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The Nirankaris have tried to put their past behind them. The Amritsar attack has brought it back into focus
Tuesday, November 20, 2018 IST
The Nirankaris have tried to put their past behind them. The Amritsar attack has brought it back into focus

The attack on the Nirankari religious gathering appears to be a deliberate attempt to create tension and disturb the hard-earned peace in Punjab, which has put its violent past behind it.

 
 

New Delhi: The grenade attack on Amritsar’s Nirankari Bhawan that killed three people and injured at least 20 has brought back memories of Punjab’s bloody past.
 
While the identity of the attackers – and the masterminds, if any -- can be ascertained only after investigations are complete, to many residents of Punjab and people familiar with the state’s history, the target of the attack will ring alarm bells.
 
The strike on the Nirankari religious gathering does appear to be a deliberate attempt to create tension and disturb the peace in the state, which has left behind its darkest years.
 
Who are the Nirankaris?
 
While the term 'Nirankari' has arguably been in use for more than two centuries, the Nirankari sect in its modern avatar was founded by Baba Buta Singh in 1929.
 
Ever since, it has had a tense relationship with Sikhism, or at least the Sikh clergy, as Buta Singh’s teachings were seen by orthodox Sikhs to be opposed to the tenets of Sikhism.
 
Today, the Nirankari sect claims to have more than a crore followers spread across several parts of the world. While it’s difficult to independently confirm that figure, there is little doubt that its followers run into several lakhs.
 
Feuds boil over
 
The simmering disputes between radical Sikhs and the Nirankaris took a bloody turn on 13 April 1978 when 13 Sikhs were killed in a clash with the Nirankaris. The event is considered to be a milestone in Punjab’s descent into militancy.
 
The slain men were followers of a man called Sant Bhindranwale, who emerged from the shadows and over the next few years took control of the radical Sikh cause. Bhindranwale sought to project the political grievances of Sikhs using a religious idiom, in the process lighting a fire that burned Punjab for the next two decades.
 
In 1978, the Sikh’s highest religious body Akal Takht excommunicated Sikhs who were part of the Nirankari sect, thus inflaming an already volatile situation.

 
 

Next in the line
 
After Buta Singh’s death, his disciple Baba Avtar Singh took over the sect. Baba Avtar Singh’s son, Gurbachan Singh, the next head of the mission, was assassinated on 24 April 1980, by a member of Akhand Kirtani Jatha, in Delhi.  
 
A few days later, Baba Hardev Singh, was made head of the mission and he led it -- with relatively little controversy -- till his death in a car crash in Toronto in May 2016. Satguru Mata Savinder Hardev Ji is the current head of the sect.
 
That after all these decades there is an undercurrent of resentment between the mainstream Sikh clergy and the Nirankaris was underlined by the fact that no prominent Akali leader or religious figure paid tribute to the deceased guru.
 
Changing profile
 
Baba Hardev Singh deliberately kept a low profile and steered the Nirankaris towards philanthropy and other charitable causes. Besides running several hospitals and educational institutes in north India, the sect organises blood donation camps and tree plantation drives. Baba Hardev during his time as the sect guru urged his followers to refrain from making overtly religious statements in the public, and turned the organisation into a much more prosperous and professionally run enterprise, especially after 1990.
 
Today, the mission has more than 100 branches in over two dozen countries and appears to be eager to put its troubled past behind it. The Amritsar attack -- besides claiming innocent lives -- has brought that past back into focus.
 

 
 
 
 
 

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Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST
Shibu Chandran
2 hours ago

Serving political interests in another person's illness is the lowest form of human value. A 70+ y old lady has cancer.

November 28, 2016 05:00 IST


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