INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

ture is thus conceived as a Guru to be furnished with a solemnized handling. Given
this, Sikh publishers will display a deep concern for the printing procedures.
As the representative body of the Sikh community, the SGPC is today the main
publisher of scriptures which has attempted to control and monopolize the production
and distribution. 398 Under leadership of jatedhar Ranjit Singh, the highest religious
instance at Amritsar ‒ Akal Takht ‒ issued an edict (hukam-nama) in 1998 which
assigned SGPC sole rights to produce Guru Granth Sahib. Printing the scripture by
private agencies was to be treated as a blasphemous act and publishers violating the
resolution were consequently declared guilty of religious misconducts and requested
to undergo a religious punishment (tankhah). 399 The strong measures taken by the
SGPC do not merely rest on the organization’s self-perception as the authoritative
representative of the Sikh community. The organization has presented its argument
for exclusive publishing rights in strictly religious terms, stating that the Guru should
not be exposed to market interests and the printing procedures must protect the sanctity
of the scripture by complying with the Sikh Maryada, or the code of conduct. The
most radical strategy to ensure that publishers will observe the normative rules is to
monopolize the production of scriptures. In practice the code of conduct implies that
the publisher should manufacture Guru Granth Sahib in accordance with its
sanctioned content and form and give due respect to the book during the printing
process. Workers at the Golden Offset Press at Amritsar who are not Amritdhari Sikhs
have to sign a pledge before SGPC that they will remove shoes and cover their heads
inside the printing house and abstain from tobacco, alcohol and other intoxicants.
Entry to printing press is restricted only to those who comply with these rules.
During the printing procedures the workers are expected to chant the sacred
formulae of “Satnam Vahiguru” and printing matter is to be treated with greatest
care. Printed loose paper sheets should be covered with robes and the bound
scriptural corpus wrapped in clothes. Even waste material containing gurbani with
typographical errors should be reverentially saved to be taken to Goindwal Sahib for
cremation (see below). To prevent desecration of Guru Granth Sahib during
production, the SGPC set up probation committees in the end of 1990s to supervise
the manufacturing of scriptures by private publishers. 400 The inspection reflects a
tension between religious attitudes and business interests when it is possibile to have
the Guru-scripture mass produced.
398
The SGPC publishes about 5000 copies of the Guru Granth Sahib yearly. The estimated
budget for the Golden Offset Press in the year 2004 ‒ 2005 amounted to 40 million rupees. The
Tribune, 2004-03-16.
399
The SGPC has recurrently distributed religious punishments to private publishers for misconducts
in the production and distribution of scirptures. In 1998, for instance, selling of “waste
paper” from the printing process that carried gurbani inscriptions was the count and reason for
excommunicating one publisher. The Tribune, 2001-05-16, 2006-04-23. What has been put at stake
in this and similar controversies are not necessarily typographical matters but religious conducts
to maintain proper respect to a scripture.
400
The Tribune, 2001-05-16.
211
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008