399.The Man in Blue – The Sikh Awareness Society

A Sikh Woman

The Sikh Awareness Society

I met some SAS activists at the Havelock Road Singh Sabha in Southall. The activists were handing out leaflets outside the Gurdwara. I refused to accept one of their leaflets in a rather unfriendly manner, which put our conversation on the wrong footing from the start.

I have seen SAS activists in the company of people who are well known to support violence against people who disagree with them and I suspect that SAS members have been involved in such violence, but I cannot prove it.

But even if I am wrong about possible involvement of SAS activists in violent attacks, I still have some very strong reservations about the notions that SAS men/boys have about ‘Sikh girls’ and Muslim men.

Two issues were mentioned during our ‘debate’ outside the Gurdwara. The first one is that ‘illegal’ Sikh girls work as prostitutes for Muslim pimps, the second that Sikh men/boys have to escort their Sikh sisters to protect them against Muslim men/boys.

I do not know anything about prostitutes and pimps in Southall but I am not at all surprised to hear that women arriving in this country without the required visa end up as prostitutes. These are not Sikh women, but they might be of Sikh background. 

A true Sikh might be an ‘illegal’ in time of war, persecution or uprising, but most people arriving here these days are just looking for a better life. This is of course legitimate, but trying to settle in a country in a dishonest manner, cannot be justified for a Sikh when you are not a refugee. 

I think that the UK and EU immigration laws are trying to prevent globalisation of people movement, while promoting globalisation of goods, which makes no sense at all, and will not work. But if you settle somewhere illegally, it will make you vulnerable to exploitation by employers, and you risk ending up making a living in a thoroughly illegal manner.      

This does not mean that we should not offer support to young women of whatever background who get trapped in prostitution. But remember that while nobody should be pressurised into prostitution, equally we cannot force anybody to leave the ‘profession’. 

The statement that Sikh girls/young women in Southall need to be escorted begs the question whether we have brought up a generation of young women who are incapable to look after themselves. The young Sikh women I know are usually more clued up and more committed to Guru’s teachings than young Sikh men. Is this an example of Sikh men not respecting their sisters ? In the next column I will explore this issue further.

398.The Man in Blue – Ashutosh Maharaj, Sant Rama Nand, Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh

Do Bilia
Ik Bila

The Man in Blue

With great sadness have I heard about the Sikhs in Panjab being involved in yet another row with a bogus ‘God-man’. It shows that the Sikhs are part of the problems of Panjab, and not part of the solution.

The worst of it is that many think that this is the Guru’s way, that getting into fights with followers of Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh, Sant Rama Nand or of Ashutosh Maharaj is similar to Guru’s struggle for freedom against the Mughal authorities of his day.

Why do Sikhs get excited when some idiot says that he is the incarnation of Guru Gobind Singh and/or Jesus Christ ? Why not concentrate on teaching Sikhí to the Sikhs and to all others who are interested ? Why not teach that we should follow ‘The One’ and our ‘Eternal Guru’, the Guru Granth Sahib ?

Why do we not break our links with the self appointed holy men of the ‘sant samaj’ ? Why do we not formulate a policy that will finally implement a practical model of ‘Guru Granth – Guru Panth’ ? Why do we not abolish the present rule by politicians, pradhans, jathedars and babe ? 

Why do we not explain to the world-wide panth that Guru never waged war on dodgy god-men and that Guru would condemn useless practices anywhere ? Guru would condemn our present rituals and rules that are neither based on the Guru Granth Sahib nor on the Sikh Rehat Maryada.

Why do we not explain that the Guru Granth Sahib says that ultimately the test is whether a person has Godly behaviour, and that running amok in the streets of Panjab, forcing shops to close like a bunch of hooligans is neither Godly nor Sikhí behaviour.

Of course the Panjab Police was totally out of order firing on the demonstration, even in India there is no death penalty on being in a demo. But I do not understand why the people killed are called shahíds.

Was the demonstration about protecting the oppressed ? Were the demonstrators fighting against injustice ? The answer to both questions is no. Being killed, even being killed unjustly, does not make you a shahíd. This is what ‘Baba Dhumma’ had to say : “We are against Ashutosh as his followers popularise him as a reincarnation of Guru Nanak Dev, Lord Rama and Jesus Christ. We cannot buy this.”

Well ‘Baba Dhumma’, you do not have to buy this, nobody is forced to follow any of these idiotic sant-babas. The fact that so many people, Sikh and Hindu, follow these idiotic ‘religious leaders’ shows you the poor state of both the Sikh and the Hindu dharm in Panjab.

