Nawanshahr: Panthic Front Nawanshahr held a discussion on “Contemporary Panthic Situation and Its Solutions” on April 29, 2018 at village Malpur near Rahon in Nawanshahr District.
Panthic Front had invited Sikh historian Dr. Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon and Sikh political analyst Bhai Ajmer Singh to share their views.
Speaking on this occasion Bhai Ajmer Singh said that there is a general perception that we understand the problems but we are unable to find the solutions. He said that this perception was not true.
‘My understanding we do not even understand the problems to its real extent otherwise we might have found the solutions’ he added. In his lecture, Bhai Ajmer Singh explained that how the situation gradually developed from the transfer of power and partition of 1947 to the present day.
He said that the political subjugation of Sikhs under the present Indian state system had marred their capacity of independent and sovereign thinking and Sikhs at large had started thinking under the terms of Indian nationalism. This trend was challenged by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale after the Amritsar Massacre of April 13, 1978. Sant Jarnail Singh had bought a crack in the settled course and rekindled the Sikh spirit.
The impact of Indian Nationalism was do dense, especially on the so-termed educated and elite sections that many of them continued to support the Indian state even after June 1984 attack on Darbar Sahib.
He said that after 1984 there was a time when the political leadership of Akali Dal had become irrelevant as the weaknesses of their character were exposed. But the 1997 revival of Akal Dal under the leadership of Parkash Singh Badal was a major turning point.
Parkash Singh Badal, under the patronage of the Indian state, destroyed certain unique democratic traditions of the Akal Dal that had developed overtime. Badals monopolised the political power within the Akali Dal and left no room for dissent. They have put all Sikh institutions under their direct control, including the SGPC and the Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib and as a result the credibility of these institutions has eroded.
He said that even the splinter factions of the Akal Dal or those who project themselves as the alternative of the Badals are not much different from the Badals and this has worsened the situation.
He said that replacing persons won’t solve our contemporary problems and the only solution lies in revival of the Sikh values in the Sikh society which would make room for the revival of spirited Sikh leadership.