As devout Sikhs in the five continents celebrate Vaisakhi, the collective birthday of Khalsa Panth, conflicting thoughts and emotions come flooding into our consciousness. Unlike some other prophet preceptors Guru Nanak laid special emphasis on the purity of social temporal aspects of life even as he stressed the spiritual and moral side of human existence. It is significant that every Guru from Guru Arjun onwards was called Sacha Padshah the True King, and provided with various symbols of royalty. This coalition of the temporal and spi came to be known as the Mii doctrine, and Sikhs grew to be more social and politically conscious than other communities, Protestantism of the Sikh religion is consequently total and all-embracing, and those in positions of power have a duty and an obligation to practice piety and humility. Nawab Kapur Singh, the 18th century warrior saint, and Maharaja Ranjit Singh the 19th century sovereign of Punjab, are shining examples of the balancing of Shakti with Bhagti, nobility with humility.
In the past few decades, however, due to internal and external factors, the moral and historical moorings of the Khalsa institutions have suffered heavy erosion inflicting a body blow 10 the observance of Sikh virtues and the Khalsa discipline comprehensively termed Rehat Maryada. The external factors are traceable, in part, to the spurious materialist values, which necessarily from the baggage of all technological and monetarist advances. In India, these negative values in here in the amoral system of governance. In case of Punjab, for example, when Nemesis caught with a former state governor, resulting in his death in an air crash last year, a scandal of gargantuan proportions involving astronomical sums of money, was uncovered, How the secret funds generously “Loaned” by the central government to stamp out militancy in the key border state came to be funneled into the pockets of politicians, policemen, informers, and sundry militants tempted into sur. render, has been recently summed up in a special report by the intrepid journalists, Harinder Baweja and the Ramesh Vinayak of India Today News. magazine, The same moral bankruptcy is evident in the manner in which Punjab once the land of five rivers is currently awash with’ alcohol to earn for the government a whopping Rs.500 crores in revenue through an ever-expanding network of liquor thekas. This is not only in contempt of the Directive Principles of State Policy embodied in Indian Constitution, but in total disregard of the disastrous effects of alcoholism on the mental and social health of a proud but and simpleminded people.
From times immemorial, tyrants and autocrats have sought to control and homes the peoples’ religious energies for selfish goals, There is a strange parallelism in the way the 12th Century archbishop Thomas Becket, who came into conflict with King Henry II, was assassinated in the Canterbury Cathedral to assert the Divine Rights of the King, and the manner in which Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was gunned down in the holy precincts of the Golden Temple in 1984 by New Delhi’s self-appointed custodians of faith in a secular India. No wonder successive governments in Punjab continue to play politics with the premier Sikh council for Gurdwara management, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), while the holy Takhts at Patna Sahib, in Bihar, and Hazur Sahib, in Maharashtra, remain pocket boroughs of self-serving Sikhs more loyal to the government than to the Guru.
Ironically, this strange legacy stems from the epic struggle, in the 1920’s, to wrest control of the Gurdwaras from the hereditary priesthood of corrupt Mahants. Now, the Sikh electorate waits interminably for anew SGPC because the government dithers and dillydallies lest SGPC should emerge as an alternative force and the citadel of Sikh power.
The stalemate has been made worse by the sorely divided Sikh leadership, 4 poverty of moral character and absence of policy planning, Bereft of any charisma and strength of character, the leadership is hopelessly entangled in personal animosities, frittering away their energy, time and resources in petty bickering, often aided and abetted by agents provocateurs.
What Sikhs need is to keep their collective house in order, Any religious community that looks to government for support, or justice, is bond to fall victim to power politics and manipulation, Litigation and internal fights over Guruki Golak the sacred treasure are a national disgrace for the community. Such unpracticed are driving the morally sensitive and impressionable youth away from institutional Sikhism, The youth, as well/as the silent majority, ‘are traumatized Pibe gap between the practice and the precepts, It’s high time the political cadres of Shiromani Akali.
Dal and the managers of Gurdwaras did some heart searching before inviting God’s wrath and GuruKhalsa’s rejection upon themselves.
The silent majority of Sikhs everywhere will have to be more vocal and vigilant in exposing the misuse of religious and political power. They must expose and denounce such unholy alliances, At the deeper level, the spirit of Guru’s message must be shared and spread to enlighten, console and inspire, A reassertion of moral imperatives of love, truth, honesty, charity, compassion and sacrifice in Seva need to be practiced and propagated.
We urge a heroic effort by all individuals and institutions to reestablish the moral authority of Badshah Dervish Guru Gobind Singh in the spirit of Guru Nanak’s exhortation: “Ghar bandho sach-dharam ka, gad them ahalay.
Oat leho Narayaney din duniya jhalay. Nanakpakarecharan Har(i) tis dargah mallay.” (SGGS: 320).
Let the house of God stand upon the firm pillars of Truth and Righteousness, sheltered in the care of Lord of the universe our sole support here and hereafter Nanak, by grasping the Lord’s Lotus feet, thou shalt redemption.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
