Sir,
In her recent tour of Sikh Gurdwara’s in the United States Bibi Bimal Kaur Khalsa “made particular reference to the tussles among local groups over control of Gurdwara’s and said our resources should not be wasted in courts.” (WSN 3/22/91) A few months back S.Sant Singh Maskeen observed that at least 90% of the Gurdwara’s he visited in Canada were involved in local fighting. Actually nobody from outside need tell us all of us know from personal knowledge that for one reason or the other everywhere there is a continuous bickering going on and many times violent clashes have occurred in the presence of Holy Granth Sahib. I may add that this fighting among ourselves is not a new phenomenon: Monograph No.18 “The Punjab a hundred years ago” published by Language Department Panjab 1971 quotes the Observations of a French professor VJ acqumont who visited Panjab during the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the following words. “Such is the temper of the Sikhs that cartridges are carefully taken away from the soldiers except in action or when used for practice Even the flints are removed from the muskets. I gather that otherwise there would be continual cases of men shooting each other or of actual units fighting among themselves.”
Eight years before the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh this French professor predicted that “It is likely that Sikh monarchy will end with the death of Ranjit; the two princes will undoubtedly fight for the throne; and the great Jagirdars will rise to assert their independence.” All of us know that is exactly what happened. That is why we are slaves since last 150 years and if we do not want to remain slaves for another 150 years then we better stop fighting among ourselves and stop it right now.
Naturally the question arises how we do that because the fighting is not restricted between any distinct groups like Keshdharis or Sehjdharis pro or anti-Khalistanis or between any urban or rural communities. I have seen the different fights even among Amritdharis or people of the same village and even same family. To me it appears that perhaps somehow fighting is in our genes and it is this characteristic of ours which is both our biggest strength and biggest weakness. So instead of blaming this group or that group for this problem let us simply recognize our own character and evolve ways and means so that we are able to stop our in fights before they get out of hand or become violent and defame our community. I invite all the learned Sikh readers to suggest their own mechanisms or processes in this paper itself. For a start I suggest that let us create some kind of National Sikh Mediation and Arbitration Council to which nominations will be made from each Gurdwara Like the U.S. court system this council will have circuit and district judges who will help the Sikh Gurdwara’s resolve their difference and conduct their elections without the necessity of wasting precious resources in the courts. Again this is just an idea to start with. We can have a conference to consider all other better and more practical ideas. I will appreciate if your readers will contact me so that can judge how much interest is there in solving this problem and then take steps to convene a conference for this purpose if so warranted Daljit Singh Jawa Topeka Kansas
Article extracted from this publication >> April 19, 1991
