I retumed last night from the centennial celebrations of the Parliament of World Religions from August 28 to September 5, 1993. 1 am writing this article this morning sitting at the feet of Guru Granth Sahib, so that I may not forget the rich experiences and may not say anything wrong.
My very first experience was participating in the interreligious parade in down town Chicago on Saturday, August 28. This parade brought me the thought that whereas 100 years ago there was not a single Sikh representative in such a conference, now the parade was overflowing with Sikh turbans and chunnis and richly decorated floats including one of Guru Granth Sahib. In fact this parade appeared to be a Sikh parade because beside us it included only one float by Muslims, a few Christians and a few Buddhists.
The next good feeling I get was when I realized that other religions had been working on this conference for five years, Sikhs were only informed about it in February 1993. We were not only prepared for it, but became its major participants. I said to myself, we blame ourselves for so many short comings including disunity, slander and short tempers, but we should sometimes feel proud of our strengths also such as the ability to accomplish things in five months which other communities fail to do even in five years.
My next memorable incident was attendance at a Plenary Seminar on Sunday, August29, 1993. Topic of discussions was “The Voices of the Dispossessed”. In this very largely attended seminar, people facing human rights violations were narrating their stories. Nothing happened when blacks told about their mistreatment in America, or the atrocities in Peru or other parts of the world. But when a representative of Kashmir started telling about the sufferings of his people and narrating how he was not allowed to attend the funeral of his own mother, many Hindu Swamies in saffran robes Started shouting slogans and making disturbance. But because the Kashmiri representative was at the end of his speech, he managed to complete his remarks. Next a person from Mahrashtes (probably a Hindu) spoke about the economic exploitation of fisherman through building of Sardar Sarowar dam, no body objected. Next came the tum of Dr. Gumit Singh Aulakh. He had hardly uttered a Couple of sentences about the number of people killed in Golden Temple attack and Delhi massacre in 1984, slogans after slogans were raised by the Hindus sitting in all different places of the hall. Then some Sikhs started shouting back, the end result was that instead of asking the slogan shouters to keep quiet or keep out, Gurmit Singh Aulakh was asked (o leave the podium.
The Sikhs felt agitated and Started considering walking out, they were told by the organizers that they had to only temporarily discontinue Aulakh’s speech to control the situation, which they alleged was different than the one approved by them. At the end of the seminar they announced that they will now arrange a special seminar the same day for Aulakh and will make sure that nobody will disturb that seminar. Almost every Sikh T Saw there started feeling happy or at least satisfied. But I told them, “Hey, this is nothing but a way to pacify us like promising a child a bigger and better toy tomorrow,” and that is what happened: after postponing it for a day or so they were told, that all the seven days were so heavily packed with different programs that there was no practical slot of time for this special seminar. But anyhow, everybody agreed that perhaps this was our Guru’s own way of helping us convey our plight, because this happening started a big controversy, and so many television and newspaper men came to visit with Aulakh and Sikhs to know more about us and our problems. Many non-Sikh audiences told and agreed with us that if the Indian government sympathizers cannot let you speak here, we can easily see, what kind of treatment they are giving you in India, As I do not want to make this letter to Lengthy, I think I will stop here and will share my other reflections next week. Daljit Singh Jawa Topeka, Kansas.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 24, 1993
