Politics has erupted over the distribution of langar and prasad at Gurdwaras in Punjab despite prohibitory orders.
Even as the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Monday defied the prohibition orders by distributing langar and prasad at the Golden Temple in Amritsar as the religious places opened after over a two-month-long lockdown, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh clarified that the prohibitory orders were issued by the Centre.
The Chief Minister has asked the SAD leader and the Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal to take up the issue with the Union Health Ministry, to allow distribution of prasad at religious places instead of asking the Punjab Government, as the decision was that of the BJP-led Central Government of which SAD was an integral part.
Asking the SAD leadership to stop misleading people on the “sensitive religious issue”, the Chief Minister said that he would write to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow distribution of prasad in religious places.
“In fact, I had already directed the state’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to issue instructions for distribution of langar in conformity with the guidelines issued by the Government of India at the gurdwaras,” he said.
As per the guidelines issued by the Punjab Government as per the ones issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, there shall be “no distribution of prasad, food, or ‘langar’ (community kitchen) at religious places”.
Notably, the SGPC had, a day before, urged the Punjab Government to review its guidelines regarding langar. SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal had described the practice of langar as an “inseparable part of the Sikh religion”, while asking the Government to review its decision.
However, without any “review” of the decision and despite prohibitory orders, the Golden Temple authorities on Monday restarted its langar and even distributed Prasad among the devotees.
The SGPC authorities claimed that they ensured complete hygiene at the community kitchen centre. “When the hotels and restaurants can be allowed for take-away and home deliveries with all the safety measures and precautions, why not at guru ghars,” said a devotee at the Golden Temple.
The SGPC authorities have set up foot-operated hand sanitizing stations, hand washing stations, persons holding sanitizers, besides installing thermal scanners before entering the shrine. Various teams of doctors were deputed at the entry points of the shrine.
An SGPC task force ensured hand hygiene before allowing entry to devotees. All norms of social distancing were strictly followed, they said.
Taking strong exception to SAD leadership’s attempts to mislead the people on a “sensitive religious issue”, the Chief Minister said that the decision to bar distribution of prasad at the religious places that opened today was that of the Central Government, of which the SAD was an integral part.
“Punjab Government has never believed in interfering with the customs and practices of any religion, but is constrained by the guidelines of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs,” said Capt Amarinder, flaying the Akali Dal leaders for trying to incite the people against the State Government through “deceptive” statements.
“How could the State Government be held responsible for prohibiting prasad distribution at gurdwaras or other places of worship when the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had issued the SOPs to be followed by religious places, under the directives of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs,” asked the Chief Minister.
It was the MHA that had taken the decision, under the National Disaster Act, to allow opening of religious and some other places from June 8, and had subsequently asked various other central ministries to issue the necessary guidelines for the same, he pointed out.
As a Union Minister, SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal and her party must surely have been consulted before the issuance of the SOPs on the reopening of religious places with effect from June 8, quipped Capt Amarinder.
“Harsimrat should have put her foot down then, and insisted on allowing distribution of prasad, instead of protesting later and wrongly putting the blame on the State Government,” he added.
He lashed out at the “brazen double standards” of the Akalis, who were in the habit of supporting controversial decisions of the Central Government in the corridors of New Delhi while making the pretension of opposing the same in public. “From the CAA legislation to the more recent Ordinance on Agricultural Reforms, the Akali leaders, particularly Harsimrat, had been repeatedly trying to fool the people of Punjab with their blatant lies on critical issues of interest to the state,” he added.
Capt Amarinder once again urged the Akali leader to stop playing petty politics in these exigent times, which required collective efforts by all, across political dispensations, to battle the crisis.