Chandigarh: The sehajdhari Sikhs are back on the centre stage of Punjab politics ahead of the parliamentary elections, giving a fresh push to their long-standing demand to become eligible to vote for apex Sikh body the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
A statutory body created under the Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925, the SGPC controls and manages hundreds of Sikh Gurdwaras in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh and is called the “mini parliament of the Sikhs”.
The committee consists of 180 members, with 157 elected from Punjab and one each from Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh. Another 15 members are nominated and six members include the jathedars of the five takhts and the head granthi of the Golden Temple.
Only those Sikhs who are registered as voters by the Gurdwara Election Commission are allowed to vote in the SGPC elections. Registered voters include adult Sikh men and women who are keshdharis (Sikhs with unshorn hair) but may or may not be amritdharis (baptised Sikhs). These voters must also abstain from smoking and alcohol consumption.
Sehajdhari Sikhs, who practice Sikhism but may or may not use any of the five Ks — kesh (unshorn hair and beard), kanga, (comb), kada (an iron bracelet), kachhera (undergarment) and kirpan (a sword) — are excluded from voter registration.
The Sehajdhari Sikh Party (SSP), a registered political party that has been fighting to restore voting rights to the sehajdharis since 2003, started a pan-Punjab campaign last week to muster support from other parties to back their cause.
The lacklustre response of keshdhari Sikhs in Punjab to register themselves as voters for the next SGPC elections has given a fresh impetus to the sehajdhari Sikhs to push for gaining voting rights.
Compared to 2011, when almost 52 lakh keshdhari Sikhs registered themselves as voters for the SGPC elections, only 27.45 lakh of them have registered for the SGPC elections, expected to be held this year.
The Gurdwara Election Commission has extended the last date of registration of voters twice, given the tepid response from eligible voters. The last date for registration of voters is 30 April.
According to Dr Paramjeet Ranu, SSP national president, of the 1.75 crore Sikhs in Punjab, only about 45 lakh are amritdhari or baptised, while 1.3 crore of them are sehajdharis.
“To deny this vast majority (sehajdharis) voting rights to the SGPC is to live in denial and refuse to read the writing on the wall. The new generations of Sikhs are mostly sehajdharis. If the SGPC does not include us as voters, it will just become an exclusive body, which has no broad representation,” Dr Ranu told ThePrint.
Harbhajan Singh, press secretary of the SGPC, told ThePrint that the matter of the sehajdhari Sikhs is sub judice and it would not be appropriate to comment.
“But it is a matter of discussion and debate within the community who exactly is a sehajdhari Sikh. Is a sehajdhari a person who is not a Sikh but is slowly adopting Sikhism or is it a person who is a Sikh and has shorn his hair?” he added.
Meanwhile, the sehajdharis place their hopes in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which, if it returns to power at the Centre, can amend the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, a central Act, and restore the right to vote to the sehajdharis.
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Legal tussle over right to vote
Apart from its managerial role, the SGPC draws temporal strength by working in tandem with the five takhts or seats of power of the Sikhs, including the Akal Takht Amritsar, which is considered to be the highest Sikh temporal body. The high priests of the five takhts are ex-officio members of the SGPC.
The SGPC is also entrusted with the task of spreading the Sikh religion and is also the final authority in cases where either Sikhs or non-Sikhs come into conflict with the conventions and traditions of Sikhism.
The SGPC is the lone authority that can print and distribute saroops (forms) of the Guru Granth Sahib. The committee also runs several educational institutions, including schools, colleges, polytechnics, universities and a medical and dental college. The annual budget of the SGPC this year was over Rs 1,200 crore.
Addressing a press conference in Jalandhar Friday, Dr Ranu alleged that the Akali leadership, under the late Sardar Prakash Singh Badal, had misled the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, to bring about an amendment to the Act in 2016 that barred sehajdharis from voting in SGPC elections.
“The fact that Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP are not in an alliance anymore gives us hope,” he added.
According to him, voting rights were given to sehajdhari Sikhs in 1944. In 2003, the Government of India brought about a notification that barred them from voting, he told ThePrint.
The 2003 notification was challenged by the sehajdharis in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which nullified it on the grounds that the Government of India could not bring about any change in the Act through a notification.
The litigation process shifted to the Supreme Court, and while that was underway, in May 2016, the Parliament amended the Act to finally withdraw voting rights from sehajdharis.
The amendment to the Act was challenged by the Sehajdhari Sikh Party in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2017, where the case is still pending.
Dr Ranu asserted that sehajdhari Sikhs have been exercising their voting rights for more than 60 years since 1944 — fully aligning with the definition of “Sikhs” according to the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925.
“The 2016 amendment not only faced criticism for its constitutional validity but also transformed the SGPC, widely considered the mini Parliament of Sikhs globally, into a body perceived as non-representative. The fact that the number of registered voters has come down to half since 2011, points towards the diminishing inclusivity within this pivotal institution,” he added at the press conference Friday.
Last month, the Sehajdhari Sikh Party filed an application in the ongoing case, praying for a stay on the registration of fresh voters for the next SGPC elections till the litigation regarding the sehajdhari Sikhs’ voting rights is pending in the HC.
Taking up the application on 2 April, a division bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court headed by Acting Chief Justice G. S. Sandhawalia issued notice for 16 May to the Union of India, Punjab and SGPC over the issue.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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