Not seeking heritage status for Golden Temple: Centre

Aditi Tandon

Advertisement

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 23

Amid raging speculation over the possibility of the Golden Temple being declared a world heritage site during the upcoming session of Unesco's World Heritage Committee at Bonn, the Union Government said it had not sought heritage status for the iconic monument.

"No such proposal has been initiated by the government," the Ministry of Culture said in a written communication to former MP Tarlochan Singh who recently approached the Centre for a clarification on the matter.

Unesco's World Heritage Committee will convene its 39th session in Germany between June 28 and July 8.

Speaking to The Tribune, Joint Secretary, in charge, world heritage site proposals, Sanjiv Mittal, said: "The Golden Temple and 46 other Indian monuments have been on Unesco's tentative list for world heritage sites for a long time. The government has made no proposal to seek the inscription of the Golden Temple as a world heritage site."

The clarification is expected to put to rest the social media campaign against the declaration of the holiest of the Sikh shrines as a heritage site. The campaign started with a Belgium-based Sikh student floating an online petition requesting Unesco to delete Harmandir Sahib from the tentative list.

Several other overseas Sikh organisations have also been active on the social networking sites in opposing the move which they believe will pave the way for government control of the shrine.

Asked if the government would also seek the removal of the Golden Temple from the tentative list, a source said: "That issue can be dealt with separately as there is a separate procedure involved in seeking such deletion."

Under Unesco's guidelines, any monument for being declared as a heritage site, must have remained on the tentative list for a year. The Golden Temple was included on the tentative list in 2004 when Kiranjot Kaur, the then SGPC member, had made a case for heritage status for the temple citing haphazard construction around its location in Amritsar.

The move was dropped after the then SGPC chief Jagir Kaur said there was no such requirement. Even now, the SGPC has said it doesn't favour a heritage status for Harmandir Sahib if that means external interference in the affairs of the shrine.