News broke this week that another Gurdwara might have been desecrated by extremists.
I refer to the events unfolding at Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara in Leicester. I was sent images of some very unsavoury large banners that were hanging on the outer walls of the Gurdwara. You can see from the image, not only does the banner spread lies, but it also seems to promote a known terrorist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
I was so concerned at this desecration of a sacred place of worship, and the dishonouring of our Gurus, that I was compelled to write to the trustees and seek their response to issues arising.
I informed them that the posters:
a. Promote lies.
b. Make unsubstantiated accusations on three members of the Indian government.
c. Make a false declaration that those individuals are wanted.
I also asked the trustees to:
1. Remove the said illegal posters that promote hatred, incite violence, and promote falsehoods.
2. Make a public apology to the individuals whom they have falsely accused.
3. Make a commitment to make reparations for the hurt caused.
4. Put policy in place to ensure such transgressions do not happen again.
I gave them 7 days to respond, they failed. In my view the trustees have exhibited incredible levels of negligence by failing to abide by the objects of their own charity. I have therefore asked the Charity Commission to intervene.
There has been a huge outcry by Hindus and Sikhs that has forced the Gurdwara to remove the offensive and discourteous banners. However, we cannot ignore that their actions are nothing short of being grotesque.
FISIUK (Friends of India Soc Intl UK) said, ‘FISI strongly condemns the anti-India poster that was recently displayed at the Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara in Leicester’. Adding, ‘95% of Sikhs in India are proud to be Indians as per Pew Research Report 2021’, and that ‘India had rejected these allegations as "absurd and motivated" and awaits coherent evidence from the Canadian government linking the assassination to India’.
The banners, and Gurdwara’s subsequent statement makes reference to the political situation in India. It then uses the unfounded and unproven allegations from the Canadian government claiming that the known terrorist and extremist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed by 'agents' of the Indian government. The truth being that the Indian government had declared Hardeep Singh Nijjar a criminal and a terrorist affiliated with the militant Khalistan Tiger Force and had sought his arrest. Interestingly, the said banner seemed to have missed this very important point.
The statement by the Gurdwara has the hallmarks of being political. Their own statement makes commentary on the politics of two nations, namely Canada and India. As a charity registered in the UK, it has broken the objects of its own charitable status.
It is clear that the trustees of the Gurdwara have brought it, and the beautiful and honourable traditions of the Sikh faith, into disrepute. They have failed in their primary duty of protecting the integrity of the Gurdwara and that of the Sikh faith.
People at the grassroots are fearful that an extremist Khalistani element might be infiltrating some Gurdwaras in the UK. We have witnessed this madness in Canada where one could say the Canadian government has given a safe bastion to these Khalistani terrorists.
As the Indian government has stated, after months of speculation and allegations from Canadian sources, including PM Trudeau, there has not been one piece of independently verifiable evidence that makes India complicit. Indeed, only last week three possible perpetrators of the said crime were arrested by Canadian authorities. All three are Sikh and it seems that this might have been gang related.
Puneet Sahani (USA), an Expert on evolution of the Sikh identity and Khalistani terrorism made an interesting observation on May 3 when he posted, 'I’d said it as early as June 2023 that Nijjar was killed due to internal turf-war among Jattwadi gangs of SurreyBC for control of Khalistani Gurdwaras. Hope India degrades diplomatic ties with Canada at the earliest and proscribes World Sikh Organisation (WSO) as a terror outfit'.
The true Sikh community now need to find that warrior spirit that our Gurus galvanised and rid itself of these miscreants and protect the integrity of the faith.
