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04/01/2008

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Chandigarh, March 30 - Challenging claims of some people in the UK trying to sell a steel armour as one belonging to Guru Gobind Singh, the Central Gurdwara (Khalsa Jatha) of London, which is the oldest gurdwara in the UK, has refuted that the steel armour plate ever belonged to Guru Gobind Singh.

Lot number L08220/269 described as “A Rare Sikh Steel Armour Plate, North West India/Pakistan, 18th Century” is going under the hammer at English auction house Sotheby’s on the April 9 and is expected to fetch anywhere from 10,000-12,000 pounds. The SGPC and other Sikh organisations have expressed desire to bid for it and bring it back to India


While fairly uncommon, the intended auction has raised the hackles of the Sikh community following suggestions that the armour belonged to Guru Gobind Singh. The armour which bears the opening verses of “Akal Ustat” is being compared to the Guru’s personal “Raikot” sword, which has a similar inscription.

The auction is being viewed as another more callous example of the profiteering from holy relics.

However, the London gurdwara, in a signed statement to this correspondent, has unequivocally stated that “naturally we have withdrawn from bidding for the item as this would have been a false appropriation of the Sangat’s funds, taking away from legitimate community based projects. We are totally against profit making from the sacred name of the Guru and the false appropriation of his name. Such attributions are negligent to say the very least and we condemn this completely”.

The fallacious claims about the armour’s origin are believed to have been single-handedly spread by a website www.punjabheritage.org alone. Registered to one Amandeep Madra of Kent (UK), the site is running a campaign bemoaning “the planned destruction of Sikh heritage in Nanded, Amritsar and Lahore.” It also alleges “we know that the Sikh authorities simply do not engage in this debate because they are complicit in the charge”.

However, the site stops short of making any actual claim to the armour’s link with the Guru and only hides behind a vague and out-of-context comment from the Sotheby’s catalogue, an attribution that the gurdwara strongly refutes.

“We have since made our own inquiries and Sotheby’s itself do not attribute this item as belonging to Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Nor do they state that it has any provenance with the 10th Guru,” the gurdwara authorities said.

If the armour does belong to the Guru, or if any expert has given any definitive opinion, then that evidence is surely being withheld by the website operators. “Proof of their claim has been requested, however, no response has been received. The website states that “experts believe” that this is the Guru’s armour and we would like to know who these so-called experts are”, says assistant general secretary of the gurdwara Gurpreet Singh Anand.

The Guru’s Sikhs are ever ready to rally around to a worthy cause. But, whether every claim ought to be accepted on the basis of suppositions and conjectures, is the million-dollar question.


-By Naveen S. Garewal
Tribune News Service

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