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Sikhs protest against the renegade
Indicted by Akal Takht, Pashaura Singh has been the target of ire of
Sikhs for many years
WSN Bureau
 RIVERSIDE:
Slogans of "Down, Down, Pashaura Singh" and "Turncoat Sikh Scholar"
rented the air as a large number of Sikhs, most of them highly
educated, joined an on-campus protest at UC Riverside before a
meeting with Chancellor Timothy White, all aimed at protesting the
scholar's appointment to a Sikh studies chair.
Most of the
community considers him a renegade and blasphemy-spouting scholar.
The group of
Sikhs said the university should go in for a third party probe into
how he came to be hired as a Sikh and Punjabi studies scholar.
Representatives
of the group had a half-hour meeting with White but by all accounts
the Chancellor seems to have conveyed that he has already reviewed
Pashaura Singh's appointment and there was no reason to effect any
change or order any probe into his hiring.
Protesters, some
of whom had come from
Corona and
Fontana, carried placards saying "UCR Sikh Chair an Academic Scam."
The Chancellor
also asked the group to put in writing the concerns of the larger
Sikh community, something that the group welcomed. Dr. Baljeet Sahi,
an
Altadena
veterinarian who led the protest, said the Sikh community
representatives will soon write the letter.
Sahi, who
represents the Sikhs for Preservation of Sikhism and Sikh Heritage.
has been leading the movement that has been opposing Pashaura
Singh's appointment consistently since 2005.
The
controversial scholar who was once indicted at the Akal Takht and
who had confessed to his deliberate crimes of intellect was hired in
2005 from the
University
of
Michigan.
He was however
appointed to the chair only this summer.
Pashaura Singh's
writings question the authenticity of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib and
he accords importance to questionable manuscripts, one of which
surfaced in 1987 and that he believes is a draft of the 1,430-page
document compiled by Guru Arjan. Singh says the so-called 1245
manuscript, part of the rare book collection at
Guru Nanak Dev
University, includes sections that are blank and others that have
been crossed out, showing evidence of having been edited.
Such an idea
about the scriptures being edited or changed is blasphemous to most
Sikhs and virtually negates the core belief that the revealed word
of God is the revealed word.
Sahi holds the
1245 manuscript fraudulent and said it was obtained from a scrap
dealer. Sikhs believe the so called Manuscript 1245 could have been
scribbled by any of the Sikh Guru's rivals.
There have been
many protests against Pashaura Singh's appointment to the endowed
chair for which the Sikh Foundation raised $500,000. The chair is in
memory of late Dr. Jasbir Singh Saini, a
Phoenix
cardiologist.
Sikhs had
protested even in 2005 about his appointment. At one stage, even
Saini's widow, Saranjit Kaur Saini, had asked the former UCR
Chancellor France Cordova urging her to choose another Sikh
scholar.
Incidentally,
Pashaura Singh courted controversy even with his 1991 doctoral
thesis at the
University of
Toronto which was immediately condemned and later he was indicted in
1994 by the Akal Takht, the Sikhs' highest temporal authority, for
blasphemy.
Main points of
discussion
Discussion
centered on seven points: Criteria used by the University of
California's academic personnel process to hire a candidate demoted
from Assistant Professor to a Senior Lecturer at University of
Michigan?, Whether the University of California's academic personnel
process was aware of Prof. Pashaura Singh’s usage of the following
unauthentic manuscripts: MS#1245 at “Guru Nanak Dev University”,
Amritsar, India, Vanjara Pothi at “Javadi Taksal”, Ludhiana, India,
and Bahowal Pothi at “Bhai Bir Singh Sadan”, New Delhi, India during
his research, The University of California Riverside’s failure to
respond to the letter of Mrs. Saini - Major Donor to the Chair for
Sikh and Punjabi Studies, who appealed for global Search for a
Chairperson and recommended not to offer the Chair to Prof. Singh?,
Reason for the University of California at Riverside to rescind on
its promise to Sikh community that they will not hire Prof. Singh
for the Sikh Chair in 2005 and wait till 2008 to appoint him to the
Chair through what seems like a Backdoor?, Due process and thorough
examination of University of California's academic personnel and
recommendation process in selection of only scholars like Prof.
Pashaura Singh affiliated with Mr. Hew McLeod and group?, In order
to promote his blasphemous research on Sikh Scriptures (Guru Granth
Sahib Ji), Prof. Singh’s methodology of fabrication, falsification
and ghostwriting, How a chairperson can be effective Chair holder by
avoiding truth and choosing to have selective communication with
Sikh community, and the forthcoming seminar at University of
California Riverside on Sikh Studies - December 4 to 6, 2008, to
commemorate the 300th Anniversary of the installation of the Guru
Granth Sahib in 1708. During which Prof. Singh wants to focus on the
shifting paradigms in the study of the Sikh tradition and address
recent developments in the field.
1
October 2008
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