‘Amending 1925 Act to violate 1942, 1959 pacts’

JALANDHAR: When Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has defended his proposal for amending the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925 as “legally tenable”, two leading Sikh legal experts have not only questioned the Punjab assembly’s power to pass this amendment but also argued that it will set a bad precedent and violate the spirit of the pact that Sikh ideologue Master Tara Singh and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had signed in 1959.


On Sunday, Mann had announced that his state government will amend this Act to facilitate free telecast of sacred Gurbani from Harmandar Sahib in Amritsar. Senior advocate H S Phoolka on Monday argued that this unilateral move will open the gates for any future Punjab government to pass any amendment. Pointing out that the Punjab assembly could not amend the Act but only pass a resolution to ask the Union government for it, Phoolka argued that the Tara Singh-Nehru pact was not between two individuals but between the Indian government that included Punjab and the Sikhs, and that it forbids moving any amendment without the approval of the SGPC.

Phoolka, otherwise a strong critic of the Badal family that own the telecasting rights, said: “Till date, only the amendments approved or asked for by the SGPC have been moved. Setting the precedent of bulldozing an amendment through will also mean a confrontation with the Badals, the SGPC, and the Sikh community. This problematic method adopted by Punjab government is also against any copyright on the Gurbani telecast from Darbar Sahib.”

Kashmir Singh, former head of Guru Nanak Dev University’s law department in Amritsar, who has authored four books on different Sikh Gurdwaras Acts, including that of 1925, has argued that the SGPC is still an interstate body and only the Centre could amend the Act. He held that even prior to Tara Singh-Nehru Pact, the Sikandar-Baldev Singh pact signed before partition also had the same spirit. He said: “These two pacts set strong precedents. Never ever any amendment was passed without the SGPC’s consent, and the same spirit should continue.”

Sikandar-Baldev Pact of Lahore
It was signed in 1942 between the Akalis and the Muslim-dominated Unionist Party, then ruling the pre-Partition province of the Punjab. Baldev Singh represented the Akalis and Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan signed it as Punjab premier. The Sikh Encyclopaedia suggest that Sir Sikandar explained the pact’s terms at a press conference in Lahore on June 15, 1942, as: “With regard to legislation relating to religious matters, members belonging to a community will take decisions at all stages.”

Nehru-Tara Singh Pact
It was an understanding arrived at in 1959 between Akali leader Master Tara Singh and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to remove Sikh misgivings about government’s interference in their religious affairs. The Sikh Encyclopaedia suggests that the pact “laid down an unequivocal commitment by the government on the basic issue that no amendment in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act shall be undertaken without the approval of the general body of the SGPC”.