Professor Gurtej Singh Exposes Dasam Granth Fraud

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 7, 2006 – Professor Gurtej Singh, a leading Sikh scholar, Professor of Sikhism, and an advisor to the International Journal of Sikh Affairs, has published an extensive article exposing how Hindu fundamentalists have promoted the Dasam Granth, which contains very little of the work of Guru Gobind Singh, as his writing and as genuine Sikh scripture, parallel to the Guru Granth Sahib. He exposes the fact that “the Hindu plan to drag the Sikhs back to the Hindu fold” requires promoting the Dasam Granth and that this plan has received the support of such allegedly Sikh leaders as former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the high Sikh “high priests” led by Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti. Badal led the most corrupt government in Punjab’s history, selling jobs for money, and regularly visited Hindu and other anti-Sikh places of worship, according to Professor Gurtej Singh.

Professor Gurtej Singh writes that Jathedar Vedanti “was given the task of actually dragging the Sikh panth into the fold of Hinduism.” He notes that Jathedar Vedanti, like Mr. Badal, succumbed to the temptations of money. In order to carry out this nefarious plan, Professor Gurtej Singh writes, Vedanti embraced the Dasam Granth as genuine Sikh scripture, claiming that it was written by Guru Gobind Singh and was to be treated as scripture and canon. The Dasam Granth includes vivid, lewd descriptions of sex acts and other pornographic and obscene references that were added to Guru Gobind Singh’s writing to make him look bad.

Professor Gurtej Singh notes that the authors of the Dasam Granth identified themselves in the text. Yet the Hindus insist that Guru Gobind Singh is the author and that the book is Sikh scripture. According to Professor Gurtej Singh, it is a scripture of the Shakat sect, who are worshippers of the Hindu goddess Shiva, as it reflects their mode of worship and their practices. “It has been a long standing Hindu desire to bring the Sikhs under the umbrella of the Shakat sect,” he writes. “This involves getting them to accept some of the rituals of that sect as modes of worship.” He goes on to write, ”To propagate the dasamgranth as Sikh scripture at par with Guru Granth, has been the aim of a section of the Hindu zealots and a section of the Media mostly controlled by such Hindus.”

According to Professor Gurtej Singh, Mr. Sudarshan of the fascist, Hindu militant Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), parent organization of the Hindu fundamentalist BJP, stated that all of the Sikh “high priests” including Vedanti are on the payroll of his organization.

“We appreciate and commend Professor Gurtej Singh for doing this outstanding work for the Sikh Nation,” said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan. “He is doing his job as Professor of Sikhism. The Sikh Nation commends him,” Dr. Aulakh said. “Only about 60 pages of the Dasam Granth is the writing of Guru Gobind Singh,” he noted. “The rest is later writings that were added and changed. Guru Gobind Singh gave guruship to the Guru Granth Sahib and ordered Sikhs to consider the Guru Granth Sahib as the living Guru,” Dr. Aulakh noted. “The Guru Granth Sahib is the living Guru which Sikhs accept with reverence and respect. Recitation of the Dasan Granth should not take place in any Gurdwara,” he said. “Sikhs should practice Rehat Maryada which was published in the 1940s by the SGPC after a long review and discussion by the Khalsa Panth.”

Dr. Aulakh said that it is very disturbing that most of the Sikh leadership is under the control of the Indian government. “This campaign to destroy Sikhism by means of the Dasan Granth could not be taking place if we had our own homeland. We could more effectively stand up to India’s ongoing effort to destroy the Sikh religion,” he said. “Without political power, nations perish and religions are destroyed,” he said.

India is on the verge of disintegration. Kashmir is about to separate from India. As L.K. Advani said, “if Kashmir goes, India goes.” History shows that multinational states such as India are doomed to failure. “Countries like Austria-Hungary, India’s longtime friend the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and others prove this point. India is not one country; it is a polyglot like those countries, thrown together for the convenience of the British colonialists. It is doomed to break up as they did. There is nothing in common in the culture of a Hindu living in Bengal and one in Tamil Nadu, let alone between them and the minority nations of South Asia,” Dr. Aulakh said

“Freedom is the God-given right of every nation and every human being,” said Dr. Aulakh. Sikhs must be allowed to have a free and fair plebiscite on the issue of Khalistan. In a democracy, you cannot continue to rule against the wishes of the people. As former Senator George Mitchell said about the Palestinians, ‘the essence of democracy is the right to self-determination,’ We must reclaim the sovereignty of the Sikh Nation,” Dr. Aulakh said. “Currently, there are 17 freedom movements within India’s borders. It has 18 official languages. A country having 18 official languages cannot hold its people together for very long,” he said. “We hope that India’s breakup will be peaceful like Czechoslovakia’s, not violent like Yugoslavia’s,” Dr. Aulakh said. “Earlier this year, Montenegro, which has less than a million people, became a sovereign country and a member of the United Nations,” he said. “Now it is the time for the Sikh Nation of Punjab, Khalistan to become independent.”

Dr. Aulakh stressed his commitment to the peaceful, democratic, nonviolent struggle to liberate Khalistan. “The only way that the repression will stop and Sikhs will live in freedom, dignity, and prosperity is to liberate Khalistan,” said Dr. Aulakh. “As Professor Darshan Singh, former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, said, ‘If a Sikh is not a Khalistani, he is not a Sikh.’,” Dr. Aulakh said. “We must free Khalistan now.”

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This material is circulated by the Council of Khalistan, which is registered with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, DC under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of the Council of Khalistan, Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab. The material is filed with the DOJ where the required registration is available for inspection. Registration does not indicate approval of the contents by the U.S. Government.