Harper’s refusal of Golden Temple meal controversial

By Gurpreet Singh



VANCOUVER, B.C. � Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stirred another controversy similar to the communion wafer � this time it is about why he did not accept �prasad� � a holy food gift � from priests at the Golden Temple during his India visit.



Prasad is a small amount of food item given at a temple visit, usually placed in the palm of a person. A second brouhaha is over his failure to eat a temple meal at the most revered Sikh Temple in the world.



Some consider that an insult to Sikhism.



Harper has come under attack from a section within the Sikh community for not taking prasad and skipping langar (community meal) during his first visit to the temple.



Harper traveled extra miles to Amritsar from New Delhi, the national capital of India just to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and that too after Canadian Sikhs insisted that he should go to their Vatican during his first ever visit to that country.



Media reports had suggested that he might skip Punjab during his business tour to India causing anxiety among the Sikhs in Canada.



Although the Sikhs were relieved after it was announced that Harper will indeed go to Amritsar, yet it appears some in Punjab were not impressed and there have been comments in the India press about this.



To add to the troubles, there were scuffles between the temple officials looking after his security and media persons. They had formed three rings of human chains around Harper.



Sources in the Canadian government clarified that Harper had donated money for prasad, but instead of taking it he had offered it to the priests.



Such controversies are not new for Harper. He became a subject of similar controversy when he accepted and ate a communion wafer at a Catholic mass in Canada.



Harper, a Protestant himself, had attended state funeral for the former Canadian Governor General, Romeo LeBlanc, during which a Catholic priest offered a wafer.



Some critics had suggested that the church law does not permit non Catholics to receive such communion.



Such controversies are bound to happen when the political leaders wade into religious territories. Had he decided not to visit the Golden Temple, there would have been an outcry in the Sikh community. However, his visit has also become controversial.



The Canadian Sikhs should appreciate that he went all the way to Amritsar just to be at the Golden Temple. He did not go to Punjab to do any business, says our writer who accompanied the PM on his trip.



Ideally, the Canadian Prime Ministers should keep the church and the state apart. They should avoid mixing religion and politics.



The progressive section within the Indo Canadian community is not really impressed by his visit to the Golden Temple or for that matter the Akashardham Hindu Temple in New Delhi the same day.



However, Harper alone cannot be blamed for indulging in such practice as his Liberal predecessors also did the same.



These temple photo ops are clearly aimed at vote politics and are symbolic in nature. If his temple visits have to anger anyone in the Indo Canadian community it should be the atheists and secularists and not the religious people, on whose insistence Harper went there.



Prabhjot Singh
http://www.SikhPress.com