By Karminder Singh Dhillon | The Sikh Bulletin |o
On December 2, 2024, the Akal Takht (AT) summoned two-time Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and President of Shromani Akali Dal (SAD), Sukhbir Singh Badal, along with all former ministers from the Akali Dal government that served from 2007 to 2017 at 1 pm. Badal was already declared a tankhaiya in August 2024. Also asked to attend were the core committee of the SAD from 2015.
To those un-initiated in the politics of Punjab and equally unaware of the shenanigans of the AT (caused largely by the former); the move appeared to be a one in which the master manipulators of AT, namely the Badal dominated SAD, were finally being brought to justice. For once, the political servant that was the AT was going to hold its political master that was the SAD to account.
Or was the entire episode just another chapter of political maneuvering by the Badal led SAD and just another act of subservience by the clergy of AT?
The Story of Scripted Dramas.
In a letter dated November 18, 2024, to AT Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh, Sukhbir Singh Badal had appealed that he wants to appear before the Takht as a “humble Sikh”. In his letter he had stated, “The Akal Takht Sahib declaring me tankhaiya has left a big impact on my mind. The servant (Sukhbir) has now resigned from the presidency of SAD. The servant wants to appear at AT Sahib as a humble Sikh with respect and politeness. Since AT Sahib which was established by the sixth Guru Hargobind who always showers grace and forgives, please accept the request of the servant.”
The telltale signs of the drama are three. First, the AT had declared Badal a Takhayia three months prior to this letter. Why did it take this long for the resignation to be tendered? Was it because three months were required to plot, consult and put the plan in place? Second, the SAD working committee had met on November 18 to discuss Sukhbir Singh Badal’s resignation but ultimately decided to postpone the decision.
“The panel will consult with SGPC members and district-level SAD leaders before making a final decision,” said Balwinder Singh Bhundar, the party’s working president, who chaired the meeting at the party’s head office in Chandigarh. This meant that Badal was still President of AT the time of submitting the letter and hence still calling the political shots. Third, Badal’s resignation request came just three days after he approached AT, urging Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh to convene a meeting of the Sikh clergy to pronounce his tankhah (religious punishment). This meant that when Badal spoke with the AT clergy, the political master-servant relationship was very much intact.
It was Badal who was calling the shots. The four targets of the shots that Badal called was clear: rehabilitate the Badals, rehabilitate the SAD, use the AT clergy for that purpose and use the episode to win back the confidence and support of the Sikhs of Punjab.
Rehabilitating The Badals and the SAD.
The SAD was defeated soundly by the people of Punjab in the Legislative Assembly elections that were held in February 2022 to elect the 117 members of the 16th Assembly. The defeat was so punishing that SAD decided to not contest any by-elections for four assembly seats in Punjab. Three of the seats were then won by AAP while one seat went to Congress.
A political party that chooses not to contest elections is no different from, say, an airline that decides not to fly its planes or a restaurant that decides not to sell food. The political party may as well shut its doors – as would the airline and the restaurant. So, the SAD folks came up with dubious “reasons” why the party was “giving away free seats” to the opponent parties. They did so “in solidarity with Sukhbir Badal being declared a tankhaiya,” and to keep with the panthic interests and ‘maan-maryada’ of Sri AT Sahib, the SAD.”
The same “panthic interests” that the Badal led SAD trampled upon for decades that it was in power? The same “maan-maryada of the Sri AT Sahib” that the Badals had trodden upon and driven into dirt for decades?
The bitter truth was simply that having been routed so badly in the February 2022 elections, the SAD was certain it could not win any of the by-elections. It was also certain it could not win in the next elections. Unless the party was able to pull a rabbit out of its hat of tricks. Everything had to be done to bring the Badals and SAD back to power. Everything.
Weaponizing The AT.
Bringing the Badals and the SAD back to power required that the people’s confidence in SAD be restored – if necessary, by nefarious means even – means that involved using the AT for the party’s ends.
The December 2, 2024, meeting at was thus a full-scale charade towards this end. It was a pretentious act of a drama that is orchestrated by SAD itself to pull wool over the eyes of the people. The idea is to make it appear that the AT is going to punish the SAD for its past actions. Indeed, some laughable punishment of sitting as a door-guard for two days was handed down and some expendable people made out to be the scapegoats.
The charade would allow the AT Jathedars and SGPC to go about its business as usual – campaigning, threatening, scaring and fooling people to vote for SAD – the “party of the panth.” The Patna Jathedar is already campaigning for Badal to be re-elected president of AD. Badal, and his cohorts would go back to the people claiming that their past misdeeds should not be held against them because they had all paid their dues to the AT. Some people may be fooled, but the SAD situation is so bad that one doubts this drama alone will help.
The Supreme Court of India has stated that under Section 85(1) of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 the AT is like any other Gurdwara with no powers to meet out religious punishments. Section 85 provides that AT is under the control, supervision and management of SGPC and would do as SGPC allocates duties. The AT was thus expected to mete out the sort of “tap on the wrist” punishment it did. The Badals and SAD was well aware of this severe limitation of the AT and used it to their benefit – walking away with miniscule punishments in return for a huge expected reward of rehabilitation.
At the end of the day, the institution that has suffered the greatest damage is the AT. The Jathedars have allowed themselves to be used as an instrument in the political shenanigans of the Badals in their quest to get back into power. They have handed a clean chit to the Badals with this slapstick drama. In the process they have subjected the AT to ridicule and condemnation. The news is that the charges were selected by the Badals and the punishment drafted by the same group for the AT Jathedars to read out.
The Can of Worms That Got Opened: The Drama at The Takhats.
Badal wrote the script to re-deem himself. To make it real, he had to accord some “authority” to the Jathedars so that they could mete out the scripted punishment to fool the people into thinking the “episode was real.”
