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How Hope and Change Must Sweep The
Sikhs?
From The Editor’s Desk
In the aftermath of Barack Obama's victory, the Sikh community finds
itself once again grappling with the issues of Change and Hope. The
United States is an evolved democracy, not its Indian banana
version. So it becomes easier to not only Hope but to also question
whether we do have hope.
WASHINGTON/AMRITSAR:
Sometimes, datelines in newspapers can give a clue to the route the
thought travels. If our thoughts travelled from
Washington to
Amritsar, obviously you know what these might be about.
Who did not in
this wide world spare some time after Barack Obama's victory to
think how it will affect his life? Naturally, each community, Sikhs
being no exception, did ask themselves as to what lessons they need
to learn from an epoch-changing epic victory that has moved every
heart and left few eyes that did not moisten.
We all knew the
world just cannot go on like this, and we needed change. Change and
Hope are tricky words. We all know the world would be no different
after
January 20, 2009.
But we know the
world will not be the same either.
 It is not a mean
achievement. Rising from a community that was completely
marginalised just a few decades ago, Barack Obama has given hopes to
all those in
India who have
been marginalised, stereotyped, dis-empowered, cheated by the
entrenched brahmanical forces that wield the levers of power. The
Sikhs as a community are one people in India who have earned and
experienced sovereignty, have remained married to the concept of
universal brotherhood, utter the slogan of Sarbat Dal Bhala
everytime they are in communion with their God, have the most
egalitarian perception of the world, and have proven themselves to
be a hard-working, entrepreneur community.
Outside
India, wherever
the Sikhs have migrated to, they have carved their niche, earned
their place and have underlined the spirit of compassion and hope
and change and egalitarianism.
In
India, things
have been somewhat different.
At a time when
the Sikh community was joining in the celebrations of Barack Obama's
victory, it was also marking the anniversary of the November
massacre of the Sikhs on the roads of
Delhi in 1984.
Just a quarter century before Obama talked of Hope, Sikhs had lost
the final vestiges of hope in India when thousands of them were made
to run on the roads of
Delhi,
chased by blood-thirsty mobs who finally caught up, and burnt the
men to death, raped women and enjoyed killing children.
India's Prime
Minister went on national TV to justify it all by saying that when a
big tree falls, the earth was bound to shake. Sikhs' belief shook.
And little was done to restore it. A quarter century later, justice
eludes Sikhs even though official Indian establishment and top
courts now agree that hundreds were burnt alive in Delhi and
elsewhere.
Of the guilty,
the top politicians were accomodated, one even becoming a minister
in the union cabinet of PM Manmohan Singh. He had to quit only after
his role was exposed beyond all doubt by a panel set up by the
central government. Other killers still roam free on the roads of
Delhi and
top sleuthing agency of India, the CBI, still looks out for ways to
give clean chits to senior politicians allegedly involved.
It is at a such
a time that the Sikh community finds itself once again grappling
with the issues of Change and Hope. The
United States is
an evolved democracy, not its Indian banana version. So it becomes
easier to not only Hope but to also question whether we do have
hope.
Hope was the
only possession of the skinny lad with dark skin whom we saw being
ushered into the White House last week by President Bush. Soon, hope
will reside in that House and in our homes also.
Barack Obama had
hoped not only for the men and women of African-American descent.
His way of nurturing and keeping the hope was more broadminded. He
nurtured a hope for
America, a hope
for the world, a hope for mankind.
He too must have
pored over history text books. He too would have been sad and angry.
Just as Sikhs do.
The one thing
that the Sikhs must learn from Barack Obama is that any hopes and
aspirations they must nurture have to include all the people who
have been wronged, who have been marginalised, who have been forced
to live in degraded ways, stripped of their humanity by the
powerful, the elite and the shameless. Sikhs are for not only
themselves, they are for the world, of the world.
