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palanquin at the Golden Temple...’’ (Dutt) He added that ‘‘although there is no
st ric t ure for women t o sit separately in the sanc tum sanc torum of the Golden
Temple, the women do so out of modesty’’ (ibid). The c ontentious issue whic h was
initiated by Mejinderpal Kaur and Lakhbir Kaur ‘‘presents an arrogant fight for a
right and expresses motivated desire to become a pioneer of a movement by
playing t he media’’ (ibid). T his view is not c onfined t o Sikh men. Paramjit Kaur
T iwana, t he princ ipal of Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College for Women in Amrit sar,
echoed Goshti’s views when she made her deposition to the SGPC:
To ask for seva rights inside the Sri Darbar Sahib is just an attempt to
c reate c haos internationally... Even at home, for maintaining a healthy
atmosphere, we maintain a respectable distance between father and
daughter, brother and sister, mother and son, and the human instinc t,
known as libido in Freudian terms, is kept under c ontrol. So, when we
maint ain it at home, how c an we violat e it at a religious plac e? (Chandra)Certainly, the perspectives of Goshti and Tiwana are not representative of all Sikh
views in India. In a press release, the Sikh Women’s Assoc iation (SWA), an
organization based in Delhi, gave its full support to the two women at the forefront
of the contentious debate and promised to mobilize women to undertake seva at
the Golden Temple (‘‘SWA Press Release’’). Others, however, even in the diaspora,
have taken completely opposite stances to the designs of the petition, insisting that
even the c onsideration of women joining the panj piare, a t radit ionally male
institution, c an only be underst ood as an absurdit y, given t hat t he original five
beloveds had been men:
Do people wish to dishonour the memories of the panj piare, who heeded
the c all of the Guru Gobind Singh Ji? Are these people prepared to c hange
Bhai Sahib Daya Singh’s name to Bibi Daya Kaur?... I have no problem
with Sikh women performing seva at the Darbar Sahib. But don’t ask us to
c hange our religion t o sat isfy all your desires. Rec ognize what ’s right and
wrong. Do not make absurd demands. Will the next step be to demand
that the Gurus were all women? (M. Kaur, ‘‘Myths’’)The T imes of India also reported that respected Sikh scholars were presenting the
issue as a conspiracy of non-Sikhs and polit ic al part ies at t empt ing t o gain
momentum and dividing the Sikh c ommunity through the heated issue. By way of
proof they argued that ‘‘no loc al Sikh woman or organisation of Sikh women has
raised the issue in rec ent times. In fac t, they had favoured not allowing women to
perform sewa due to c ertain c onsiderations’’ (Rana).
Interestingly, Mejinderpal Kaur, Lakhbir Kaur, T ersem Kaur, and Dr Harjit
Hothi were not the first women to raise the apparent inequalities within the c entral
rituals at the Harmandir Sahib. In 1996, a group of mostly women c onverts from
the US, inc luding Inderjit Kaur, the wife of Yogi Bhajan, arrived at the Darbar Sahib
to take part in seva during Amrit Vela (pre-dawn). Although the women fac ed an
angry mob under the watc hful eye of the then Jathedar, Manjit Singh, they were
allowed t o wash t he floors in t he Golden T emple; women have t radit ionally been
allowed to perform seva in the Temple c omplex, but not within the Harimandir
Sahib it self (Kaur Khalsa). An edic t or hukamnama was apparently issued, whic h
included the signatures of the Jathedars of Damdama Takhat and Akal Takhat
(‘‘Original Copy’’). Yet ac c ording to the SGPC’s manager at the time, the SGPC had
never received a hukamnama direc t ing women’s seva at the Darbar Sahib (Walia,