Nobody gives the power to anyone
Whosoever takes the power, takes it with his own force
Without long hair [kesh] and weapons a man is a sheep,
grabbed by their ear they can be dragged anywhere.
We often hear these lines that the state can be subordinate to the arms (Shashtra). These lines of an unknown poet are preached as Guru Gobind Singh ji. Instead of being a peer of their times, majority of people have created such an ideology that one does not give power to anyone, but it has to be taken by force. Based on the second line, such misleading propaganda is made that state can’t be realized without arms.
Hence, many Singhs (Sikhs) do not believe in democratic practices and whenever someone among the Sikhs raises hot slogans and promotes arms, he immediately becomes the hero of ordinary people. In the last decades of the last century, when the slogan of owning motorcycles and arms was given, thousands of youths impulsively took to the path of arms without any political intelligence or consideration of the consequences. Turning away from the path of knowledge and democratic processes, they became a part of ignorant violence and became victims of government repression.
The lines of an 18th century poet may have been fine in the era of dictatorship and foreign invaders, but in today’s modern democratic world nothing can be achieved by arms. No armed movement has been successful in any country since the Second World War. If it has been, that became possible with the military or political support of another country. Countries around the world have legally accepted that possessing arms and the right to use them is reserved only to the state army or police. They are responsible for protecting the life and property of all. When any community takes up arms without the knowledge and thought, the state gets an opportunity to repress. Similarly, physical force is of no importance in today’s time. Power can also be attained today with more mental strength than physical strength. The results of the last year’s 2022 elections are sending a clear message that the people following the path of weapons and personal force have not been able to achieve anything for Punjab or Panth in the past years after June 1984 even after the killing of thousands of people. In contrast, a party that came out of Punjab a few years ago based on people’s issues ruled the state with a broom and mind without using or propagating arms. To win by fighting democratically was a great success of Kisan Morcha, many unpleasant efforts were made to derail it by raising flags. The people involved in it have been touted as the community heroes.
In my opinion, it is the duty of Sikh preachers, leaders and political scholars to make efforts towards increasing the trend of basic education towards enlightenment among the youth so that the tendency of carelessness in the way of self-force can be stopped and democratic values can be promoted and instead of fanatical religious thinking, the way of adopting secular thinking can be chosen. Punjab is not only inhabited by Sikhs but there are more other communities than Sikhs. Therefore, instead of sectarian thinking, the Sikh community should stay connected to its proud Sikh philosophy so that we can demonstrate the path of Baba Nanak’s folklore to the entire world. The ideology of the Gurus is the ideology of the good of the whole world. The Sikh community is considering only the organizing of the langar (community kitchen) as everything. Due to our culture of promoting weapons, even the langar we organize is not improving our image.
Therefore, giving heads (sacrificing one’s life) without using them (thinking) is meaningless. Heads were also given in 1846, but not used. The Khalsa kingdom was the biggest power in South Asia at that time where one rupee was equal to 12 dollars and 30 percent of the world was accounted for by economics.
Even in 1920-25, the gurudwaras were freed from the Mahants by sacrificing, but without using head. Because of this, the Sikhs could not gain their sovereignty and could not accept the Gurmat doctrine and also gave up their concept of Sikh state. Also, in 1946 they did not use their heads and gave up the demand of their homeland and after that they could not take steps towards the liberation of the homeland. In the process of not letting the formation of Pakistan, a large part of Punjab was lost and Lahore and Nankana also went to the share of Pakistan. We were left only with the slogans of sacrifices.
Even before and after 1984, the knowledge of using the head remained incomplete. Even though the Sikhs had a large state in the past, today they have become stateless and consider Hemkunt as their historical pilgrimage site. The Sikhs should get rid of the ways of the British Mahants. Hence, instead of the medieval thinking, knowledge-based modernism has to be adopted.
