California’s Infamous “Belt” Gurdwara Amidst Another Violent Incident

Posted: 11 Jan 2016

TURLOCK, California, USA—About two years ago, Turlock’s grand and marvelous looking Gurdwara was witness to a brutal fight.  A video of the fighting in the Gurdwara’s parking lot went viral and since then, the Gurdwara has been known as the “belt” gurdwara.  While in 2013, a belt was used as a weapon, the Gurdwara is now again in the limelight as a violent standoff has taken place. This time involving pepper spray,  musical instruments and wooden-sticks—incorrectly reported by local news media as Kirpans, or Sikh articles of Faith.  The reason behind the dispute remains the same, unwillingness of two factions to work together.
“Since 20 years, the control of the Gurdwara’s management has remained with a committee that’s often labelled as ‘moderates’.  The Turlock Gurdwara was initially operating in a small building, however as the Gurdwara expanded, so did its sangat.  Over time, as people who were more active and religious became regular attendees, disagreements began at the gurdwara,” said J. Singh, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
While speaking with Sikh24, J. Singh, who is a regular member of the Gurdwara Sahib, said, “Before 2012, there weren’t any bylaws, the Gurdwara was very much under control of one committee.  However in January 2012, due to growing demand to adopt official bylaws and appoint official committee members, the ‘moderate’ committee held a meeting under false pretenses and appointed 7 of its own members as a new committee to run the Gurdwara.”
“Although this was a big issue in 2012, Sangat tried to work together,” he added.  “Our Gurdwara was growing, and despite differences with the committee, we saw new youth coming to the Gurdwara regularly.  A new granthi Singh was hired, he taught keertan and had very positive influence on the youth.  Due to his growing influence, he was however laid off, despite pleas by the sangat to keep him.”
Sikh24 asked J. Singh if he remembered the 2013 issue.
JSingh: “Yes I remember June 2013 very well.  The dispute was over the Granthi Singh.  After this issue, a new committee took over control of the Gurdwara Sahib.  Supporters of the old committee decided to stop coming as they felt the gurdwara will fail without their financial support.
In court cases, the new committee was able to stay in charge, but it was incorrectly stamped.”
Sikh24: So what really happened that led to the brawl this past weekend?
Following is JSingh’s statement of the how things turned voilent –
On January 4, the new group asked to be in charge because of the court order. The old committee said if you have the correct order by Friday, you can control the Gurdwara. The notice was delivered on Wednesday.
The new committee assumed everything was resolved but several supporters of the old committee showed up on Sunday and decided to take control of cutting receipts and taking donations. They did this with the old court order from last year which was overturned.
The new committee secretary, Gurjeet Singh Chahal, was making an announcement, however the old committee supporters put dozens of women in front and kept doing Simran loudly in order to drown out any announcements from the new committee.  Bhai Bachittar Singh was put on to do katha, and again the old committee tried to drown him out.  So he joined in the simran. The new committee told him to read Anand Sahib and end the program after doing simran for a few minutes, in order to keep the peace.
The old committee then tried to have a woman make announcements, but the podium microphone was not working. So she tried to grab the mic from the stage and pushed people out of the way. A lady supporter of the new committee tried to stop her. At this point more women and men got up to fight
The women supporters of the old committee were prepared to start a fight and were armed with pepper spray and mace in large numbers. They shot the spray at the new committee supporters, including women and children. This turned the incident violent. Singhs from the new committee stepped in the middle to stop the fighting.
Sikh24 also reached out to another contact in Turlock.  M. Kaur (name not disclosed due to security concerns).  Kaur’s family has been attending the Gurdwara for almost 20 years.  She was born in Turlock and has seen the sangat, Gurdwara, and its issues grow in the past few years.  Following is her account of what happened over the weekend –
A lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding is behind the growing tensions between the two committees.  I want to clarify that the old committee had the old legal paperwork to say they had power on Sunday.   That’s why they tried to take receipts and make money.
The woman trying to speak is the one that really ignited it.  The old committee did not want new committee to let it stop peacefully.Also, it’s important to know that some old committee members are still on the new committee.
Recently, the gurdwara has been going in the direction of gurmat.   I have to admit that with the new committee, things were improving and this is why a lot of local sangat, even non-religious, do support the new committee.Contrary to media reports, there was no fighting with swords or kirpans yesterday.
Sandeep Singh, a supporter of the new committee says he stepped in to help stop the fighting, “One hundred people were attacking ten people and I just wanted to stop it.” He was immediately pepper sprayed and turned back.
There was only one Singh with a decorative talwar sword picked up from guru Sahib’s throne only to force people to back away at the sight. He swung it in the air above his head so that nobody would be hurt. He immediately was pepper sprayed and went in the back room and put the sword away.
Another Singh had a chimta (long shaker/musical instrument) which he swung to keep the pepper sprayers back. The local English news media looped this shaky video of him swinging the chimta to make it look as if a large battle took place. Many headlines stated that kirpans (articles of faith) were drawn and used as weapons, while paired with this video. This is not the case, in fact, new committee supporters can be seen using musical instruments, hands, shawls, veils (chunnis), and fists to keep the pepper sprayers back. Old women and men, along with new committee members then pleaded with both sides to calm down and stop the fight.
It was at this point that the police entered the main hall with shoes on. Videos from supporters of the old committee have audio where they are saying things such as “look at the violence created by the new committee.”
Sandeep Singh said, “Everyone is criticizing us saying that this gurdwara is bad or we are all trouble makers, but we Sikhs talk about justice in India, but we don’t even give each other justice here. We don’t put the blame where it’s due on who started the fight.”