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Editorial
One day, they will
discuss you at campus
For
a community that prides itself on its self-respect and gairat, just
have a look at the way things are going. Across the world, the best
and the brilliant of the community are engaging with the raging
debates to understand how best to cope with the crisis that the
Sikhs face today. At an institution like the
Harvard
University, young scholars of the community are trying to bang their
heads together in an intellectually simulating environment to make
sense of the community's past and understand the societal paradigm
in which contemporary Sikh polity hopped from one crisis to another.
Scholars like Dr Cynthia K Mahmood are deeply engaging with the
issues facing the Sikhs and have advocated how the community of the
proverbial tall poppies must not allow those who want to pluck its
best and dethrone the Sikhs from their rightful place in history.
Authors like S. Ajmer Singh have spent a lifetime not just fighting
for the community on the frontlines of the battle of ideas, but also
helping to keep us abreast by engaging in serious scholarly output
that we can access with earnestness.
But also, at the same time, look around and see what the better
placed leaders of the Sikh community are doing? In Punjab, towards
which the Sikh community across the globe legitimately looks since
it is the religion's home, the ruling Akali Dal seems to have given
a complete go by to the panthic concerns.
Prakash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal have spent a
better part of their lives trying to first have a vice like grip
over the party and then in turning it into a completely family
affair. From its role as a historical harbinger of victories for the
Sikh quom, the Akali Dal has become a mainstream political party in
India, endowed with every ill and fault that the political parties
in a corrupt state and dishonestly defined and run democracy can
have.
It
is a matter of great satisfaction that most members of the Sikh
Diaspora have given up all hope of a better conduct from the Akali
Dal leadership for whom, even in the year of the 25th anniversary of
the Indian army's attack on Sri Darbar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht
Sahib. But we need to have a more holistic view. It is indeed
possible for the Diaspora members of the community to shun such
laggards and carry on with the work with renewed vigour as the
efforts we quoted above have shown, but it is our considered view
that a path of engagement with the political leadership of the
community in
Punjab must not be ignored.
It
is of utmost importance for the community to continue work for
reforms within the SGPC, now stuffed with loyalists of the Badals.
The premier Sikh shrine management panel needs to enlarge and
broaden the scope of its work and needs a complete upgradation to a
new level of thinking and understanding of its potential role in the
affairs of the Sikhs. It is a shame that the SGPC almost slept
through the 25th anniversary of the Saka Akal Takht Sahib and has
allowed itself to be bamboozled into becoming a sidekick of the
ruling Akali Dal. It is all the more sad that many better leaders
within the Akali Dal have thought it better to keep their counsel
and hold their peace and are merely watching the fast lane down
which the party is hurtling.
The time to speak up is now. Future generations will assess and
value the role each of the dramatis personae is playing, and there
is no greater fear than of being held accountable for murdering the
future. Be afraid of the young and ticking minds who will gather
some day at Harvard or at Yale or at an Oxford to discuss how our
leaders let the quom down. The time to stand up is now.
5
August 2009
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