397.The Man in Blue – Inspiration or Dictation

Kensington Gardens
This looks a bit like a building out of a fairy tale

I have started to do katha in English on every last Friday of the month in the Hounslow Singh Sabha. This is aimed at younger members of the sangat but everybody is welcome.

During my first session I spoke about the definition of a Sikh as found in the Sikh Rehat Maryada, on the 27^th of November I started talking about Rahras, beginning with So Dar.

During this katha session I told the sangat that the So Dar appears three times in the Guru Granth, first as pauri 27 of Japji Sahib (pana 6), then as the opening verse of Rahras (pana 8) and finally under Rág Asá (pana 347).

The version in Japji Sahib is slightly different from the one found in Rahras and Rág Asá. The main differences are that Japji Sahib is not in rág and that   ‘tudhno’ appears as ‘tuhno’. I think that the slightly different words give a better rhythm to the text and make it easier to sing.

Rahras is a compilation of sabads that all can also be found under their own rágs (Asá and Gujri). It includes 5^th Guru’s sabads which makes it likely that the Rahras was compiled by him when Guru Arjan compiled the Ádi Granth.

It is possible that Guru Nanak wrote two versions of the So Dar, or that it was Guru Arjan who made the changes. The important thing to keep in mind is that whoever made the changes did not in any way change the meaning.

This is where a Singh who daily does seva in the Gurdwara took exception, and although I did initially not understand his objections, I now worked out what is issue was.

This Singh thinks that the Guru Granth Sahib has come about by divine dictation, the Guru’s mouth spoke God’s words, the Guru’s hand wrote God’s words. And I agree, based on my understanding of the Guru Granth. 

But I think that God dictated meanings, not the actual words. Guru writes about humans not being able to describe God. He writes that even if we had hundreds of thousands of lives and all the paper, all the pens in the world, we still would not be able to describe God.

In other passages in the Guru Granth Sahib, Guru (the collective of all authors of the Guru Granth), describes the same using different images, different words. The ideas are from God, and were absorbed by our Gurus and Bhagats whose minds and souls were very close to God. From these wonderful human beings blessed by God, come creative images to make us understand God’s message. Our ultimate Guru is God and God is in the writings of the Bhagats and the Sikh Gurus, in the Guru Granth Sahib.

396.The Man in Blue – The Sang Parivar

my decorations on my orange wall 

This is not an anti-Hindu article. I met many Hindus who believed in the One, who believed in One Humanity and who did not look down on people of low caste, who made an honest living and shared with others. Some were better Sikhs than many of us.

But I strongly dislike members of the BJP, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena and whatever other ‘Sang Parivar’ organisations there are inside Bharat Mata and outside it.

I dislike these people, as I dislike Panjabis who look down on people from Bihar and UP, as I dislike caste Hindus looking down on ‘outcastes’, as I dislike anybody anywhere who divides humanity in higher and lower.  

The Sang Parivar has given up on the idea of Dharm as a way of righteousness. They class all people who follow a dharm that originated on the sub-continent as Hindus. Not in a friendly open way but in a way that wants to narrow down all to their own narrow vision.

The Sang Parivar loves the Sikhs when they fight against Mughals or other Muslims. But if you tell them that a good Sikh should stand up against all dictatorships and all oppressors, including their own intolerant lot, they start foaming at the mouth.

They think that all Indian Christians and Muslims should leave their alien creeds and rejoin the Hindu Dharm. And they do not go about this in a friendly manner either. I agree with them that western Christians or Central Asian or Middle Eastern Muslims have no business to come to India to bring their ‘true religions’ to the poor ‘heathens’.

But killing missionaries, persecuting Christians and Muslims, infiltrating Buddhist, Jain and Sikh organisations, puts them on the same level as the most intolerant members of the Ibrahimic religions. This kind of Hindu supremacist ideas are not unique to the so called ‘Sang Parivar’ but can also be found amongst members of Congress and other smaller parties.

The Dal Khalsa which bravely keeps the idea of Khalistan alive in the East Panjab, makes a big mistake in their attitude towards poor, low caste Hindus from UP and Bihar. These people very often follow the Bhagats whose sabads have an important place in the Guru Granth Sahib.

