Chandigarh: Early this week, during his visit to flood-hit areas of Punjab, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was honoured with a siropa (robe of honour or length of cloth) at the historic gurdwara Baba Budha Sahib in Amritsar. The move invited action from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) against the gurdwara staff for violating protocol by honouring someone inside a Sikh shrine.
Gandhi was given the siropa, a long piece of saffron cloth draped around the neck, in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib in the sanctum sanctorum, an act of supreme honour reserved for those who have served the Sikh religion with extreme dedication.
Following an inquiry, the SGPC Wednesday sacked the granthi of the gurdwara, suspended two staffers and transferred another for “violation of maryada” (religious code of conduct) and “disrespecting the protocol of the felicitation”.
Reacting to the SGPC’s action, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring described the move as “sad, shocking and unfortunate”.
Presuming that the SGPC had acted against the staff for honouring Rahul Gandhi, a member of the family of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, SGPC member Kiranjot Kaur wrote on Facebook that to blame Rahul Gandhi for what his grandmother did was wrong.
He was “just a child then”, she asserted.
The Sikh community holds Indira Gandhi responsible for ordering the Army to enter the Golden Temple in Amritsar during Operation Blue Star in 1984 to flush out Sikh militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
A press statement by the SGPC, however, clarified that the reason action was initiated against the gurdwara staff was because the Congress leader was presented with a siropa inside the gurdwara’s sanctum sanctorum. “As per the decision of the SGPC’s Executive Committee, no VIP or special person can be given siropas inside the Darbar Hall of a Gurdwara Sahib,” stated the SGPC note.
The executive committee of the SGPC had in November 2022 regulated the tradition of doling out honours using a siropa, instructing that it is to be used sparingly. The siropa is to be given inside the sanctum sanctorum only to panthic persons who have served the Sikh religion and community.
If an honour is to be bestowed on an important visitor, it should be done strictly outside the darbar sahib (sanctum sanctorum), for which too a siropa is to be used for very special guests. In place of a siropa, a set of religious books can be given and honour of any kind is to be avoided to politicians visiting gurdwaras, according to the SGPC regulations.
Experts of Sikh traditions and practices, however, point out that the significance of the siropa as a symbol of honour has not only considerably diluted over the years, but that it has also become a handy tool in Punjab’s religio-political power play.
Sikh scholar Prof Dharam Singh told ThePrint that in the Sikh tradition, a siropa is a gift bestowed by the sangat (gathering) on behalf of the Guru Granth Sahib. “It is given to someone who deserves the honour by virtue of his or her dedication,” he said.
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Siropa & its significance
The entry for the word “siropa” in the ‘Concise Encyclopaedia of Sikhism’ that Prof Singh has edited states that it is the highest award that a Sikh might receive in the sangat.
“It is the most precious gift of the Guru made through the sangat. It is a symbol of honour or benediction. The present practice of giving a siropa to anyone who makes an offering of or exceeding a certain value or happens to be socially or politically important, is, strictly speaking, an aberration. The Siropa is earned through high merit and dedication,” he told ThePrint.
According to Prof Singh, the practice of honouring through a siropa can be traced back at least as far as the Guru Angad (second Guru of the Sikhs) who bestowed upon Guru Amar Dass (third Guru) the sacred scarves each year. Guru Amar Dass, a disciple of Guru Angad, treated these scarves as sacred gifts and carried them tied over his head one above the other.
Giving details of the historicity of the tradition, Prof Singh said the term “siropa” is adopted from the Persian saro-pa (head to foot) and sarapa, meaning an honorary dress.
“It’s used in Sikh vocabulary for a garment, scarf of length of cloth bestowed on someone as a mark of honour. It is equivalent of the khillat or robe of honour with a difference, that while a khillat is awarded by a political superior and comprises a whole range of garments with or without arms, a siropa is bestowed by a religious or social figure or institution and may comprise of a whole dress, or as is usually the case, a single garment or length of cloth as a mark of recommendation of piety or as an acknowledgement of unswerving devotion to a moral or philanthropic purpose,” reads the entry for siropa in the encyclopaedia.
“For many years now, it is almost invariably in the form of a length of cloth, two to two-and-a-half metres, usually dyed in saffron colour, along with prasad,” said Prof Singh.
Other experts also rued the apparent politicisation of the tradition. “In Punjab, where politics and religion are closely bound, the giving of siropas as honour to politicians has become routine. It has lost its meaning as no spiritual connotations remain. Who is given a siropa and who is denied becomes a political decision, and part of a larger message,” said Prof Sarchand Singh, former spokesperson of the Damdami Taksal, a Sikh seminary.
