Tavleen Singh Blames Modi For "Khalistan Myth", SGPC Calls Out Her Portrayal Of Guru Gobind Singh, Bhindranwale

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and columnist Tavleen Singh were seen involved in a tussle on the social media platform X after the former asked the latter to apologise for her article in the Indian Express.

The SGPC alleged that the article had "highly objectionable and false propaganda material about Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru and Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, 14th head of Damdami Taksal."

Along with publishing a rebuttal to the article, SGPC demanded space in IE for facts enunciated in its letter and asked the columnist to "tender an apology for her malicious column which demeaned and shown Sikh community in a very bad light."

Responding to it, Singh "respectfully" suggested the SGPC should read some Sikh history books. While refusing to apologise, she said that "the SGPC must apologise to the Sikh community for allowing the Durbar Sahib to be turned into a refuge for killers."

Notably, Singh's article titled 'India's Canadian Problem' argued that the majority of Sikhs don't support the secessionist idea of Khalistan and instead blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "reviving the myth of Khalistan."

Regarding the historical facts, Singh wrote, "What is worth remembering, time and time again, is that the Khalsa was created by Guru Govind Singh with the specific purpose of fighting the repression of the Moghul Emperor. What is worth remembering is that the army he built was an army of Hindus and that he was a Hindu himself."

Responding to this, SGPC said that Khalsa was founded against repression and atrocities, avoiding to name the Mughals. It also said that Khalsa was not an army of any particular religion and Guru Gobind Singh was not a Hindu.

However, many historians have established the Hindu roots of the tenth Sikh Guru. Also, his worshipping goddess Durga is a well-known fact.

On Singh calling out "Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s reign of terror", SGPC defended Bhindranwale calling him the "bearer of Gurmat ideology" and his struggles intended for "securing the rights of Punjab".

It's not new for SGPC to defend a terrorist, as in the recent India-Canada diplomatic row, it referred to Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar as an activist and it reveres individuals guilty of committing heinous crimes by placing their photos in gurdwaras.

However, what warrants attention in this spat is that Singh is being called out by SGPC, despite having taken many anti-Hindu stances. For example, she had equated "Hindutva fanatics" to "Jihadi fanatics" in one of her articles.

Even, both the SGPC and Tavleen Singh are together in whitewashing the Khalistan movement as the latter blames it completely on the Canadian Sikhs and keeps mums on the Hindus killed in Punjab in the 1980s.