weaken Sikh fundamentals under the guise of politics, expediency, and social engineering.
The Sikh organisation also slammed the visit of Dera Radha Soami
Satsang Beas head Gurinder Singh Dhillon to a jail to meet Bikram Majithia, followed shortly thereafter by judicial relief to him from the Supreme Court;
and Modi’s recent visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar. Leaders said these reflected a “calculated” political approach.
Dal Khalsa leaders Harpal Singh Cheema and Kanwar Pal Singh, in a statement issued here
on Tuesday, expressed deep concern over the visit and said it exposed the “deep optics” surrounding the visit of the Dera Beas head, as these events raised troubling questions about institutional independence, moral authority, and the growing influence of extra-constitutional religious power centres.
They said this pointed to a disturbing and long-standing nexus between the Union Government, sections of the judiciary, and schismatic establishments that had historically functioned to dilute and undermine the core Sikh doctrine of Shabad Guru.
They said the concern must be seen in the broader political context.
The repeated outreach by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling establishment to sectarian deras — including Modi’s recent visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan — reflected a calculated political strategy to mobilise vote-bank through religious intermediaries, they claimed.
They added that the patronage extended to deras had emboldened schismatic forces whose theology directly challenged the Sikh principle of the Guru Granth Sahib as the sole and eternal Guru.
“This is not an isolated or accidental development,” Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh said. “Since the era of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, the Indian state has consciously nurtured ‘deravaad’ and ‘gurudom’ as instruments to fragment Sikh unity, weaken Sikh institutions, and undermine Gurmat philosophy. That policy, regrettably, continues today.”
Dal Khalsa leaders said the organisation harboured no personal animosity towards any Akali leader, and that it was not pronouncing any judgment on Majithia’s guilt or innocence.
“We are alarmed at the public statements made by political functionaries, like the one made by Sunil Jakhar, endorsing the utterances of the Dera head as prophetic or divinely sanctioned,” the statement read