The people that follow the Sang Parivar ideology are mostly Caste Hindus, not the poor low caste people. There is no Hindu majority in India. If you add the faith and ethnic minorities in India together and include the Dalits, they will form a majority. A real rainbow coalition could rule India, and might even make the biggest democracy a real democracy.

395.The Man in Blue – St Truiden and Ieper II

My ‘potia’ at Ieper

St Truiden and Ieper II

In my previous article we got to the point where we left late from St Truiden and arrived late in Ieper on Armistice Day, November 11.

The weather forecast was reasonable and the first part of the day was better than the forecast. In the afternoon it was more cloudy and windy, but at least we did not get soaked like in November 2008.

There were only about 3 Sikhs from the UK (we can and must do better), a few from the USA, including Sardar Gurmit Singh, president of Council of Khalistan, about 10 people from the Netherlands and for the rest Sikhs from St Truiden, Gent and surroundings and from Brussel/Bruxelles (the Gurdwara is in Vilvoorde, a Dutch speaking town just north of Brussel).

We attended the act of remembrance, the one minute silence and the playing of the last post at the Menen Gate, and in spite of a request to have just one wreath from every community, the Sikhs had quite a few.

After the main event we went to the Grote Markt, had tea and biscuits, and then walked back to the Menen Gate where the Sikhs commemorated the events of 1984, the attack on Darbar Sahib and the anti-Sikh pogroms.

Afterwards we went by coach and cars to the Bedford Cemetery, where some soldiers of the British Indian Army are buried, and from there to Hollebeke, where in October 1914 the first Indian soldiers were deployed on the ‘western front’. There is a small monument with text in Sanskrit, Urdu and Gurmukhi which was unveiled in April (Vaisakh) 1999.

We had St Truiden bread parkoré, simple food, not bad, and a cup of tea at the cemetery and later in Hollebeke more bread parkoré and roti and dal. Hollebeke is also a good place to take pictures.

Sardar Gurmit Singh spoke about the efforts to establish Khalistan, he highlighted human rights issues on the subcontinent, and attempts to get the Sikh rights recognised in the countries they live in. Others also made a contribution.

This was not the most successful Ieper Armistice Day commemoration from the Sikh point of view. The numbers were low and it was a pity that there were so few people from outside Belgium and the Netherlands.

We will keep working on it, but in spite of a slight disappointment I was very happy to help the organising of the event and to make a contribution on the day itself. Having an annual event that gets members of the small Sikh communities in the Benelux together is good, remembering our European history is even better.

394.The Man in Blue – St Truiden en Ieper I

Harnam Singh
Sikh Sepoy in the ‘Great War’ of 1914 till 1918

I am busy preparing for interfaith week, for which many of the FE Colleges I work with want my advice and assistance. I am also preparing for the London Regional Forum of the 24^th of November, where London FE Colleges learn about new developments in interfaith work and get some training.

To restrict my time even more I went to Coventry on November 7 to meet my friend Balwant Singh and to visit all the Coventry Gurdwaré and I am writing this during a four-day visit to Belgium to attend the 11/11 Armistice Day commemoration in Ieper.

Saturday 14/11 I will be at an all day Lib Dem London Region conference where I will speak about my work with FE Colleges, Tuesday 17/11 I will be in Birmingham for the Association of Colleges conference and on Friday 20/11 again in Birmingham to discuss the status of the Sikh 5 Ks and turban.

I am not complaining or bragging, just explaining that the interesting and rewarding life that I have been blessed with sometimes gets too interesting.

On 10/11 I went to Belgium by Eurostar and got my kirpan through without too much trouble. From Brussel Zuid station I took a train to Landen and a connecting bus to the Sikh Sangat Gurdwara, Halmaal, St Truiden.

The bad news from St Truiden is that my brother Mohinder Singh, the Gurdwara pradhan, has recently been attacked by some white thugs. The good news is that the Gurdwara held its second Nagar Kirtan where this time the Panj Piaré were allowed to carry their traditional talwar. 

On the afternoon after my arrival I went with Manpreet (Louke) Kaur and Granthi Kewal Singh to an event in the adult education centre where the Flemish equivalent of ESOL classes are given. I spoke with the burgemeester (mayor) about the cultural and religious communities in St Truiden.

The political situation in St Truiden is complicated. I hope that if the mayor loses his job the good work he is doing with the diverse communities of the town will continue.

November 11 is a national holiday in Belgium, and as per usual we went from the Gurdwara by coach to Ieper. The grey sky did not look to threatening, but it also did not really promise sunshine. 

