Jagdish Singh Jhinda

Jagdish Singh Jhinda is a Haryana Sikh leader in the movement for a separate gurdwara committee for Haryana. Wikipedia names him the first president of the society registered as the HSGPC in January 2003, with Didar Singh Nalwi, who began the campaign on 27 December 2000, as its general secretary. A Tribune report of February 2023 calls him a former president of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC). We treat him as a living person, so the claims here are attributed to the papers and people who made them.

2014: Wikipedia says the Haryana Assembly passed the gurdwara bill on 11 July 2014. In The Tribune of 25 July 2014, where he is introduced as an ad hoc member of the HSGMC, Jhinda said the SGPC was forcibly trying to keep the gurdwaras under its control, accused Parkash Singh Badal of a divide-and-rule policy for his vested interests, and said the SGPC's task force in the gurdwaras had created a law and order problem. He warned that a minor mistake by either side could snowball into a major controversy, and urged Badal to be more accommodating and to take the issue to court.

The excommunication: The Tribune reported from Amritsar on 16 July 2014 that the Akal Takht had moved to excommunicate Jhinda, Deedar Singh Nalvi (Didar Singh Nalwi) and Haryana's finance minister, Harmohinder Singh Chattha, for "conspiring to divide the SGPC". Critics called it political. On 18 July the paper quoted the former Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti saying the three should have been summoned and heard first, and the United Sikh Forum's convener, Bhai Mohkam Singh, telling Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh that Jhinda and Nalvi had not signed the Act and that the excommunication should be withdrawn.

2022 to 2023: The Tribune reported on 5 February 2023 that Jhinda opposed the ad hoc panel that Haryana notified in October 2022, approached the Akal Takht against it and submitted a list of 41 members for a fresh committee. It quoted him saying that Haryana Sikhs had agreed to come together on one platform, and that they would ask the SGPC to surrender its charge of the gurdwaras in Haryana and otherwise appeal to the Supreme Court.

Key moments

• 27 December 2000: Nalwi begins the campaign for a separate Haryana body (Wikipedia).
• January 2003: the society is registered as the HSGPC, with Jhinda as president (Wikipedia).
• 16 July 2014: the Akal Takht moves to excommunicate him.
• 24 October 2022: Haryana notifies a 41-member ad hoc panel for 18 months, and in December names Mahant Karamjit Singh its head (The Tribune).

Remembered for: leading the society behind the separate Haryana committee and, in 2014, an excommunication that critics called political. The sources we opened do not say whether it was lifted.