No Sikh-Nirankari tension in 3 decades

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 19

The attack has surprised scholars as well as the police as there has been no tension between Nirankaris and Sikhs in the past over three decades.

“After the assassination of the then mission chief Gurbachan Singh in 1980, the Nirankaris had virtually withdrawn from Punjab,” says Jagtar Singh, author of the book ‘Khalistan Struggle: A Non Movement’.

Following the 1978 Sikh-Nirankari clash, Gurbachan Singh had released pamphlets titled ‘What is true? What is untrue?’ which were inserted in newspapers across the country. He had claimed that he was just Gurbachan Singh, not a guru or a prophet. He had accused some “selfish” people of calling him a guru. He had also claimed that he respected the Sikh Gurus.

In the early 1980s, there were some incidents in which Khalistani supporters killed Nirankaris. However, the Nirankaris didn’t show a confrontational attitude towards the Sikhs. After Gurbachan Singh’s assassination, Hardev Singh, who remained the mission chief for almost three decades till his death in 2016, adopted a ‘play it safe’ policy. A few months after the 1978 clash, Akal Takht had issued a ‘hukumnama’ severing ties with the Nirankaris. In the early 1990s, efforts were made to resolve the conflict. “The mediators approached the then SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra,” recalls Jagtar Singh.

Tohra had conveyed to the mediators that the Nirankari chief should present himself before Akal Takht and seek pardon. “Later, the Nirankaris backtracked, so the dispute could not be settled. However, Nirankaris remained at peace with the Sikhs,” he said.