We left late and arrived in Ieper late, we missed the actual parade but were on time for the ceremony at the Menen Gate.

This report on my visit to Belgium will be continued next week. Pictures will appear both on this blog and on my flickr account.

393.Man in Blue – Brahminical Practices

Although the Guru Granth Sahib makes it perfectly clear that Brahminical practices are a waste of effort, many of our fellow Sikhs seem to know better than Guru. There are persistent misconceptions around food that are not supported by the Guru Granth Sahib or the Rehat Maryada. 

The Guru Granth Sahib pokes fun at the Pandits, who think that by creating a cooking square, by drawing a line around them, by cooking everything themselves and keeping others out, they can keep ‘pollution’ out, while from the air all kind of stuff falls on them. 

There is only one thing that I can understand. I do prefer eating food cooked lovingly at home, in the Gurdwara or at a small family run restaurant. Also, I have been a vegetarian much longer than I have been a Sikh. 

But the idea that eating meat is a sin, that I can only eat stuff that has been cooked by fellow Sikhs, the idea that I would be polluted by going into a meat shop, that somebody’s hand over my food pollutes my food, all this makes no sense, it serves no purpose and it is not Sikhí. 

Sikhí is about making an honest living, Sikhí is about always thinking about God, Sikhí is about sharing. Sikhí is about learning to love God and creation, Sikhí is about learning to experience God’s love for us. Sikhí is about giving a positive direction to your lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego. 

Ethical behaviour, making a positive contribution to society, defending the defenceless, fighting injustice are part of Sikhí. In ‘Vár Malár Ki’ Guru Nanak writes about meat and he looks at both sides of the argument. Guru does not tell us to be a vegetarian, Guru does not tell us not to be a vegetarian. 

It is clear that a pandit type lifestyle is not what Guru expects from us. 

I knew this family in Panjab where the son and the mother were Amritdhari and the father and two daughters were not. The son was of the Taksali way of thinking and insisted that only his mother could do the cooking and the cooking preparation, otherwise he could not eat with his family. 

As a result the daughters were sitting around being idle, while their mother who did not have very great health was working away in the kitchen. Our brave Amritdhari boy might help in the langar kitchen, but of course would not give his mother a hand. Is this Sikhi ? NO ! 

In Amritsar, before I took Amrit, I could never share the overgenerous helpings of Karah Prasád, that sevadars gave me, with my friends, many of whom were followers of the Taksal or AKJ. They would not accept any food from me. Is this Sikhí ? NO !

392.Man in Blue – First Hounslow Youth Kirtan Darbar (YKD) Evening Programme

Friday October 30 was the first time that the YKD team was in charge of the early evening programme of Rahiras, Ardas, Kirtan & Katha. This will take place from 18.00 till 20.00 every last Friday of the month for the coming year. On every first Sunday of the month from 11.00 till 12.00 there is a further katha in English and kirtan programme.

This first time the Rahiras was read by Jaswinder Kaur and me, the ardás by me and the Vák by Jaswinder Kaur. This was followed by about 30 minutes of kirtan by the young kirtanis studying with Santokh Kaur Bhain-Ji and after that I did half an hour of simran and katha in English.

I did simran on Vahiguru, on the ‘Mul Mantr’ and on Gobinde, Mukande from Jáp Sahib. In my katha in English the main theme was the definition of a Sikh as found in the Rehat Maryada, followed by the leadership of the Sikhs by the Guru Granth Sahib.

Pritpal Singh looked after the projection of the shabads and Ardas on the screen, and Gurkamal Singh was in attendance of the Guru Granth Sahib.

We demonstrated that we are able to deliver the programme. Our challenge is to involve more and more young members of the sangat. We do have sufficient kirtan contacts, with the students of the kirtan class and older kirtanis who do kirtan in rág.

It should be easy to involve youngsters in the reciting of Rahiras, first sitting with us and later taking the lead. We are not worried about mistakes, but I do not want the sort of superfast recitation that you hear too often. Same goes for the ardás. There is no need to know the ardás by heart, we can read from my prepared sheets or from multi-lingual or Panjabi gutké.

For the vák we use the shabad that came up first thing in the morning, which makes it possible to become familiar with the text to be recited.

Finding people who are confident to do katha in English will be more difficult. I had a chance to ‘practice’ in the smaller Gurdwaré in Belgium and the Netherlands. I am gaining confidence in doing this, but it takes a lot of preparation to come to full understanding of any shabad.

