Akal Takht’s bid to correct ‘historical wrong’

Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 14

At a time when Ghadar Party rebels were sacrificing their lives for the country’s freedom a century ago, Akal Takht was showing loyalty to the British Empire by expelling them from the Sikh religion.

However, it now seems Akal Takht is trying to reverse its historical wrong by installing portraits of Ghadar Party leaders. On Saturday, the SGPC had installed portraits of 15 Ghadar revolutionaries at the Central Sikh Museum of the Golden Temple.

Multiple historical sources on the Ghadar movement as well as the Akali movement bear testimony to the fact that when Ghadar activists were returning from North America to India, Akal Takht (the temporal seat of Sikh religion) was issuing fatwas that these people did not deserve to remain in the Sikh ranks and were being expelled from Sikhism.

Jagjit Singh, in his book Akali Lehar recounts that not only Akal Takht, but also Chief Khalsa Dewan had denounced Ghadarites as dacoits and goondas.

Sohan Singh Josh, freedom fighter and historian who started his activism with Gurdwara Liberation Movement and later became a communist, recounts in the biography of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna that when Ghadar heroes were offering the supreme sacrifice to liberate the country, “the enemies of country’s freedom and corrupt priests in gurdwaras were issuing fatwas and passing resolutions that those who were organising Ghadar and unrest were not Sikhs. They have no relation with the Sikh Panth and they are being expelled from the Panth”.

Feudal landlords belonging to the Chief Khalsa Dewan, zaildars and lambardars had even assured British officials that they would help the Empire in tracing and handing over to the authorities all Ghadar rebels, thus giving the proof of their loyalty and obedience. Even the Sikhs who were killed at Budge Budge Ghat in West Bengal were not spared. Akal Takht expelled them from the Panth.

In another show of loyalty to the British, on July 16, 1915, a deputation of leading Sikhs met then Amritsar DC and discussed how they could atone for the acts of returning passengers who had brought a bad name to the nation. The Desh Bhagat Yadgar Committee, Jalandhar, which was established by Ghadar Party leaders, say it is wrong to install portraits of only Sikh Ghadarites.

Its general secretary Gurmit Singh says, “The Ghadar Party was not a Sikh movement. Their first president was a Sikh, but general secretary and treasures were Hindus. Rehmat Ali, a Muslim, was one among the prominent founding leaders of the party. It is against the basic idea of the Ghadar Party to distinguish its leaders on the basis of religion.”

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