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Calendar Issue
and Sikh Life in the Western World
Harbans Lal
 The
proposed changes in Nanakshahi Calendar recently enacted by SGPC may
jeopardize our important achievement in the Western World. Let me
explain through a case report.
Although Sikhs
have been members of the North American communities for over a
century it is only recently that, we are becoming a part of the
Western pubic life. One aspect of our public life is the presence of
our children in the public schools. That very fact presented many
challenges. One of them was recognition of Sikh presence through the
public holidays in the public school calendar.
With the hope
that something important was within our reach I accepted my
nomination and later appointment on the Dallas Independent School
District Religious Faiths Advisory committee in 2007. During this
tenure, I was selected to serve as a member of the Dallas School
Calendar Committee. In this role, I was asked to help develop a
school calendar.
After much
deliberation and presentations over a period of several months, I
succeeded in getting several Sikh historical days in the school
calendar. Because of the large size of the
Dallas School
district, its leadership makes state wide impact. Thus, our holidays
were copied in the calendars of almost all school districts in
Texas.
The Sikh
holidays included Vaisakhi, Martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev, Gurtagadi
of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur, and
Birthday of Guru Nanak Dev; a higher panel dropped the birthday of
Guru Gobind Singh, though included in the original list. It was done
perhaps to limit the number of potential holidays.
Now I felt that
the inclusion of our holidays in the school calendars in
North America is
a big achievement and it should not be jeopardized by offering dates
that are not recurring as we may not continue to be represented when
time comes to update calendars. The process takes long time and
requires appropriate representations in important committees and
task forces access to which is not guaranteed to us.
The dates I gave
to the Calendar Task Force were from Nanakshai Calendar. I was
warned that they would stay as they were at the time of the proposal
and dates would not change. Even the Guru Nanak Birthday would stay
as it was printed in the Calendar of the year of its first
publication. I had to accept that condition lest we lose the
recognition of that event.
I am detailing
this account to illustrate the potential harm done to our identity
in the Western world should we revert to the lunar calendar.
 (Harbans
Lal, PhD., D.Litt(hons) is Emeritus Professor and Chair,
Pharmacology & Neuroscience, U. North Texas Health Science Center
and a major voice for the Sikh community in the western world.)
20
January 2010
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