Pakistan (unlike India) will recognize the right of the Sikh community to register their marriages under the Anand Marriage Act 1909

In a goodwill gesture on the 539^th birth anniversary of Guru Baba Nanak, Pakistan’s Federal law minister Sayed Afzal, announced in Nankana Sahib, last Saturday, that his country will recognize the right of the Sikhs, (as a valued and respected separate community) to register their religious Gurdwara marriages under the Anand Marriage Act-1909.

Pakistan’s Sikh-friendly Federal law minister Sayed Afzal, (a direct descendent of Baba Farid) addressed over 20, 000 Sikhs, last Saturday, in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, (who had gathered in Gurdawara Janam Asthan from all over the world) on the auspicious occasion of the 539^th birth anniversary of Guru Baba Nanak, the great founder of the Sikh religion. (>  http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071125/punjab1.htm#2   <) During his address Pakistan Law minister Sayed Afzal made the announcement that his country will recognize the right of the Sikhs, as a valued and respected separate community, to register their marriages under the Anand Marriage Act-1909. Pakistan Law minister Sayed Afzal also announced that the necessary Pakistan government ordinance would be issued within a week. The minister made the announcement on the basis of a demand put forward to him by Dr. Pritpal Singh, Coordinator of the American Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (AGPC) who is also on a pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib.

According to reports from Pakistan the Nagar Kirtan (annual religious procession) this year was held inside the huge Gurdawara Janam Asthan complex in Nankana Sahib as a precautionary security measure, because of the declaration of national emergency in Pakistan necessitated by a spate of suicide bombings, and other disturbances, in an excited country going into a nation-wide general election on 8 January 2008. The Nagar Kirtan therefore, could not be taken out, like in yester-years, in the lanes and bazars of Nankana Sahib to wind through seven historical gurdwaras located in the Nankana Sahib area. According to a report in the Tribune newspaper a force of more than 5,000 police, in uniform and in mufti, was deployed in a protective circle around the Sikh visitors, inside Gurdawara Janam Asthan complex in Nankana Sahib, to avoid any untoward incident. Dr. Pritpal Singh told the media that an 11-member delegation of Sikhs, who are visiting Pakistan from different countries, on Guru Baba Nanak’s 539^th birth anniversary, would meet either President Pervez Musharraf, or the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohammedmian Soomro on or before November 29. The delegation would urge the Pakistan government to construct a corridor from Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, located in District Narrowal in Pakistan (West of River Ravi) to nearby Gurdwara Dera Baba Nanak (in District Gurdaspur, India) so that Sikh pilgrims in large numbers could easily visit their shrines, located in both countries.

According to another report, datelined Baba Bakala, published in the Tribune of 25 November, 2007, the Dal Khalsa has appreciated the decision of the Pakistan government to recognize the Anand Marriage Act-1909  for registration of (>  http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071126/punjab1.htm#20  <) Sikh marriages. The Dal Khalsa asked the Government of India, according to that report, to follow suit. At a convention organized to commemorate the martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur, party leader H. S. Dhami urged the Centre to correct all errors and objectionable references about Sikh Gurus from the textbooks published by the NCERT. He demanded implementation of the Anand Marriage Act enacted in 1909. Resolutions demanding a corridor for Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, opening of the Attari-Wagah border on the Indo-Nepal pattern were also adopted.

This Anand Marriage Act-1909 is a Law, introduced in the Imperial Legislative Council in 1908, by Maharaja Kumar Ripudaman Singh of Nabha,  and was passed and enacted in October 1909 by the British Viceroy, Lord Minto, in (>  http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/Laws/The-Anand-Marriage-Act-1909.htm  <) appreciation and benefit of the small  monotheistic Sikh community living at that time in British-ruled Indo-Pak-Bangladesh subcontinent. This Law, the Anand Marriage Act-1909, has been ignored (pigeon-holed) in India, after Imperial Britain left the South Asian subcontinent, in 1947, when the monotheistic Sikhs, unlike the monotheistic Muslims and Christians, had their separate identity was stomped,   as a result of a legislative intrigue by that ‘crafty old Brahmin’, Prime minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru. Pundit Nehru, (the founder of the corrupt dynasty which has been misruling India for over four decades, and is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent Sikh men, women and children during two state-sponsored pogroms in June and November of 1984) had laws passed, (article 25 of the constitution) in an expression of the Hindu numerical superiority and hegemony. This was meant to ensure that the small monotheistic Sikh community in India was governed by the polytheistic Hindu Personal Laws based on the ancient Vedas etc., as if the egalitarian monotheistic Sikhs were a sect of the  polytheistic, phallocentric, phallicist caste-ridden Hinduism/ Brahminism.

