Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday accused the Congress government of sacrilege by allegedly swapping the face of French statesman Napoleon Bonaparte with Guru Gobind Singh's in a computer-generated portrait recently published in newspapers for the commemoration of the 350th birth anniversary of the Guru. The government, however, rejected the charges.
The party demanded strict action against erring officials and the advertising agency. In a statement, party spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the painting in question showing the Guru in the advertisement was actually that of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He said the 'morphed' painting was a computer generated copy. He said the origin of the painting dated back to 1800 and came into existence almost after a century of Guru Gobind Singh's period. He said, "I wonder why the Punjab government committed this grave sin when there are plenty of paintings of the Tenth Guru available."
"It has the same horse as shown in the Napoleon painting. Even the clothes of Guru Sahib in the painting are the same Napoleon was wearing in the original painting," he added. Cheema further said that the painting of a horse-mounted Napoleon Bonaparte is world famous and has been displayed at various museums across the world and published in books as well. He said that the Guru Gobind Singh's painting published by the Punjab government shared many unmistakable resemblances with Napoleon's painting.
Rejecting the SAD charges, an official spokesperson of the Punjab government said the picture had been sourced from a Sikhism-related website, which was in public domain. It had neither been created nor modified by the government in any manner, the spokesperson added. All pictures/illustrations being used over the years were the imaginative creations of artists for illustrative purposes only, it claimed.
"The Akalis, who claim to be the custodians of Sikh religion, are obviously completely ignorant about these basic facts and have merely reacted on a media report without verifying its authenticity," said the spokesperson, demanding that it was SAD which needed to apologise to the people of Punjab for trying to politicize such an occasion with their petty allegations," the spokesperson added.
