Bestowed with the supreme power to summon even the “guru”, the Panj Pyaras (five beloved) were on Friday relegated to the humble position of “employees”, whose services could be placed under
suspension by the Sikhs’ mini parliament — the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), further deepening the ongoing crisis in Punjab.
Hours after the Panj Pyaras, the Sikh religious preachers, asked all the jathedars (head priests) of five takhts (temporal seats) to quit, the SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar made it clear that Panj Pyaras were just “suspended employees” of the SGPC, and their edict or directions were “not binding”.
“Any edict or directions issued by the suspended employees (Panj Pyaras) of the SGPC are not binding on any religious personality attached with religious service and the SGPC,” said Makkar while addressing a Press conference in Amritsar.
He said that the directions issued by the Panj Pyaras were “null and void” and as such, could not be implemented as they were suspended employees having no authority to issue such directions.
In the wake of string protest by the Sikh community against clergy’s decision to pardon controversial Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and later revoking the same, the Panj Pyaras had summoned the five jathedars to appear before Akal Takht, Sikhs’ highest temporal seat, on Friday.
later in the day, the SGPC ordered the suspension of the beloved five charging them with “creating dissensions in the panth by summoning the jathedars and violating Sikh tenets as well as rules governing the SGPC employees”.
Guru Gobind Singh, the founder of Khalsa, had given Panj Pyaras the supreme power to summon even the guru. That was the reason the people felt that by suspending them, the SGPC had challenged the supremacy of the tradition and violated religious norms.
SGPC designates Panj Pyaras officially to perform the amrit sanchar (baptism) ceremony and leading nagar kirtans (religious processions) on important occasions.
In a rare move, the Panj Pyaras have summoned jathedars claiming that they were under pressure from the Sikh community that had not liked the pardoning of the Sirsa dera head.
A day before, the issue of suspension was discussed at length during the SGPC’s executive-body meeting in Chandigarh where majority of members opposed Makkar’s decision. However, the meeting remained inconclusive, but the members authorised Makkar to take the final call on the issue.
Going ahead with their scheduled meeting, despite suspension, the Panj Pyaras on Friday asked the five head priests to resign as they had failed to respond to their summons over their decision to pardon Dera sect head in 2007 blasphemy case without taking the Sikh community into confidence.
The Panj Piaras - Satnam Singh, Mangal Singh, Major Singh, Satnam Singh and Tarlok Singh - waited for jathedars for almost two hours at the Akal Takht in the Golden Temple complex, and later announced their decision when nobody turned up.
Panj Pyaras has also asked the SGPC executive to immediately withdraw all facilities given to the jathedars.
Outrightly rejecting the decision, the SGPC chief said that it was the domain of jathedars only to issue such religious edict and “no one else has any legal right or authority in this regard. Even SGPC rules also didn’t support such things”.
Makkar said that all the Panj Pyaras issued the edict “throwing all the norms to wind which depict their errant and wayward behaviour towards their religious duty and is hence not acceptable”.