In April 2003, Sirdar Simranjit Singh Mann, member of Indian parliament at that time, raised the issue of the ignored Anand Marriage Act-1909, which gives rights and recognition to the Sikhs’ way of marriage, in the Lok Sabha debate. He told the parliament that a Sikh man or woman finds it abhorrent to register his or her marriage under the provisions (>  http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030501/punjab1.htm#7 <) of the Hindu Marriage Act. That is why the need to implement the 1909 Act. He pointed out that in the preparation of the Census population details, the Sikhs are classified separately. Even under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, the Sikhs are shown as a distinct minority. Under various pieces of legislation relating to language, the Punjabi language in the Gurmukhi script, spoken by the Sikhs, is recognized. The Constitution Review Committee has recommended the removal of such anomalies so that the Sikhs are given separate status and recognition. Mr. Mann suggested the inclusion of the following three clauses in the law on Sikh marriages: 1) the provisions of the Act be expanded to incorporate clauses for the registration of marriages for Sikh residents in India as well as non-resident Sikhs; 2) the Sikhs should be governed exclusively under the Act only; and 3) a committee of experts should be immediately appointed by the Ministry of Law and Justice to formulate the expansion of the Anand Marriage Act-1909.

At a seminar on Sikh Personal Law held on October 19, 1997 at Chandigarh, in Indian occupied Punjab, the following very appropriate resolution was passed which in a few words aptly describes the Sikh frustration with the various Hindu personal laws that have been foisted on them:- 

“Since times immemorial, practices, usages, customs and laws evolved / developed were enacted to regulate Socio-economic intercourse among various types of people inhabiting the globe. In India, different communiticss viz, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis have their respective modes of social intercourse and Specific norms, practices, and usages governing them. But with the application of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, the Hindu Succession Act 1956, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act 1956, and the Hindu Minority and Guardionship Act 1956, to the Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists (these Acts arc not applicable to Muslims, Christians and Parsis), these people are declared/deemed as Hindus and are subjected to the Hindu Code Law based on abstruse and outdated concepts which are irrelevant to Sikhs. All this is not just and fair to the Sikhs whose personal laws, derived from the Guru Granth Sahib, Gurmatta,  Reht Maryada (Code of Conduct), customs and usage, have been  obliterated through legislative ingenuity……….” End Quote.

As every Sikh knows, Hinduism has shown its hostility to Sikhism over the centuries as the egalitarian Sikh Gurus have always opposed the morally repugnant caste system, which is the foundation on which the whole fabric of Brahminism has been reared over the centuries. The gender equality of the sexes, as practiced under the Sikh religion, is perceived as another threat to the phallocentric Brahmanism/Hinduism. Therefore, the activities of the Hindus have been constantly directed to undermining and subverting Sikhism, in various ways, one of them being to subvert Sikhs into weakening their allegiance to their Sikh faith. Hinduism is quite experienced in this vile practice having successfully strangled the great religions of Buddhism and Jainism, on the subcontinent, over the centuries.  Brahmanism/Hinduism is using, in this day and age, the same tactics against Sikhism. Pundit Nehru, like many other in the Brahmin/ Bania dominated Indian ruling elite, because of ulterior motives, held the view that Sikhs should be denied their rights as Sikhs so that it would be easier to absorb them into the fold of Hinduism, as has happened to Buddhists & Jains in India in the past. That is why the Sikhs are deemed as Hindus in India and are pushed under the umbrella of warped Hindu Personal Laws, through legislative ingenuity (legal hocus-pocus) which deny the fact that these Laws do not reflect Sikh values. Sikh personal laws are enshrined in Guru Granth Sahib, like the institution of Gurmatta, Sangat or the Punth, and the code of conduct - Reht Maryada.

It is about time the Punjab Chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, distanced himself from the polytheistic, phallocentric, phallicist caste-ridden Neo-Nazi Hindutva BJP crowd, his coalition partners in the Punjab State assembly, who have nothing but malice for monotheistic Sikhs. It would be better if he worked instead, for the improvement of laws like the Anand Marriage Act-1909, at the State and Federal level, to protect the rights and identity of the millions of Sikhs captive in India.