|
Editorial
Sirsa Dera: The Real Answer
 What possibly
could have exercised the leaders of the Panth, the top brass of the
ruling Akali Dal, those at the helm of the SGPC in these times of
troublesome conflicts and crises that the Sikh community faces?
As this edition
of the World Sikh News has brought out on various pages, young Sikhs
are pulling out all stops, marshalling technology, mastering new
mediums, and cracking new codes to ensure that the world at large
gets to know who the Sikhs are.
In
Dallas,
young university students are banding together in groups and
visiting other campuses, working with the authorities and trying to
spread the message about the universal values of Sikhism.
A young Angad
Singh is getting behind and in front of the camera speaking through
the audio-visual medium and taking the message where our preachers
normally do not reach.
In
Punjab,
enthusiastic Sikhs carried out a massive blood donation camp,
setting world records and sending a message that Sikhism does not
believe in creed, caste or race.
Amid all these
developments, Sikhs continue to face a rather queer problem. A man
accused by
India's top
sleuthing agency CBI of being a rapist and a murderer is finding
much support from the rulers and is belittling the Sikhs every day.
If the CBI found him a prime accused, it did not do so because the
Sikhs asked it to. It was India's Supreme Court which had ordered
the CBI to investigate the multiple murders, and it was the Supreme
Court that supervised the entire investigation after being convinced
that the accused was getting political backing.
This man who
calls himself Gurmit Ram Rahim does attract a lot of Dalit
followers, does run huge deras and a lot of jobs and lives are
dependent on the way he runs his establishment. This man has gone
the extra mile in enraging the Sikhs. He imitated the tenth Sikh
Guru, carried out provocative imitation ceremonies and managed to
raise the Sikh ire. He preaches violence, his followers often get
violent, and many a clash has already happened between enraged Sikhs
and dera followers.
Once violence
gets inducted into the body polity, it acquires a login of its own,
and it is a situation that the rulers and those at the helm of
affairs should have been careful about. Issues of religion and
provocative challenges to faith are sensitive issues, and the
distance between emotional outbursts and blood spilling on the roads
is often very thin.
Gurmit Ram Rahim
is doing all he can to confuse the message of Sikhism, he misuses
Gurbani, poses as a Guru, draws parallels with Sikh Gurus, uses Sikh
idiom, rituals etc. Had he abandoned such an idiom, stopped
referring to Sikh Gurus, stop misusing Gurbani, and stop copycat use
of Sikh rites and rituals, Sikhs would have had little trouble with
his ilk. He can mess up his own and others' lives if people are so
willing. But what he has succeeded in accomplishing is to create a
rift between the Sikhs and Dalits. Gullible followers see him as a
saviour, many because of the fact that the caste-riven Sikh society
has failed to engage with the debate on inclusiveness.
Some
enthusiastic Sikh leaders, unable to swallow the persistent insults
being heaped upon the Sikh community by the Sirsa dera, have been
mulling of ways to implement the hukumnama of Sri Akal Takht to shut
down these shops spewing venom, but now with elections around the
corner and family interests of top leaders of the ruling Akali Dal
impacting their stance, the fight against such deras has become all
the more difficult.
There is clearly
pressure on the clergy, and we will see more such shifting stances.
As the fight remains on to get the edict implemented, it is time to
join the fight began by Angad Singh and the young Sikh students in
Dallas.
It is time to return to the core Sikh values and engaged with great
ideals of inclusiveness. It is time to dump caste and make Sikh
community truly casteless. That will be the real answer to the many
Gurmit Rams lurking around.
18 March 2009
|
Read Also