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Guru Nanak walked thousands of miles. Gurus made so much
sacrifice. Guru Gobind Singh blessed the Khalsa Panth. With what
objectives? Surely, it could not be for Sikhs only. We are a
world religion, our philosophy is for the world. We are
egalitarian. And there is no variety of egalitarianism that is
only meant for one community. No one can be egalitarian within a
group and a non-egalitarian outside it.
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Guru Nanak
walked thousands of miles. Gurus made so much sacrifice. Guru Gobind
Singh blessed the Khalsa Panth. With what objectives? Surely, it
could not be for Sikhs only. We are a world religion, our philosophy
is for the world. We are egalitarian. And there is no variety of
egalitarianism that is only meant for one community. No one can be
egalitarian within a group and a non-egalitarian outside it.
How can the
Sikhs not be bothered about what is happening to women in
India's
north-east? How can we not be worried about the stereotyping of the
Muslims in India? How are we not concerned about what the notion of
"reprisal terrorism" is leading to (see page 14-15 for a detailed
reportage)?
So, how is being
a Sikh not connected to being bothered about what is happening to
the entire Dalit domain in
India?
Seventy years
before Barack Obama, someone else studied at the same university and
similarly pored over texts to find that his people hadn't been free
as long as he could remember. He was Bhimrao Ambedkar. He too wanted
Change. Much of Barack Obama's agenda of Change is still to even
begin. Much of Ambedkar's Change agenda is being talked about in
India and
the brahamanical forces have either succeeded or are trying to
hijack that agenda in order to defeat it.
As for the
Sikhs, the policy of annihilation failed, so the brahamnical policy
currently is to assimilate. There is an entire economic, political,
social, religious, cultural war being waged against the Sikhs, most
of it in most polite terms of the discourse, to finish off the
uniqueness of the religion, its outer idenitity, its inner core
values, its basic philosophy of opposition to brahamnism (not
brahamans).
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Let us celebrate the Hope. With the promise that we shall
inspire and be inspired by promise of Change. This Change will
start from Self and then go on the Society. Let us turn to the
Self. That is the message also of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
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To just have a
glimpse of the ways in which the brahamanical forces usurp the
agenda, the identity, the philosophy, the ethos of a community, read
the accompanying story on the front page to see how a political
party formed and nurtured to advance the interests and the agenda of
a fiercely unique community like Sikhs degrades itself into a
“secular” party that is ailed by the same non-seriousness, money and
mafia power, de-politicisation menace and cult of individual and
family. What else is brahamanisation? A total disregard for
democratic, egalitarian modes of thought and action and arrogating
the resources, power and agenda to oneself and alignment with the
elite and the corrupt is revealed by all facets of the functioning
of the Akali Dal and its leadership.
It is time the
Diaspora Sikhs stopped looking towards those within the party to
take up the cudgels and start themselves asking the questions. So
many of the Diaspora Sikhs visit
Punjab, and
Punjab lives in so many hearts among the Diaspora Sikhs. Please
re-connect to this Punjab in your hearts, re-connect to the concern
in your hearts. It is this connect that will bring forth the ideas
and hope churned by the great change in the United States of America
to the agendas and concerns of the Sikh community.
Obama is not a
product of the Black movement for civil rights, and he never claimed
that legacy. But nothing takes away his right to invoke the name of
Malcolm X. He continues with the legacy of King, X & Company. But
the Americans cannot arrogate to themselves the right and privilege
to look up to Obama. The Sikhs have as much right to look up to him
and be inspired.
America’s
black movement has had a great influence on the Indian Dalits’ fight
for their rights. Why should the Sikhs resist any influence on their
agenda?
So, let us
celebrate the Hope. With the promise that we shall inspire and be
inspired by promise of Change. This Change will start from Self and
then go on the Society. Let us turn to the Self. That is the message
also of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. In this year of Gurta Gaddi
Celebrations, may Waheguru open our minds and hearts to absorb the
universal ideology of egalitarianism.
12 November
2008
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