In a panic that US President Barack Hussein Obama may cancel plans to visit Amritsar’s Golden Temple because of the reported insistence that he wear a headscarf or some similarly “suitable” head covering in consonance with Sikh religious tradition, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee or SGPC has now clarified that any covering, even a baseball cap, would be acceptable.
“We would welcome President Obama as long as he covers his head while inside Harimandir Sahib (Golden Temple). Caps or hats are not barred by Sikh dharmik maryada (religious code of conduct). After all even Queen Elizabeth wore a western hat when she came to the temple,” said Mr Avtar Singh Makkar, who currently heads the powerful Sikh committee responsible for most historic shrines and institutions in north India.
Notably, it was her socks and her refusal to apologise for the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919 that generated controversy when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip came to the Golden Temple in 1997. The SGPC — then headed by the late Gurcharan Singh Tohra — had made an exception in permitting the British Monarch to keep her stockings and gloves on while inside the shrine.
Evidently keen that the presidential visit goes ahead, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee chief admitted that the committee had initiated preparations in the big way despite the fact that there was never any official intimation from either the US embassy in Delhi or the Government of India.
“I have no confirmation on whether the visit is on or off,” Mr Makkar said. According to him, a team of US officials, including secret service officers had visited the Golden Temple late in September and there have since been a couple of follow up visits, including by senior representatives of the USA-based Sikh community.
“The head scarf controversy is entirely unnecessary and it would be most unfortunate if President Obama puts off his trip because of this,” he said, adding that Golden Temple head priest Giani Gurbachan Singh had clearly been misunderstood when reportedly ruled out baseball caps and military hats.
But sources have told this newspaper that the presidential pilgrimage to Amritsar may still be given a miss because Mr Obama’s security advisors feel protecting him in the crowded and congested by lanes of the tightly packed walled city around the holiest of Sikh shrines would be a nightmarish undertaking.
“A visit to the Golden Temple necessarily entails a road journey through ground that would be a sniper’s dream come true. There is virtually nowhere within safe reach of the sikh shrine where a helicopter can land,” said a senior defense and security affairs expert.