Suggests a Manmohan Singh School of Economics at SGPC’s own World University as an alternative honour
Chandigarh, 26 September 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
On the 94th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today, KBS Sidhu, former Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, and retired Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, appealed to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) to review its sixteen-month-old stay on installing Dr. Singh’s portrait in the Central Sikh Museum at Sri Darbar Sahib, Amritsar. The SGPC’s Executive Committee approved the portrait in May 2025, but the decision has been frozen since then on the strength of a single order by the SGPC President.
As Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, from 1992 to 1996, KBS Sidhu often accompanied Dr. Singh, then Union Finance Minister, on the Parikrama of Sri Darbar Sahib during his private visits to the city.
KBS Sidhu recalled that on 13 May 2025 the SGPC’s Executive Committee approved portraits of five personalities for the Central Sikh Museum, Dr. Manmohan Singh among them. On 23 May 2025, the SGPC President put the decision on hold by his own order, after Balwant Singh Rajoana and Dal Khalsa objected. The SGPC announced at the time that the Executive Committee would review the matter at its next meeting. No such review appears to have taken place since.
“The Executive Committee considered the proposal and said yes. The President set that decision aside within ten days by his own order. Sixteen months on, the Committee has neither reaffirmed its decision nor withdrawn it,” KBS Sidhu said.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, the first turbaned Sikh to serve as Prime Minister, was among the least controversial Sikhs of his generation, KBS Sidhu said, and even his fiercest critics never attached a scandal to his own name. “Honouring him in the Panth’s own museum should not depend on which side of the political divide he stood. A political calculation should not decide who is remembered in the Central Sikh Museum,” he said.
KBS Sidhu recalled that Dr. Singh travelled to Amritsar by the overnight train, and that his first stop was almost always Sri Darbar Sahib. He told the officers of the Income Tax and Customs Departments, both under his own Ministry, not to call on him or to leave their work to attend to him.
If the SGPC cannot reach a consensus on the portrait, KBS Sidhu proposed that it establish a Manmohan Singh School of Economics, or at least a named chair in economics, at its own Sri Guru Granth Sahib World University, Fatehgarh Sahib. “It lies within the SGPC’s own gift: its own campus, its own Executive Committee, its own funds. It would give young Sikh students something more lasting than a picture on a wall, and a reason to follow him into economics,” he said.
He also linked the episode to the long-pending SGPC general elections. The Executive Committee is chosen every year by a General House elected in 2011, fifteen years ago. “A body with a mandate that old will look to the party leadership rather than to the sangat. A freshly elected General House would at least have to answer to the voters for decisions like this one,” he said.
KBS Sidhu urged the SGPC President to lift his stay, place both the portrait and the proposed School of Economics before the next meeting of the Executive Committee, and let the decision of 13 May 2025 take effect.
About KBS Sidhu: KBS Sidhu, IAS (Retd.), 1984 batch, Punjab cadre, served as Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar (1992–96), and superannuated as Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab. He is the Founder-Editor of The KBS Chronicle.
Contact: kbs.sidhu@gmail.com | 7837-001-001
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