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Sangat Barred Entry To Gurdwara


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Below is the reply sent back:

Please read thoroughly.

Your ref: HSW/29580/2

1st March 2008

Winckworth Sherwood

Solicitors

35 Great Peter Street

Westminster

London WS1P 3LR

Dear Sir

Re: Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall.

Your letter of 28th received with thanks.

Its unfortunate that you have omitted to reply to our letter sent on 7th Feb 08 and more importantly failed to even acknowledge the proposals attached to it.

I have tried to resolve this matter amicably and co-operated fully with all the initiatives to find a resolution that best serves the greater philosophical and community interests. My many dialogues with the police, the Working Group and yourselves and my written submissions therein of proposals are at hand to prove my willingness to accept a reasonable compromise.

As previously stated I reserve and safeguard my position of a defence and/or counter claim should your client seek a restrain order, an injunction or proceed to make any other claim against my interest in this or any other related matter.

I strongly object to any ex-parte orders being applied to me and would appreciate if you would kindly reply to all our requests to see minutes of executive meetings relating to:

My suspension in around 18th February 2006 and expulsion around April 2006 and a copy of the investigations conducted, as per requirement of the relevant clause in the Constitution, to substantiate their action against us. Kindly refer me to the constitutional power that allowed the Committee to suspend my membership rights with immediate effect.

Approval of agenda for AGM – Feb 06, Aug 06, Feb 07, Aug 07 AND Feb 2008

Approval of your appointment to advise and terms of reference of your appointment

and

Copies of the Minutes of AGM – Feb 06, Aug 06, Feb 07, Aug 07 together with information requested in my letter of 30th January 2008.

Copies of all the outstanding documents I have requested to date since September 2004.

The General Secretary occupies a position of trust on a voluntary basis and as such should devote adequate and requisite time to serve his position. If he now finds that he can’t put in the required time or lacks competence to attend to duties of his office, he is at liberty to review his continuation of office.

You appointment is not objectionable from any other point other than that it is a further unnecessary waste of Gurdwara finances. My arguments with the leadership of the committee are not personal vendettas but originate from our religious and moral duties to seek to deliver better governance to the Gurdwara.

I confirm that I had no intention of causing any disruption, as you suggest, at the AGM of 17th February 2008, however we intended to exercise our democratic right of requesting members to support our reinstatement of membership and question committee’s exertion of excessive authority and wisdom contrary to the ideals of Sikh philosophy. No one was attacked by our protesters.

The events that unfolded inside the meeting reflect your client’s inappropriate management style in relation to these religious premises and the resulting violation of Guru’s darbar sanctity.

My approach has been to reason with the executive through the written dialogue but unfortunately they chose to ignore our letters. I supported wholeheartedly the Working Group initiatives to resolve the matters. The extracts quoted from the only Working Group delegate to give a written report fully explain the obstructive nature of your clients. The absence of any members motions in general body meetings to date and continual denial of our notices to date are again vindicating our position.

Your allegations of me causing disturbance around the Gurdwara stage is again incorrect. I did not attack anyone and to date no disturbance arose out of my presence there. I wish also to see the sanctity of the Gurdwara to be maintained and would support such requests without question.

On Sunday 3rd February 2008 the opposition speaker, in my presence, referred to mismanagement of the Gurdwara resources and we do have a case of £4MILLION that seems to be carelessly wasted and no details have been given to the Sangat who donated this money. The issues of committee’s undemocratic malpractices at election time were also challenged.

Your client’s claim of drunken people being part of our campaign is strongly refuted, and I stress that it is a practice strongly associated with the committee at each election time of past years.

The arguments are about policies and details of administration and not, as suggested by you, an attack on personalities. The trustee’s tendency to view opposing views as hostile is unfortunate as our intentions are to seek a better governance of the Gurdwara in line with Sikh doctrines and democratic principles of civilised society via violence free general body meetings.

The violent incident within the confines of the AGM on 17th February 2008 and four earlier counts of violence at the Gurdwara during current committee control speaks volumes for my case. I agree with you that there is no place for such behaviour at the Gurdwara.

Perhaps, you would kindly remind us the opportunities afforded by the management for members to make their complaints heard. Please refer me to any meetings where member’s issues have been accepted into any general body meetings of past 10 years to justify their claim of a proper process being allowed to proceed?

To date my conduct has never been other than to support the sanctity of the Gurdwara and to uphold the law so that the interests of the Gurdwara are safeguarded. Others and I have been the victims of violence and intimidation at the Gurdwara and no evidence has emerged from any quarter including the Gurdwara CCTV or the committee. Perhaps you clients can be the best people to state the truth behind each of the violent incidents that have occurred during their control? It would help everyone if they may also account the details of their support for legal remedies to ensure justice for the victims.

I believe the byelaws 9 and 10 are in present form oppressive and infringe on the members rights which are already only little protected by the constitution. This sort of heavy-handed approach is the underlying reason for the tensions at the Gurdwara and I intend to make this known to the Sangat. There need to be safeguards against abuse of authority by the committee in addition to byelaws to check member’s behaviour.

I regret your decision to deny me entry to the Gurdwaras is again unconstitutional and put you on notice to allow me the opportunity of a rightful defence in the event of any legal attempt, by your client, to obtain any restraining order or injunction order against me.

