Gurudwara Reform Movement and SGPC

  • November 19, 2020
  • Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
  • Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Subject: History

Context: There have been no SGPC elections for the last nine years and the leadership has failed to act on the report about the 328 missing copies of Guru Granth Sahib (Holy Scripture ).

Concept:

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee

  • The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (or SGPC) is an organization in India responsible for the management of gurdwaras, Sikh places of worship in three states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh and union territory of Chandigarh.
  • SGPC also administers Darbar Sahib in Amritsar.
  • The SGPC is governed by the chief minister of Punjab.
  • The SGPC manages the security, financial, facility maintenance and religious aspects of Gurdwaras as well as keeping archaeologically rare and sacred artifacts, including weapons, clothes, books and writings of the Sikh Gurus.

The Singh Sabha Movement

  • The Singh Sabha Movement was founded at Amritsar in 1873 with a two-fold objective, to make available modern western education to the Sikhs, and to counter the proselytising activities of Christian missionaries as well as the Brahmo Samajists, Arya Samajists and Muslim maulvis.
  • For the first objective, a network of Khalsa schools was established by the Sabha throughout Punjab.
  • In the second direction, everything that went against the Gurus’ teachings was rejected, and rites and customs considered to be consistent with Sikh doctrine were sought to be established.

Gurudwara Reform Movement

  • The Akali movement (also known as Gurudwara Reform Movement) was an offshoot of the Singh Sabha Movement.
  • It aimed at liberating the Sikh gurudwaras from the control of corrupt Udasi mahants.
  • The government tried its repressive policies against the non-violent non-cooperation satyagraha launched by the Akalis in 1921 but had to bow before popular demands.
  • The government passed the Sikh Gurudwaras Act in 1922 (amended in 1925) which gave the control of gurudwaras to the Sikh masses to be administered through Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) as the apex body.
  • The Akali Movement was a regional movement but not a communal one.
Gurudwara Reform Movement and SGPC History