01/05/2009

Sikh Community and Prime Minister

Should Dr Manmohan Singh become Prime Minister again ? Answer to this question is negative by President of shromani gurudwara prabandhak committee, Sardar Avtar Singh Makar. He says, not only Manmohan Singh, any sikh should not become Prime Minister or President. Reason ? As per Sardar Makar Singh, “Dr Manmohan Singh did nothing for sikh community in his period of power, five years, before him Gyani Zail Singh was president, but he also did nothing for the betterment of sikh community, therefore we do not want any sikh to be president or prime minister.” According to Avtar Singh Makar, for the resolution of sikh community problems, twenty point demands were presented by SGPC to Manmohan Singh, but not a single he fulfilled. Shreomani gurudwara prabandhak committee is the biggest and authentic institution for sikh community religious affairs. Statement of its president has much importance. Sardar Makar gave this statement to Asian Age (25th April) while there were news reports that Congress Party is asking votes from sikhs in Punjab with the announcement that it will make Dr Manmohan Singh Prime Minister again.

Complaint is not understandable
We do not know, if the leader of prabandhak committee gave his opinion as sikh prime minster or president does nothing, by looking at just two experiments, or some more. Also it is not known as well that what he wanted them to do which others did not do for sikh community. More over congress did not make Manmohan Singh prime minister that he will solve problems of Sikhs, five years before when Manmohan Singh was nominated as prime minster in the critical situation, Congress or Sonia Gandhi have no issue of pleasing Sikhs. There was not any international aspect of that decision too. Thus, the complaint of sikh leader is above any justification. But that would be right if musims complain so. Till now, there were three muslim presidents. None among them did anything for muslim community. Neither they reached to that position to do anything, nor the position was given to them to do anything. They were not in the position to do anything either Just to please country’s muslims and to present the secular image of India to the muslim world, they were given that statutory position.

It is a learnable story
It is a very learnable story. It starts from Moulana Azad, who suspensefully became silent after being part of the government after becoming education minister. Late Dr Zakir Hussain presented the case of Urdu with 22 lakhs signatures to the preceding president of the democracy, but when he reached to that position, he became an image of helplessness. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed as president signed for Indra Gandhi’s emergency.
Under the same emergency,Indra Gandhi, for launching the movement against her, banned RSS, just for political balancing took the Jamaat-e-Islami into the same fold, and a muslim president watched this helpless. Who knows he had any feeling or not that it was unjust for one his community’s organization.
After Independence, presence of muslims in central cabinet as ministers is continued, but how much beneficial were these muslim ministers, muslim community knows. Helplessness and compromise exists on all levels. Muslim government officials are seen much precautionary in the matters of muslims, fearing they might be accused of communalism. Even it is heared of Judges, that even if there is strong case, they do not give judgement in favour of muslim candidate. If sikh community thinks itself minority, then just look at this side too.
01/05/09 khabar-o-nazar by Parwaaz Rahmani, sehrozaDAWAT, translated by: Ibrahim Shaikh

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