Moderate factions battle over leadership
Thu, November 20 2008
The Nov. 23 temple election will ultimately decide the fate of the two battling moderate factions, while a third slate represented by orthodox Sikh youth is determined to give them a three-way fight for control of the influential temple.
The temple is currently controlled by the moderates, with Balwant Singh Gill as its president and Sadhu Singh Samra as vice-president.
Both men are candidates for the post of president. On the management committee together since 1998, the two parted ways over the current leadership issue – Samra wants Gill to step aside to let him become president of the temple.
As a result, the moderate Sikh congregation is divided on who should be the next president, while the orthodox youth slate represented by Amardeep Singh is relying on the support of the fundamentalists who wish to stage a comeback.
The present liberal environment at the temple allows devotees to take the community meal, or “langar,” on tables and chairs with heads uncovered and shoes on.
This practice is consistently opposed by Sikh fundamentalists, and is in sharp contrast to what is followed in Sikh temples, or gurdwaras, in India, where devotees must take the community meal while sitting cross-legged on the floor as a symbol of egalitarianism.
Interestingly, the more liberal practice of eating at table continued even when the fundamentalists managed the Surrey Sikh temple in earlier years. In fact, Metro Vancouver Sikh temples have allowed Sikhs to use tables and chairs since 1906, largely because of the cold Canadian weather.
In 1998, the Akal Takhat, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs in Punjab, India, issued an edict demanding temple leaders in Vancouver stop serving “langar” on tables and chairs.
This led to a violent clash between the moderates and the fundamentalists at the Surrey Sikh Temple when the fundamentalists tried to remove the furniture from the langar hall.
Both Balwant Singh Gill and his daughter were reportedly injured in the violence. Gill was among the moderates who were subsequently ostracized by the Sikh clergy for defying the edict.
The latest trouble started when Gill refused to step aside from the post of president.
“He did not keep his commitment for the leadership change,” presidential contender Sadhu Singh Samra told the South Asian Post.
Samra is determined to give Gill a fight, despite having lost his right leg to gangrene. He is now campaigning from his wheelchair.
Both sides are making broad allegations against each other about the mismanagement of temple funds, and are promising to bring “transparency” to the temple.
Still, both agree on maintaining the status quo on the langar issue, allowing congregants to sit at tables to eat the communal meal.
But Gill accuses Samra of not bringing “fresh faces” forward on his election slate.
“I had offered to step down on a condition that let’s have an entirely new team with all the present committee members out,” said Gill.
Samra’s group meanwhile accuses Gill of making “compromises” with the fundamentalists in order to maintain his leadership – an allegation Gill strongly denies.
Gill, in turn, accuses Samra of making an “unholy alliance” with the same fundamentalist elements in an election campaign that is dividing the temple community.
By Gurpreet Singh
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