Chandigarh: The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the organisation responsible for the maintenance of historic Sikh places of worship in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, has decided to invite open tenders for granting live telecast rights for “gurbani” from Amritsar’s Golden Temple to television channels.
Gurbani are hymns played at gurudwaras. At present, PTC — a Punjabi television network, owned by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal — holds the right to telecast gurbani from the Golden Temple.
“The 11-year contract with PTC was signed by the SGPC in 2012, and is ending next month,” SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said at a press conference in Amritsar Tuesday. He added that PTC paid Rs 2 crore annually to the SGPC’s education fund for the right to relay the gurbani.
“Gurbani has to be relayed live worldwide across different time zones, which is the responsibility of the telecaster. Also, no advertisements or sponsorships are allowed by the telecaster through the gurbani telecast to maintain the sanctity of the telecast,” said Dhami.
He lashed out at Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for allegedly trying to spread misinformation regarding the telecast of gurbani from the Golden Temple, saying that Punjab was not a “performer’s stage” where the CM could say anything “for the sake of entertainment”.
“As chief minister of the state, he has to be careful in what he says,” said Dhami.
Mann had Sunday targeted the SGPC for granting exclusive rights to telecast gurbani from the Golden Temple to only one TV channel.
In a tweet, the CM had said that his government would pay for any technological enhancement that could lead to every channel getting free rights to telecast the gurbani.
The Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, led by Mann, is yet to respond to Dhami’s comments. ThePrint reached AAP Punjab spokesperson Malwinder Singh Kang over phone for comment, but received no response till the time of publication of this report.
ThePrint also spoke to Rabindra Narayan, managing director and president of G-Next Media Pvt Ltd, which runs PTC, who said the channel got the rights to telecast gurbani from Golden Temple after several TV channels had refused to do so or failed to do so.
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Dhami lashes out at CM Mann
Speaking to the media, Dhami said that an open tender process would be followed to choose a single channel that will be given the right to telecast the gurbani from the Golden Temple. He added that multiple channels will not be involved in the telecast process as maryada (tradition) had to be maintained during the telecast.
He pointed out that despite the telecast rights being given to only one channel for 11 years, “other broadcasters who managed to get illegal links of the live telecast used it to earn money through advertisements of all kinds”.
“These illegal telecasters give mobile numbers and account numbers on the screen to gather funds and they also run disgraceful ads over the telecast,” said Dhami.
He recalled that when the SGPC had decided to live telecast the gurbani way back in 1998, Punjab Today channel had first agreed to do it, but could not execute the same.
“After that, several other channels tried to relay the gurbani but could not and kept transferring the agreement to other parties. Finally, a contract was signed with PTC in 2012 for 11 years. Initially, they were to pay an amount of Rs 1 crore per year with a 10 per cent enhancement each year which is now almost Rs 2 crore,” Dhami said.
He added: “Since the contract is ending next month, we have formed a five-member committee to lay out the terms and conditions for the new contract which will be given on the basis of an open tender which will be widely advertised.”
Referring to the Punjab CM, Dhami said “he has tried to make a political issue out of a religious affair in which only the SGPC has jurisdiction”.
He further said the Punjab government should instead give an account of the maintenance and upkeep of the surroundings of the Golden Temple, which comes under their jurisdiction.
“The Heritage Street leading to the Golden Temple, as also other roads, are crying for maintenance and there is filth all around, but the chief minister is more bothered about gurbani relay rights,” Dhami told reporters, adding that “since coming to power, the CM had made sure that gurbani is not even relayed on the huge screens put up on Heritage Street”.
“Instead, these (huge screens) are being used to show his government’s advertisements. Mann has no answer to these questions,” Dhami alleged.
He added that “Bhagwant Mann sometimes asks the sangat (Sikh devotees) to stop putting money in the golaks (offering boxes at gurdwaras) and sometimes tries to create confusion regarding the issue of gurbani broadcast. It does not suit the person holding the responsible position of chief minister”.
‘Half-a-dozen channels failed to deliver’
Meanwhile talking to ThePrint about PTC’s telecast rights of gurbani from the Golden Temple, Narayan said, “When we came into the picture in 2007, the SGPC had gone through multiple agreements with at least half-a-dozen channels who had failed to deliver.”
He also claimed that “channels which are relaying gurbani from [other] prominent gurdwaras including Patna Sahib [in Patna, Bihar] and Bangla Sahib [in Delhi] are charging the gurdwara management to relay the gurbani. It’s a commercial agreement. In our case, we are contributing to the SGPC educational fund to relay the gurbani. Also, we are not allowed to run any advertisement or sponsorship during the nine hours a day that gurbani is relayed”.
According to Narayan, the channel has a team at Golden Temple round-the-clock to live telecast the gurbani. “All the equipment is ours and we coordinate the timing of the relay in such a manner that every country in the world gets four hours of the morning gurbani relayed from here, when it is morning for them,” he told ThePrint.
He further said that in 2008, a public interest litigation had been filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging the awarding of the gurbani contract to a single channel.
“A division bench of (then high court) Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Surya Kant had dismissed the petition with a fine, finding no merit in the allegations levelled,” Narayan claimed.
He added: “I quote from the judgment: ‘The management of the shrine at Amritsar… is vested in a duly elected statutory body, whose composition and performance are all regulated by the provisions of the Sikh Gurdwara Act and the rules framed thereunder. If the SGPC… considers the telecast of holy gurbani through a channel for listeners within and outside the country, to be compatible with the Sikh religious belongings, a court exercising public interest jurisdiction would respect that decision and keep its hands off’,” Narayan said.
He added that the order also stated: “As observed earlier, the question whether gurbani should be telecast and if so by what means and on what terms and conditions and by whom, cannot be the subject matter of a public interest litigation. Management of the affairs of the institution can, in our opinion, be better left to the SGPC.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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