Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine of India has prohibited filming of TikTok videos inside the temple after videos of visitors dancing and playing songs went viral on social media.
The Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex religious body of Sikhs has pasted posters inside the Golden Temple complex, warning devotees not to shoot TikTok videos inside the Harmandir Sahib.
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TikTok is a short-video platform which has become extremely popular among youngsters in the past few months. Not only India, but also abroad, this video app has most social engagement now. Owned by China-based ByteDance, it has about 200 million users from India itself.
Steps Taken
The SGPC released a notice and pasted posters of the same at ‘parikrama’, langar hall and counters of various utilities to make visitors aware of the religious sanctity of the place. The management has also deployed volunteers to stop people from making videos and taking selfies etc in the premises.
The harsh step was taken after some videos of girls dancing to a punjabi music in the Golden Temple went viral on TikTok which hurt religious sentiments of the devotees.
Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Giani Harpreet Singh was reported as saying, ‘We want all devotees to visit the Golden Temple without any hassle and are not in favour of imposing any such ban, but the way the incidents of TikTok are surfacing, I think imposing the ban on carrying mobile phones inside (Golden Temple) will have to be pondered over in the future.’
Ban On Carrying Mobile Phones Too
There’s a possibility that we might end up hearing about ban on carrying mobile phones too inside the Sikh shrine in the coming days, if it’s not taken seriously. The Jathedar had also pointed out that some of the devotees even argued with ‘sewadars’ (workers) upon being stopped from clicking photos inside the premises. He appealed to devotees to refrain from such acts as it is a place of worship and all they want for people is to preserve the good memories of their visit.
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It was the second such incident in a short span of time. A police complaint was lodged against a girl for hurting religious sentiments of Sikhs after she shot a dance video inside the Darbar Sahib complex. Later, the girl had to apologise.
Photography and videography in Golden Temple have already been banned by the SGPC before, though it wasn’t implemented strictly but the fresh cases of misuse of mobile phones inside the temple has forced the SGPC to swing into action once again.