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This is not the
Sikhism I know
Amrita
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World Sikh News
presented its viewpoint in an Opinion piece (dated 14 May 2008)
and an Op-ed piece (dated 27 May, 2008) categorically expressing
disapproval of the role of the school authorities, who are
otherwise engaged in a mammoth movement of education revolution
in the Punjab. World Sikh News has received commendation and
reviews from its readers. We present some of them here with the
hope that many more would write in and that Sikhism will not be
allowed to go astray. Saner elements within the community should
begin a dialogue with the organisers and hopefully better sense
will prevail. |
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I have gone
through your article and would like to share my thoughts. I am quiet
upset with how Sikh parents themselves are creating an environment
which is weaning away Sikh children away from Sikhism. It is just
not the parents but the whole atmosphere is one of disenchantment,
be it the Jathedar of Akal takht, or chief minister Parkash Singh
Badal. All those people who claim to be the keepers of the faith
are essentially responsible for the gap between precept and
practice.
The Sikh
religion was formed to break away from rituals but has itself been
subsumed by a new variety of rituals.
I belong to a
Sikh family and my parents have been very liberal in terms
of education of girls and wearing western clothes. We were not
allowed to cut or trim our hair and we considered that quiet fair.
In fact, we hardly felt the need to do so.
As I grew up, I
observed that though Sikhism taught all men and women to be equal
with no importance to caste, the malaise of casteism was rampant not
only in my own family but also amongst Sikhs around me.
Gradually, I
drifted from “being a Sikh” but I do pray to Guru Nanak and believe
in one God. At the Akal Akademy and the
Bilga Academy, I
came across incidents where Sikh children have left the religion
because of this cultist kind of Sikhism.
My main
contention is that while we all have a right to maintain our
identity but trying to make it the very focus of for being so much
so that we fail to see how we have begun infringing on other
people's right is something that I am sure Guru Nanak would have
never approved of.
28
May,
2008
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