Forgetting the Gurus

In the afternoon there was a jalsa under an elegant shamiana. The huge gathering was addressed by Prime Minister Manomhan Singh, former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and others. Their message was to remind all Indians of the Guru Granth’s plea: the equality of man, the brotherhood of all.

Sikhs everywhere celebrated this event with great elan and spirit. They even managed an invitation to the White House in Washington to carry their message of peace and goodwill. And what is the message? Who was the messenger? Who put it all together for us?

I come from the village of Tarn Taran. Guru Arjun Dev lived his life here. All around us is the soil out of which grew the faith of the Sikhs. In the hot month of June we all celebrated the martyrdom of Guru Arjun Dev in Lahore, by order of Emperor Jehangir. It is in that memory that in June, the Sikhs put up shabeels of cool sweet drinks in every town for all people.

The Granth Sahib is an eclectic holy book. While it contains the hymns of six of the ten Gurus, it also contains writings from the Bhakti movement, of 30 of India’s most famous Hindu, Muslim and Sufi saints. Their poetry and thoughts are preserved and promoted by the Sikh Granth. Baba Farid, the greatest Sufi ever, who lived 300 years before Guru Nanak, is one of our favourite readings.

Guru Nanak’s message is brotherhood. His message is equality. The need for all to affirm the rights of every being; the honour of labour and the sharing of the fruit of that labour; the total rejection of all caste, wealth and religious classifications; the respect for equal rights of women and a total repudiation of all priesthood. To Guru Nanak, God is a concept of truth, but he also says that while truth is high, higher still is truthful living. Now that’s a hard one. How difficult it is to live the truth! Mahatma Gandhi agonised all his life over how to live the truth and wrote about his struggles. In the final concluding ardas to the Almighty, we affirm his supremeness and ask for the welfare of all beings. This is important. The Sikh prays for ‘‘sarbat da bhala’’, not his own, for he is after all only an atom in humanity.

All this is easy to explain. But the question really is, do Sikhs follow the Guru Granth Sahib adequately? As we complete four centuries of its installation, do we follow its injunctions? Let us take the very first one. Guru Gobind Singh in 1704 forbade following any deh dhari or human gurus. There is an absolute injunction to read the scripture and to follow it for honourable and good living as upright citizens. When I was a child, we never saw sants in the Amritsar area. But recently I toured the border districts of Punjab and was shocked to see that the countryside has less crops and more deras! Everywhere, these so-called sants possess opulent establishments, buildings and travel in Mercedes and Hondas.

The SGPC is a democratic body elected by the Sikh people. But it too sadly has dera heads as members. This, to me, is not correct. The Sikhs are a fiercely democratic people and yet unfortunately they seem to be submitting everywhere to the superior orders of self-appointed sants. In our villages, our modest gurdwaras were run by panchayats of the people. Not so now. Every village is dominated by a sant dera. The Sikhs must ask themselves this question and answer honestly: do they really believe in the precept of Guru Gobind Singh—‘Guru Manyo Granth’?

One of the most powerful messages of Guru Nanak is a caste-less, egalitarian society. He tried desperately to reform Indian society. However, in my view, while the Sikhs may have ameliorated caste practices, they have a long way to go in abolishing caste. So does India. The Sikhs reject ritual caste. In the gurdwara, all serve equally. All persons, men and women, can read the holy service. The langar of common eating is intended precisely to break caste barriers and consolidate equality. Akbar is said to have eaten at Goindwal, on his way to Lahore. But the reality is that while we have gone some way and are certainly far better than others, we must accept that in every town of the UK, for example, Jats, Ramgarhias and Ramdasias all have own gurdwaras. In Jalandhar recently, there was a serious quarrel between Jats and others.

In politics and daily life, the Sikh has still not been able to fully abolish and fight against caste. Christianity, Islam and Sikhism all tried to battle caste. Each has succeeded in only a limited way. Beyond the rhetoric and the celebrations, the Sikhs have still proved unequal to the task set for them by Guru Nanak.

Guru Nanak fought hard for the equality of women. Sikh women can preside over every religious ceremony. Christianity is still trying to come to terms with this issue. But again, the Sikhs are far from giving true equality to women. While we promote women’s education, we have insidiously slipped into the practice of dowry and oppression of wives for greed. Sikh marriages are no longer simple. They suffer from an excess of liquor and the extraction of money and pelf from the girls’ parents. Every young, married Sikh woman faces a range of problems. This is another injunction of Guru Nanak, which the Sikhs need not just to read but to follow in their actions.

An even greater horror is creeping in. The gender bias in Punjab, about 850 or less girls to every 1,000 boys, is dreadful. Because we too demand dowry, the girl is seen as a burden, and therefore, Punjab—like other Indian states—is faced with the ghastly spectre of the murder of the girl child.

For this new century of the Granth Sahib, Guru Nanak has set the Sikhs a difficult challenge. He says: highest of all is truth, but higher still is truthful living. The greatest challenge before the contemporary Sikh is how we can live a life of truth.

The writer is Rajya Sabha MP and former CEC