Click to play videoChandigarh: The Punjab Government and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) on Saturday stated that Sikhs are a minority in Punjab.
Only a few months back, during the height of the Dera controversy, the SGPC was trying to attract more followers into the Sikh fold. Now, it says only those on its rolls as followers of the Guru Granth Sahib and the Ten Gurus can be considered as Sikhs
“Numerically the Sikh populations are a minority in Punjab. Who is a Sikh as defined by the Sikh Gurudwara Act. This is purely a constitutional issue,” Advocate General HS Mattewal says.
Acting on a petition by a medical student, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had earlier struck down 50 per cent reservation for Sikhs in SGPC-run educational institutions.
Challenging the order in the Supreme Court, the SGPC and the Punjab government said Sikhs are a minority and that they form only about 54 lakh of the total 1.65 crore voters in Punjab.
The High Court in its December 17 order had said that there is no material to substantiate that Sikhs are a non-dominant group in Punjab.
The Punjab Government is now involving a 1925 Act that says that only a person who submits an affidavit that he follows the Guru Granth Sahib and the teachings of the Ten Gurus can be considered a Sikh.
This puts a question mark over the religious identity of the numerous Sikhs who also follow sects such as the Dera Sacha Sauda and the Radha Soamis.
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