Taken aback by the fact that Dyer’s picture was part of the museum gallery, SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar said it would be removed with immediate effect.
The SGPC has constituted a team that will verify whether the picture is demeaning to Sikh maryada
CHANDIGARH: Hardly had the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandak Committee wriggled out of the controversy regarding putting up of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s picture in the Sikh museum gallery in Golden Temple, Amritsar, than it finds itself in the middle yet another row.
This time it is a portrait of General R Dyer, the British officer who had ordered the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, which has raised a storm. An NGO, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Yadgari Front, has given the museum authorities an ultimatum to remove the portrait within a week.
Taken aback by the fact that Dyer’s picture was part of the museum gallery, SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar said it would be removed with immediate effect. He conceded that it was a terrible lapse as the Sikh gallery is adored with pictures of gurus and Akali leaders.
The SGPC chief was not sure under what circumstances the portrait was put up but he assumed that it was there as Dyer was killed by Shaheed Udham Singh who took avenged the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 21 years later.
Dyer is infamous for the orders he gave on April 13, 1919, in Amritsar. It was under his command that 90 troops —armed with rifles and the Gurkhas additionally armed with khukris — opened fire on a gathering of unarmed civilians, including women and children, who gathered at the Jallianwalla Bagh.
Makkar said in order to scrutinise rest of the pictures in the gallery a three member committee, comprising three Sikh scholars Balwant Singh Dhillon, Jasbir Singh Sabir and Balwant Singh Jaura, had been constituted which would also verify whether the portrait of Dyer was put up with noble intentions. Makkar said SGPC employees had informed him that the caption of the portrait was self-explanatory. The caption stated that the portrait was installed to project the bravery of a Sikh who killed the “butcher of Jallianwala Bagh”, added Makkar.
Any other portrait violating Sikh maryada (tenets) will be removed. Earlier, the SGPC was embroiled in a controversy following installation of the portrait of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Though the Congress, the BJP and certain Hindu organisations demanded removal of the portrait of Bhindranwale, the SGPC and Akal Takht had described him (Bhindranwale) as a “great Sikh martyr of the 20th century”.
b_ajay@dnaindia.net
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