The Jathedars – knowingly or otherwise – thought that the scripted authority was real power; and that their position has finally been recognized. It went to the heads of some of them. With their master sitting with a broken leg holding a spear – some of the Jathedars thought they had finally become masters.
A 27-second video clip of arguments between SAD leader Virsa Singh Valtoha and Takht Damdama Sahib Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh leaked during the former’s appearance before the five Sikh high priests at AT Secretariat in October.
In this 27-second video clip, Valtoha, in the presence of five high priests, is seen questioning Harpreet Singh if the clergyman shared allegiance with the BJP-led Centre and RSS. Triggered over this, Giani Harpreet Singh loses his cool and displays abusive behavior.
In his “can of worms styled defense” Harpreet Singh asserted that he had got all the recordings deleted from the cameras of the AT secretariat, SGPC and elsewhere, except a single recording of the whole conversation of a few hours that was transferred in a pen drive. He said he had handed over this pen drive to the AT Jathedar.
“I have no idea how and who got this clip leaked,” he said, clearly laying the blame on the AT Jathedar and laying bare the backstabbing element of the episode.
Valtoha was subsequently expelled from SAD for ten years by the AT clergy for allegedly indulging in character assassination alleging that Harpreet Singh shared ‘allegiance with the BJP-RSS’.
Harpreet Singh’s Can of Worms
The Takht Damdama Sahib Jathedar’s brother-in-law Gurpreet Singh, a tabla player at Darbar Sahib under the employ of SGPC, alleged that Harpreet Singh had an illicit affair with his wife. Harpreet Singh was removed from his duty as Jathedar of Takhat Damdma Sahib, and replaced by Head Granthi Gyani Jagtar Singh as the interim Jathedar.
Dhammi’s Can of Worms – Abusive Drama of His Own:
SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami found himself embroiled in controversy after using “highly offensive and demeaning language” against former SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur during a telephonic conversation with a journalist.
The telephone conversation was about the December 2, 2024 meeting and the punishments that were meted out. It went viral for obvious reasons.
A group of women, including SGPC members Bibi Kiranjot Kaur and Bibi Paramjit Kaur Landran, filed a complaint at the AT, demanding strict action and his removal from the post. Jagir Kaur herself had sought action against Dhami for his alleged derogatory remarks against her. She made the move against Dhami after she was called by the Punjab State Women Commission to hear her side.
The commission chairperson Raj Lali Gill has said that necessary action will be taken in the matter. The remarks were not only personally defamatory but also disrespectful to women as a whole, the commission chairperson said. The commission then emphasized that as the head of a prestigious institution like the SGPC, Dhami is expected to uphold the highest standards of dignity and respect for all.
Speaking to journalists, Jagir Kaur slammed Dhami for using objectionable remarks against her.
“Sentiments of the Sikh community have been hurt by remarks of Dhami who has been occupying a position which has a glorious history. I am very sad that an insult has been caused to the position (SGPC president post). It is for the first time in the history that a SGPC chief appeared before the women commission for making derogatory remarks,” said Kaur.
Demanding action against Dhami, Jagir Kaur said: “A person who has insulted this chair cannot get off scot-free. I have requested the commission to take action according to the law. It is their responsibility to take legal action in the matter,” Kaur said.
The SGPC chief tendered a written apology for his remarks and subsequently appeared before the commission and apologized for his remarks against Jagir Kaur.
The Winners and Losers of It All.
The Badals and the SAD seem to come off as the winners of this self-scripted drama. They are tentative winners in the sense that the reality of their victory will only be known when the 2027 Punjab Legislative Assembly Elections results are announced. They are tentative winners because for now, as least some portion of the Sikh electorate has accepted the notion that the Badals and SAD have been held accountable, punished and exonerated sufficiently to be allowed into power once again. On their part, the Badals and SAD will feel that they have settled all debt to the Sikh community, have a clean slate, and are thus entitled to take power again.
The SGPC – at least its President, Dhami, has come off as a loser on two accounts. First that the SGPC, as the pay master of the clergy at AT was complicit in this drama. It was complicit because the Badals and SAD could not have pulled it off without the involvement of SGPC. Second, that Dhami’s inability to handle tough questions about the December 2 meeting and his resultant tirade of offensive and demeaning language that went viral has exposed Dhami’s and SGPC’s emotional investment in the episode – something that has undermined the credibility of both.
The AT has turned up as a loser on a number of counts. The primary count being that the clergy have shown that they are still beholden to the Badals and SAD to the extent of allowing the institution to be weaponized. The other count is that the clergy managed to open an ugly can of worms pertaining to at least one of its Jathedars. The allegations showed that the clergy are not above the backstabbing that is rife in other Sikh institutions, and that they were serious enough to warrant the dismissal of one of their kind.
The biggest losers are the people of Punjab and Sikhs at large. The people of Punjab have been denied the chance to consign a corrupt, inept and power-hungry political party to the dustbin for good. This drama has extended the shelf life of this party and given them another opportunity at power. Had such not happened, at least there was a remote chance that another political party could step in to fill the gap.
Sikhs at large are losers because the drama has proven, yet again, that Sikh religious and political leadership and their panthik institutions are self-serving, do not have panthik interests at heart, and are largely dysfunctional.
Sikh thinker, writer and parcharak Karminder Singh Dhillon, PhD (Boston), is a retired Malaysian civil servant. He is the joint-editor of The Sikh Bulletin and author of The Hijacking of Sikhi. This article appeared in the The Sikh Bulletin – 2025 Issue 1 (January-March 2025). Click here to retrieve archived copies of the bulletin. The author can be contacted at dhillon99@gmail.com.
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