How Nanak Shah Fakir exposes institutional crisis in Sikhism
If a PhD student was to write a thesis on the working of the Akal Takht over the past 10 years, the scholar's study would most likely be a damning dissertation on the highest seat of the Sikh temporal authority headquartered in Amritsar.
The controversy over filmmaker Harinder Singh Sikka's Nanak Shah Fakir, a biopic on Guru Nanak, has unwittingly served as an exegesis of the grave crisis engulfing Sikh religious institutions.
Akal Takht and SGPC
For almost 100 years now, the jathedars or heads of the Akal Takh have been appointed by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the top Sikh religious administration governing a number of educational establishments and historical gurdwaras, mostly in Punjab.
Billed as a mini-parliament of the Sikhs, the SGPC is itself composed of directly elected religious representatives. The vote is conducted every five years under the provisions of the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925.
Both the jathedar of the Akal Takht and the SGPC are, therefore, accountable for all their official conducts to the larger community outside. They are not expected to behave like feudal lords because that's neither the legal nor the religious framework of their positions.
But the reality on the ground is devastatingly alarming.
Sikh institutional breakdown
In May 2003, an SGPC panel passed a resolution on depiction of revered Sikh figures in films and television.“Characters of Sikh gurus, their respected family members, panj pyare, cannot be played by real-life actors. Only baptised (practising) Sikhs can play the role of other important Sikh personalities." The motion was eventually adopted by the SGPC executive and the Akal Takht.
So, when did the institutional breakdown at the Akal Takht unfold? Before I answer that, let's first understand what we mean by an institutional crisis.
Let's first understand that such situations are largely defined as periods when the integrity of a policy-decision is jeopardised and when abrupt actions confront legitimacy issues, far from the standard process of policy change.
And that's what unravelled in 2015.
Led by jathedar Gurbachan Singh, the Akal Takht first issued a religious pardon to Gurmeet Ram Rahim, now in jail over rape conviction, for his alleged act of dressing up like Guru Gobind Singh back in 2007.
When Sikhs came out in in angry protests, the same jathedar revoked his apology.
In 2015, jathedar Gurbachan Singh issued an official letter to Sikka, praising him for his Nanak Shah Fakir project. The jathedar went the extra mile and even "blessed" the producer.
Difficult history of religious movies
If I have a film proposal on a sensitive issue, I'd rather submit my screenplay and script to authoritative elders for their review. That, because movies about religion globally have courted controversy when not handled delicately.
Remember, Kevin Smith's Dogma in 1999 was condemned as blasphemous by the Catholics before it hit theatres. Mel Gibson's 2004 epic, The Passion of the Christ, was accused of anti-Semitism.
In Bollywood, Raj Kumar Hirani's PK and the Paresh Rawal-starrer Oh My God too encountered strong reactions.
Excommunication follows generous appreciation
With Sikka though, a number of Sikh religious leaders and self-anointed custodians of the faith were a bit too generous.
News reports now suggest they would travel all the way down to New Delhi from different parts of Punjab to watch special screenings of Nanak Shah Fakir hosted by the producer himself.
Has anyone ever heard film-board officials themselves visiting movie directors to issue clean chits to their productions? But that's what Sikh leaders from across the highest religious institutions both in Delhi and in Punjab did for Nanak Shah Fakir.
As early as this year, the film's final modified version kept receiving a series of formal appreciations from the same clique that turned overnight against Sikka and his Nanak Shah Fakir.
This U-turn happened after the Sikh masses hit the streets of Punjab, accusing the filmmaker of depicting Guru Nanak and his family covertly and overtly in human form.
A day before its scheduled release on Friday (April 13) across India, except for Punjab, jathedar Gurbachan Singh and four other top clerics excommunicated Sikka for not withdrawing the movie's launch greenlighted by the Supreme Court.
Badals losing religious plot to vested interests
For a PhD student, the two major revocations of the Akal Takht - its unilateral pardon of Gurmeet Ram Rahim and its appreciation of Nanak Shah Fakir - offer scathing insights into the near-collapse of Sikh religious institutions.
The Badals, whose party controls the SGPC and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), appear to have lost the plot to a bunch of advisors frozen in time.
Individual integrity, if not political, is sometimes key to saving heritage organisations. Nanak Shah Fakir has exposed this almost-extinct integrity at institutional level in Sikhism, as of now.