The suggestion of trespass in Gurdwara premises is again very unfortunate and ill advised likely to exasperate the already tense situation. This would indeed be an affront to the sanctity of the Gurughar and would invite humiliation of the Sikh community. Is it worth to put at risk the great ideals of Sikh spirituality for politics sake? We need to re-examine our positions if we are sincere to the very objectives of a Gurdwara.

Your client’s position is indeed very clearly unfortunate and I request that they need to re-evaluate their approach in view of the potential of tremendously grave damage to the very cause they claim to be serving. If serving in a Gurdwara has not made them realise the worthlessness of their arrogant style of management of a spiritual place then my pleading letter is unlikely to convince them.

Every phrase of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji invokes man to imbibe utmost humility when dealing with the Sangat of the Guru. We suggest a little more listening than dictating would not harm anyone.

Now to come to our objectives of being involved in this exercise in the first place, let us be clear that we were dragged into this situation by the leadership of this Gurdwara. After a humiliating and costly legal defeat, we were stripped of our membership to stop us talking at the February 2006 AGM. All our philosophical pleading with the committee failed to produce any common sense approach but pushed us further and further into picking up a political stand against your client’s oppression. We were let down by the community that we had always admired resulting in a disgust in our attitudes that we felt duty bound to face this challenge of reversing ever descending behaviour of people in Gurdwara management.

It is ironic that your clients have not learnt any lessons out of these sad events but wish to continue denying justice to the very people they claim to serve (members). The hypocrisy is unbearable from where we stand and it destroys our beliefs in human nature and even God.

What is it that your client wishes to impress on me? Use of public money for such vendettas is indeed incompetence to do the job right in the first place.

I am grateful for your suggestion to appoint a legal representative but quite frankly, I do not wish to fight any legal battle where the costs are going to be borne by the Gurdwara and eventually the Sangat. I will do the best I can for the moment and if your client continues to push me into a corner I may be forced to reconsider.

To save public money that is clearly donated for religious purposes I suggest your legal bill should be paid by the individuals involved rather than the Gurdwara.

You are right our first main objective is to ensure independency and fairness to the membership recruitment process, election candidate compliance process and the election itself, outside the control and influence of the retiring committee or the opposition groups.

It is hoped that future membership lists would comprise of only legitimate members that can be easily verified to an established public database, e.g. the Electoral registers of the catchments of the Gurdwara. This would, we hope, reduce tensions caused by the apparent, perceived or real, vested conflicts of interest inherent in the present system. There is widespread belief and some evidence of abuse of ballot and historically it seems to be an accepted normal practice and you will agree such practice has no place in a religious institution. Committee’s positive response would lessen the difficulties of realising the longer-term goals. It is hoped, the above measure should address much of the conflict

The other immediate objective is to ensure that the ambiguities and conflict causing clauses within the constitution are removed or amended with the approval of the general body so that future conflict and tensions are safely managed and Gurdwara’s interests are not jeopardised by political ambitions of individuals or groups or their respective egos.

We have held talks with both the president and the general secretary of this Gurdwara on the above and submitted written proposals but to date not had any written response from them.

The longer-term objectives are to help to devise systems and procedures that remove arbitrary decision-making and egoistic self-gratifying project undertakings and put in place procedures that can be independently re-examined or audited for developing comprehensive management systems suited to the now complex and wide scope of operations of the Gurdwara. It is hoped this approach would produce a focus on serving the needs of the community rather than indulge in unnecessary and unaffordable grand undertakings.

I would like to stress that, in my view, most Sikh Gurdwaras in the UK are generally administered under very poor management systems that were adequate for the first generation undertakings of modest budgets. However the current budgets are large and pose greater temptations and challenges to human weaknesses and require comprehensive management systems and talent development to take these institutions to ever-greater heights of serving their memberships and humanity at large. A lead from GSGSSS, the biggest Gurdwara in Europe, would help in these developments and rid the Gurdwaras from recurring personality-based domination and resulting conflict. I seek to promote an environment of service with humility to the needs of humanity in line with the teachings of our Gurus instead of personality promoting platforms of today.

Your client’s unconstitutional decision to ban me from all Singh Sabha premises shows their ulterior desire to quieten all opposition voices so that their true natures remain hidden behind a false cloak of nobility to serve the Gurdwara. Your client’s ludicrous idea of a licence to enter a Gurdwara and their decision to ban a human being from a Gurughar is indicative of their failure to understand their duties in respect of seva in such religious places. I regret that I am unable to obey such a decision.

I believe that my actions are inline with my religious duties and are constrained within my democratic rights of this country and I intend to continue in the same manner. If your clients believe that their position is more appropriate and my actions are believed by them to be damaging the interests of the Gurdwara, members and the Sangat then they are duty bound to seek whatever remedies they wish and I shall be obliged to obey such legal orders.

I do agree that common sense should prevail and we need to find solutions to the underlying problems instead of looking for people to blame for the short comings of administration.

Thank you

Yours truly,

Gurminder Singh Thind

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Anyone who wants answers to the running of the gurdwara are being oppressed in this way. I don't think something like this has ever happened before. The largest Gurdwara in Europe and the Committee have been treating it as their own for too many years now. How can anyone be banned from going to the Gurdwara.

According to the committee to go to the Gurdwara a 'License' is required and thats been revoked, so visiting the Gurdwara will be tresspassing.

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Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

There needs to be a clean out of all the Gurdwara Sahibs in England.

Shaasters need to be drawn, its the only way these masands are gonna get taken out but the problem is we cant stick together to get these things done.

Bhull Chuk Maarf Karni

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

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