Durga Puja (Navaratri) season is in full swing across the country, and perhaps nowhere more vibrant than in Bengal.  Senior Akali leader Manjinder Sirsa put up a tweet that is objectionable. Here is his tweet.

Religious blasphemy happening in West Bengal of copying Sri Harmandir Sahib hurts Sikhs’ sentiments

The organisers of this Durga Puja event must take off the set up. I request @MamataOfficial Ji to look into the matter & take strong immediate action against event mangt company pic.twitter.com/8K2cIWJlLw

— Manjinder Singh Sirsa (@mssirsa) October 5, 2019

This is rather laughable.   

Perhaps Mr. Sirsa is not aware that the cosmology and creation story of the Granth Sahib comes entirely from Hindu sources. Here is, in particular, the creation story, where one Divine Mother gives rise to three principal Gods – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiv.

https://twitter.com/TIinExile/status/1180795012025470976

This should not surprise us. The Nitya-nem Vani (nitnem bani) is by Guru Nanak.  Till the last of the Gurus, the Sikh Panth was not separate from Hindu Samaj or Hindu Dharma. For example, the last Guru Govind Singh said:

Sakal jagat men khalsa panth gaje Jage dharma Hindu sabhi bhand bhaje

It is only in the 20th century that the Singh Sabha movement campaigned to give Sikh Panth a separate identity, culminating in the 1925 Gurudwaras Act passed by the British (who supported the Singh Sabha movement for political reasons, so as to divide Punjab) where Gurudwara control passed to the SGPC and the murtis of Hindu devis and devatas were removed from Gurudwaras. In other words, the Hari Mandir Sahib had murtis of all Hindu devis and devatas, like any other Hindu temple, from the time it was built by Guru Ram Das till 1925.   

Even so, the traditional relations between the communities have not been affected that much, in spite of the best efforts of the separatists.   

Additional reading: http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2010/07/guru-nanak-was-hindu.html

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