In all this we try to stick to letter and spirit of the Rehat Maryada, which means that Rahiras starts with So Dar, as it does in the Guru Granth Sahib, and ends with Mundavani and the final slok.

This is a good chance for young Singhs and Kaurs to learn Sikh skills. We should be less dependent on granthis, ragis and kathakars, I think the Gurdwara should be run by the sangat under the guidance of the granthi.

391.Is my Sister equal to me ?

Harjinder Singh & his friend Robert Noorlander in Haarlem

Is my sister equal to me ?

My answer to this question, whether I look at it from my Dutch or my Sikh perspective, is a resounding YES ! From a sub-continental point of view the question is more challenging. The two main religions or dharms on the sub-continent have a rich tradition of treating women as second class, as creatures to be ruled by men.

Sikhí is firmly based on the unity of mankind, but I have seen inequality being practised by Sikhs in Panjab and to a lesser degree here in the UK. I also find that English society is less equal in many respects than what I am used to in the Netherlands. This does not mean that they get everything right in my country of origin !

Guru’s teachings are wonderful. It is obvious from Gurbaní that Guru sees all creation, all creatures as coming from God, and that therefore we should respect all creation. Judging by Gurbaní Sikhs are way ahead of Panjabi, western, Hindu or Ibrahimic ‘teachings’.

The other day I went to two interfaith meetings. At the first meeting I met a female Anglican priest, who was treated by her two male colleagues as an absolute equal. That same day in another meeting I met a female vicar of the United Reformed Church. Both ladies were better educated than the majority of our granthis and were very comfortable in the company of people of other faiths.

A few years ago I attended a meeting regarding the Muslim school in Slough. The committee that was to decide on the school could not come to a decision and the case for a Muslim school was brought before an adjudicator.

The hall was full, partly with the Muslim variety of our greybeards, but there was a good presence of young Muslim women, many of them in hijáb. The men did what South Asian men are good at, they disagreed and launched personal attacks on each other.

The young Muslim women spoke good English, and formulated their contributions well. If it had not been for them the case of the Slough Islamic School might have been lost. 

I am not saying that all Muslims and Christians are right and all Sikhs are wrong. In Sikhí we are on firm ground when we speak out for ‘One God, One Humanity’. But I am disappointed when I see that we are overtaken by Christians, Jews and Muslims when it comes to practising equality.

Please let us concentrate on getting our own house in order and let us practice equality between men and women, between all !

389.The Man in Blue – Moral politicians, Moral us ?

Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue

Moral politicians, Moral us ?

I am not impressed by the present hysteria around MP’s expenses. If you have lived in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh you know what corruption is really like. What our MPs have been up to is ‘peanuts’ compared with sub-continental practices. 

Our MPs keep saying that what they did was within the law and approved by the relevant authorities. Apart from some MPs who really stretched the interpretation of the rules to the very limit, this seems to be true.

Mind you, changing the status of your first residence to second residence for financial gain and selling properties that have been bought with financial support of the taxpayers and pocketing the profits sounds like fraud.

The real problem is not that most of our MPs are particularly bad, but that they are a reflection of our society where ‘making money’ is the number one value and where many people think that they have a right to extraordinary large slices of the cake, because of the position they have in society.

People are not encouraged to judge on ethical grounds, but on ‘what you can get away with’, more or less within the rules.

Does an MP need a huge income ? Does an MP have to be on an equal footing with a captain of industry ? Do top bureaucrats need to earn £ 100.000 a year or more ? Are even our local councillors not overpaid ?

Many of us could easily do with less, fewer earthly goods, simpler food, simpler clothing. Urban poor often live on fast food and claim they cannot afford fresh food. But rice or roti with simple mixed vegetables is cheaper and healthier than the frozen or tinned foods from the supermarket !

We should all, in business, in politics, in government jobs or whatever look at the ethical side of our life first and foremost. Is it justified to earn 50.000 or more while people who do ‘simple’ but essential jobs like cleaning do not even get half of it ? Is it really justified claiming certain expenses, would you not have bought these things anyway, business trip or not ?

Imagine that you were to meet with any of our Gurus, could you look him straight into the eyes explaining your lifestyle, the unnecessary things that you spend your money on, the time and energy wasted on acquiring Maya ?

Our MPs would be happier with less, we all would be happier with less. Spending less, living a simpler life will make us richer than any millionaire, and will cure the ills western and eastern societies suffer from. Not just living for ‘me, me, me’ but sharing with others is the profitable way of life.