Gurudwara at har-ki-pauri

Har-ki-Pauri in Haridwar is known as the most “holy place” for Hindus. Now, some Sikhs are also staking a claim to this scared place. The top Sikh body, Akal Takht, and the leaders of the Delhi Sikh Management Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (DSGMC) are claiming that some government documentary evidence has surfaced of a gurudwara at Subhash Ghat near Har-ki-Pauri. They have started pressing the Central government and the BJP-ruled states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to reclaim this place as they wish to reconstruct the historic gurudwara Gyan Godri Sahib there. “This gurudwara at Har-ki-Pauri will boost religious tourism in the holy city,” the DSGMC general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa told The Sunday Guardian.

Sirsa says that it has now come to light that the Haridwar civic body record had shown the evidence of a gurudwara at Har-ki-Pauri. The municipal corporation record of 1935 depicted the existence of this gurudwara. The documents of the local Bharat Scouts and Guides office also related to a gurudwara at the site.A section of Sikhs has been demanding handing over the piece of land, as they claim, Guru Nanak Dev had visited Har-ki-Pauri in 1504-1505, where he meditated and gave sermons. The Sikh Panth wants an early settlement of the issue so that they can reconstruct a grand Gurudwara Gyan Godri before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in 2019.

It is being said that Gurudwara Gyan Godri was constructed in 1935 in the memory of Guru Nanak Dev on the property given by the Landran Estate. In 1979, the then Uttar Pradesh government had acquired the land for the beautification of Har-ki-Pauri. The land was, however, not returned to Sikhs despite the government offering alternate places to the evacuees. In 2000, Uttar Pradesh was divided and Uttarakhand was born. Haridwar is in Uttarakhand. The new state government had allotted an alternate place for the gurudwara, but the land was disputed between the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. “We will not compromise on the site. The gurudwara will be constructed on its original site only,” says Sirsa.

On 6 September 2017, we celebrated t he 1 28th birth anniversary of Sarat Chandra Bose. A programme was held in collaboration with the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, where West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi was the chief guest. Speakers remembered the legacy of Sarat Chandra Bose—an iconic figure of the Indian freedom struggle.

On 6 September 1889, Sarat Chandra Bose was born at Kodalia village in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, not far from the then imperial city of Calcutta. Sarat Bose was the fourth child of Janakinath, a lawyer and Prabhabati Devi, who were widely respected in the community for their support and generosity. Ten more siblings were to follow, one of the youngest, his much loved brother Subhas Chandra Bose.

Sarat Bose’s student years in Calcutta coincided with the heady days of the early 1900s, when an emerging Congress began to stir the fires of patriotism and nationalism. He joined Presidency College from where he both graduated and with a Master’s degree in English literature (1909), followed by a law degree from the Calcutta University (1910). As a young man, Sarat witnessed and imbibed the early revolutionary fervour which swept across