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Editorial
This New Year, We Will Speak Out
As the world
celebrated a New Year, the Sikh Nation joined in the global
atmosphere of happiness and reiteration of good intentions in the
form of New Year resolutions even as the Nanakshahi Calendar has its
own redletter day for similar celebrations for the community.
Ironically, it
was exactly that calendar that was under attack as we were preparing
to turn the pages of an old calendar and instead begin with a new
one.
It is a matter
of great concern that the changes were demanded by the same section
of the Panth -- yes, we do recognize that these sections, or at
least a major part thereof, do belong to the panth -- that was not
very long ago a part of the fight against Sirsa dera's fraudulent
sadh. But perhaps ironies do not end so easily.
So here is
another one: In so many words, the Sikh Quom has been demanding an
end to the culture of deras and sadhs, the very culture which is at
the root of the comeuppance of a construct called Sant Samaj.
Where in a
religion like Sikhism is there a place for a separate class of
people called the Sant Samaj? Are there more than one Samajs? Is
there a non-Sant version of the Sikh Samaj also? The basic problems
arise in the very nomenclature of such a class, and part of the
reasons behind bringing in issues of uniformity of Maryada through
instruments like Nanakshahi Calendar was this very thought.
No wonder it is
being frustrated and thwarted by sections that call themselves the
Sants.
The Sikh Quom
will soon have to take a call. Doomsayers are talking in terms of a
split in the Sikh panth. They talk of a split in almost every
matter. So the issue of Dasam Granth is there to split the Panth.
The issue of Ragmala can split the Panth. The issue of whether or
not there should be a separate SGPC for Haryana can split the Panth.
The issue of Akali Dal having an alliance with the RSS-BJP can split
the Panth. The issue of
Delhi
based Akali factions having explicit/implicit alliances with the
Congress can split the Panth. The issue of supremacy of the Akal
Takht and the supremacy of the Sikh clergy, according to some, can
split the panth.
At this rate,
we, the members of the panth, each of us connected to one or more
issues, are well on our way to split the panth manyways. Clearly,
these are not normal times. And we will be expected, we are
expected, to take a call soon. Hidden somewhere in the weeks and
months to come is a moment, one that we will not recognize when we
are there, but one which future histories will try to identify: the
moment when the Sikh Nation decided whether it will remain a
community vulnerable to many splits, many mistakes and many
corrective steps or a genuinely advanced community in keeping with
the modernity of its religion and the democratic highly universal
values that its religion enjoins upon it, one that provides
all-round nurturing of the mind, the body and the collective of its
people as well as that intangible essential, pride.
Brave
communities may often make the mistake of remaining engendered in a
sense of content. For that sort of security about the future can so
easily become self-satisfied smugness, as distasteful as it is
disempowering. We need to sit back to contemplate the scale of our
task; only then the quibbling over details that characterises so
much of our panthic discussion will seem particularly petty.
There is no
alternative to audacious reform within our institutions, but will
our leaders, entrenched as they are and masters at muddling through,
permit it? Why are we still in thrall of those who have emraced the
ideology of the enemy, who have climbed on to saffron chariots, and
have identified themselves with those spewing agendas of hatred
against the minorities?
This new year,
no matter which calendar's pages you turn, let us resolve that
neither smugness, nor timidity, will be allowed to prevail. That we
will speak up. We will speak out.
6
January 2010
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