“Punjab’s history is replete with examples where siropas have been given or denied for political messaging. Often, these have led to controversies instead of triggering debate about retaining the purity of Sikh traditions,” he added.
Siropa controversies
The most well-known controversy involving a siropa is of Aroor Singh, the sabraah or manager of the Golden Temple, who presented the siropa to British General R. Dyer in 1919 after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in which hundreds of Indians were killed.
Aroor Singh had apparently honoured Dyer for protecting the Golden Temple, which was then believed to be the target of a possible British air attack. Aroor Singh later resigned as manager following a public outcry and apologised for his action.
SAD (Amritsar) president and former MP Simranjit Singh Mann, who is Aroor Singh’s maternal grandson, has also given clarifications for his grandfather’s act multiple times.
In April this year, Sikh activist Jarnail Singh Sakhira stopped the newly appointed jathedar (high priest) of the Akal Takht, Kuldip Singh Gargaj, from presenting a siropa to the family of a deceased Sikh militant, a task that was then carried out by the head granthi.
Shikara told media persons that Gargaj was stopped because he was not the rightfully chosen jathedar.
Gargaj got the jathedar post amid an ongoing tussle between the SAD and Akal Takht over controversial acts of former jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh. Harpreet Singh was last month declared the head of a breakaway faction of the SAD.
In 2016, an elderly priest working in the Golden Temple, Bhai Balbir Singh, refused to present the siropa to then Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal during his visit to the Golden Temple. The priest had explained that he was upset at the government for not being able to nab those responsible for incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib. The priest was removed from his duties inside the sanctum sanctorum. Ahead of the 2017 assembly elections, he joined the AAP.
The same year, the SGPC declared that it will not honour with a siropa the then premier of Canada’s Ontario province, Kathleen Wynne, for her views supporting same sex marriages.
In 2015, staff of the Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo, were pulled up for presenting a siropa to an RSS functionary, Vijay Kumar, during his visit to the gurdwara. The RSS is believed to have played an inimical role in spreading hatred among communities, specially in the Jalandhar area during the decades of militancy in Punjab.
The same year, Beant Singh, younger brother of Sikh armyman-turned-militant Gen Shabeg Singh, refused to accept the siropa at the Akal Takth when Gen Shabeg’s name was not mentioned in the ardas (prayer). Gen Shabeg was the key operations strategist and one of the senior-most leaders with Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale during the period of militancy. He also led the militants’ response to Operation Bluestar and died in the ensuing action.
In 2008, the SGPC was criticised for giving a siropa to Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan as a sign of gratitude for the contribution he made at the Golden Temple. SAD (Amritsar)’s Mann said that since Bachchan had ties with Rajiv Gandhi and Jagdish Tytler, he should not have been honoured with a siropa.
Sikhs hold Rajiv Gandhi accountable for not being able to stop the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. Tytler was among Congress leaders accused of inciting mobs to attack Sikhs. Stating that there was sufficient evidence to put him on trial, a Delhi court last August ordered framing of charges against Tytler in a case related to the killing of three outside the Pul Bangash gurdwara during the riots.
Then SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar denied specially honouring Bachchan with a siropa, saying that anyone who donates Rs 100 or more at the temple receives a prasad of two patasas and a robe of honour.
In 2002, when Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh became CM, he was not given a siropa during his first visit to the Golden Temple as CM, inviting sharp criticism of the SGPC from the party. Two years later, he was honoured with a siropa outside the sanctum sanctorum. When he became CM again in 2017, he was given a siropa inside the Golden Temple.
Veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani was not given a siropa in 2011 during his visit to the Golden Temple. He was under fire from the Sikhs for comments about Operation Bluestar in his autobiography. He was, however, presented with the siropa at the SGPC’s office outside the Golden Temple but within the shrine’s complex.
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Not to be distributed like ‘langar’
Jaskaran Singh, who heads SGPC’s public relations wing, told ThePrint that over the years the use of siropa as an honour has been curtailed.
“In the first instance, it has been made clear that giving a siropa to anyone and everyone is strictly prohibited by gurdwara staff. Most special guests who visit gurdwaras and to whom the gurdwara management wishes to show respect are to be given books. The siropa is to be given only to someone very important and that too not in the sanctum sanctorum. Only panthic persons like panj pyaaras (five beloved ones) and jathedar sahibaan (head priests) are to be honoured with siropas in the presence of Guru Granth Sahib,” he said.
Other than the SGPC, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) in 2017, while denying a siropa to then Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, announced that siropas will only be given to select few persons and not distributed like “langar”.
The then DSGMC president Manjit Singh G.K. had told mediapersons that in the past one year, the committee had spent over Rs 50 lakh on siropas alone. He said siropas had been replaced with mementos and a set of religious books.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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