Singh was charged with having met Nirankari leader Gobind Singh at a secret meeting in the offices of Ajit editor Brajinder Singh, while Ranjit Singh was, at a recent Chandigarh press conference accused of collaborating with Operation Bluestar.

THAT the war of the jathedars had an element of puppet theatre was not lost on observers. WSC chairman Kuldip Singh has been at the heart of the People's Commission on Punjab, a human rights investigation that has been a profound source of embarrassment for Chief Minister Badal and the SAD-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition. Tohra has endorsed the commission and in recent times suggested that the BJP is "not very different from the Congress(I)". Insofar as Manjit Singh challenged Ranjit Singh, who has, over recent months, made his support for fundamentalist groups explicit, he served the interests of Badal. Both Badal and Tohra, however, did not overtly intervene in the dispute. Badal let it be known that the task of resolving the showdown was that of his "senior colleague", the SGPC chief.

Activists at lower levels were, however, less reluctant to join battle. A September 12 discussion on the crisis, with Advocate-General G.S. Grewal and former Director-General of Police B.S. Danewalia as its key figures, ended in violence. Darshan Singh, a Chandigarh-based academic and one of the organisers of the discussion, was roughed up, while Grewal and Danewalia were forced to leave the venue. The organisers claimed that the violence had been organised by pro-Tohra SAD politicians Bharbhur Singh and Jasmer Singh Bala. That the incident had Tohra's support became evident at a rally of the right-wing All India Sikh Students Federation the next day, where he claimed that any discussion of the Akal Takht's working undermined its authority. Bala, for his part, denies having started the violence, but says that it was the outcome of the organisers' rejection of his assertion that the seminar was "anti-Panthic" and that discussion of religious affairs in secular sites like hotels is impermissible.

ANU PUSHKARNA
SGPC president Gurcharan Singh Tohra.

The ability of far-right groups to attack figures as senior as the Advocate-General illustrates the position of strength they believe Jathedar Ranjit Singh has given them. The newspaper investigations of his property deal have, however, placed groupings affiliated to Tohra on the defensive. Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi's visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, with its Operation Bluestar resonance, is certain to form their next theatre of engagement. Both Tohra and Ranjit Singh have let it be known that they will refuse to honour Sonia Gandhi at the Golden Temple - an honour customary for visiting high dignitaries - should she fail to approach the Akal Takht for pardon. Since Sonia Gandhi has not asked to be pardoned or for that matter honoured, these protestations are clearly polemical in character.

YET, the implications of the war of the jathedars transcend short-term considerations. The battle for control of Sikh communal identity and politics makes it clear that the dynamics set in place by the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale are far from spent. Jathedar Ranjit Singh's reign of edicts, defining everything from the appropriate places in which Sikhs may be married and the ritual practices they must follow to just how gurdwaras in the West must conduct the langar meal, illustrates a hardening of communal boundaries and the domination of democratic civil society by religious authoritarianism.

His political interventions draw on a long history, set in place in 1979, when Akal Takht Jathedar Sadhu Singh Bhaura was petitioned by the then SGPC president to punish the then Chief Minister. Both Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Prakash Singh Badal are familiar with the events that followed. For the next decade and a half, Punjab was to pay for religious bigotry and intolerance in human lives. If the office of Akal Takht jathedar has come to resemble that of the pre-Enlightenment Papacy, the SAD leadership has only itself to blame. The Gurdwara Act defines neither the authority of the jathedar's office nor its exercise; however, a new piece of legislation that the SGPC supports seeks to institutionalise the office as one beyond law and democratic authority. In a signal 1988 article, scholar Attar Singh warned of the fact that the Akal Takht jathedar's " 'exalted office' has increasingly been functioning as the sovereign or 'the president of the religious republic' with the SGPC chief as his prime advisor". It is evident that the SAD has learned nothing from that experience.

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