One year before the implementation of the calendar, the SGPC announced in the press on 5th January 1998 CE, that the Birthday of Guru Gobind Singh Sahib would be celebrated in 1999 CE according to the new Nanakshahi calendar. On the same day, Pal Singh Purewal’s article on the calendar in the papers was published.

Where were the opponents of the calendar then? How could they have missed reading that advertisement, which millions had read?

The SGPC put up large billboards at the sites of the historic Gurdwaras, a few months before the implementation, publicizing information about the Gurpurb date.

Hundreds of thousands of Sikhs must have visited those Gurdwaras during those months. In fact, there was only nominal opposition to the Nanakshahi Calendar until January 1999CE, when Baba Kashmira Singh took up the issue and organized opposition from the Sant Samaj. 

Before Baba Kashmira Singh took up this issue, no one mentioned that this calendar would divide the community. Some Sants, like Baba Kashmira Singh and Baba Mangal Singh, feel that if the Nanakshahi Calendar is adopted they will lose their stranglehold on the innocent masses. That is why they are opposing it. It is these ‘Sants’ who are dividing the community.

The Nanakshahi Calendar is based on scientific principles. The situation of ‘two gurpurbs’ has been caused by the Sant Samaj led by Kashmira Singh and Mangal Singh who insist on celebrating Gurpurbs according to the lunar Hindu Bikrami Calendar.

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