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Tohra castigates Badal over tricentenary festivities

The formal inauguration of the Khalsa tricentenary celebrations at Anandpur Sahib on Thursday has triggered off a controversy between the two feuding factions of the ruling Akali Dal, with former SGPC chief G S Tohra accusing Parkash Singh Badal of violating the Sikh maryada and turning the function into sarkari show.

Addressing a press conference today, Tohra alleged that Badal had used the religious occasion to get mileage both from the ruling coalition and the Congress. Both senior Congress leaders Sharad Pawar and Manmohan Singh were invited to the religious function despite their party still justifying the army action in the Golden Temple complex in 1984.

The inaugural function was conducted in the absence of the holy scripture Guru Granth Sahib on the stage and without performing ardas (the holy prayer), thus violating the Sikh tenets on the solemn occasion, Tohra said.

''In fact, Badal attempted to ignore the very essence of Sikhism and its ideology by conducting the function in a so-called 'secular' manner, befitting the establishment of the day,'' he said.

Tohra was particularly critical of Badal for extending the invitation to the Congress, even as the chief minister had recently issued a whip to Akali members of Parliament to support Article 356 on the Bihar issue on the pretext that the party would not support any Congress-sponsored move.

''Badal, by doing this, has demolished the Akalis' long-cherished party programme of imposition of President's rule by the Centre in states through the use of Article 356,'' Tohra said.

The former SGPC chief said that he had appealed to the prime minister not to inaugurate the Khalsa tricentenary on the plea that a head of secular Indian state should not perform any religious function but should ensure only the free observance of the occasion.

''But this was misinterpreted by the vested interests as an attempt to create a wedge between Hindus and Sikhs,'' he lamented.

Referring to the prime minister's announcement to set up a military academy in Anandpur Sahib, Tohra said it would not help the Sikhs in any way.

He said if the prime minister really wanted to help the Sikhs on this occasion, he should have announced the restoration of the earlier percentage of Sikhs in the armed forces. During the partition in 1947, the percentage of Sikhs in the armed forces was 33 per cent, Tohra said.

The other things which Vajpayee could have assured were the settlement of the inter-state river water dispute of Punjab on the basis of internationally accepted riparian laws and the restoration of Chandigarh as capital of Punjab which was the parent state of the city.

UNI

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