BJP slams SGPC, challenges it to show one case where ‘a Sikh lured by Hindus to convert’

Vibha Sharma 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

The BJP has slammed the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee for its resolution against the RSS, “challenging” it to show one case where “a Sikh has been lured by Hindus to convert” and accusing it of “creating a divide among people of Punjab".

Claiming that the SGPC has “miserably failed to stop Sikhs from converting to Christianity in Punjab”, BJP leader RP Singh said as a “cover-up for their failure, they keep raising the false bogey of Hindu Rashtra”. 

“I challenge the SGPC president to bring one case of Sikh lured by Hindus to convert,” he said.

Stating that the RSS “has never spoken about creating Hindu Rashtra”, Singh said the work of the SGPC is to “propagate the message of the Gurus. But instead of doing that it was trying to divide the people of Punjab through such messages”.

“Their duty is to ensure that ‘panthak’ traditions.

“How many times SGPC has issued a statement or acted against Sikhs being lured by Missionaries to convert? How many converted Sikhs has been brought back to the fold? Rather it was RSS which through ‘ghar wapsi’ brought converts back to the fold,” Singh said.

Accusing the BJP’s ideological fountainhead of “suppressing the freedom of other religions and minorities in an attempt to make the country a Hindu Rashtra”, the SGPC’s general house meeting had passed a resolution against the RSS, accusing it of “threatening the minority communities by intervening in their affairs”.

“Such attempts were made by the Mughals in the 17th century which were resisted by Sikh gurus while ninth Sikh master Guru Tegh Bahadur made a supreme sacrifice for other communities,” the resolution read. Cautioning the central government, the SGPC said it should rein in such elements and ensure "religious freedom of other religions".