dalsingh101

My flatmate's pastor was an ex Sikh women who still used the name Kaur. When I was a kid my mum let this evangelical family from the US in our house and although she never converted and probably just wanted to talk about religion in the weird way she used to, I can now see how their aim was to convert. So I know what goes on. My point to you is that unless we become a society that people don't want to leave. One that people want to join. One that makes them feel happy (not miserable and suppressed). One that supports its members especially the vulnerable. Unless we become a people who value and promote wide ranging learning. We will always be easy prey for people who like to convert. Ultimately we should approach the problem like the middle class whites have with their class concerns. They have essentially simultaneously ridiculed and caused the working class to aspire to them. And thus bolstered their numbers whilst decreasing the number of oiks. But they have money, resources and the levers of power to do this, whilst progressive Sikhs have nowt. Plus you know even the most thick pendu Panjabi thinks he is the dog's gonads! How you going to teach hordes of people like that without some serious power in your hands?

For future reference. If any Christians ever try to question your faith, do this. It has never failed to put their noses out of joint in my experience. They usually go away quickly after. 1) Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs. Question the accuracy of Genesis given the stark evidence to the contrary. "We've got skeletons the sizes of buses. Why are you ignoring that?" 2) "Does God think incest is acceptable?" Then who breeded immediately after Adam and Eve to populate the earth? They must have been brothers and sisters if A&E were the sole inhabitants here? But better than getting embroiled in petty arguments is to just avoid these pillocks and work on improving yourself and our society. Nothing can be a bigger testimony to the faith than a compassionate, vibrant, dynamic, growing community.

Has it ever been translated in English?

Or some people couldn't give a flying fart about what Jesus boy has to say. Bored bored bored. We might as well take Jehovah's witnesses seriously next. Who gives a crap about what every tom, dick or harry is saying? Do we have to respond to every last barking dog? Can we not let them bark and carry on doing great things? The greatest thing we could do to shut such mouths up is to be a model community and rise. But the truth is that society wise right now we have no big vision, plan or achievements. And yes, right now I think it's more important to nail internally dysfunctional dynamics such as caste rather then respond to every last bible bashing crank. Send it to Sikhsangat. A lot of people live for this type of stuff over there.

My gripe is people focusing on the effect and not the cause. It's not complicated in anyway. Oppress, alienate and demean people and they are likely to leave. Simple. You the one who thinks equality isn't a pillar of Sikhi and that I have imagined it to be.

Lol @

First thing, let's imagine it is true. Does that make what happened okay? Secondly, is there a well established/known precedent by Sikhs for this type of thing? If not, could it be an isolated incident? Kahan Singh's behaviour in the above tale doesn't sanction it within Sikhi. Being a Guru descendant/relative doesn't give him any extra weight either. If colonial records are anything to go by, some of the Bedi and Sodhi descendants of Guru Jis were some of the most prolific kurimars for example. We know how many relatives tried to make money out of Guruship on the 9th mohalas ascension as well. The way Kahan tries to hide what has been done afterwards itself indicates some sense of shame or stigma attached to what has taken place. Besides, being a Brahmin, Chibber might have been pushing his vested interests into his work by essentially validating such an incident. It could be made up and even if it isn't made up, was it more to do with Kahan's personal feelings than Sikhi per se? I'd like to see some original Gurmukhi text too. Someone could have mistranslated it for all we know.

Are you purposefully acting ignorant or is it unintentional? Sikhi is a religion, and social reform WAS/IS one of the objectives that the Guru's pressed for. Again, you do that dumb thing of trying to separate the spiritual and the social when you know damn well that Sikhi is not the type of 'spirituality' which ignores social issues and that our Guru's themselves took major steps at trying to reshape society. Besides, what you are referring to above was my response to your thoughtless point about people initiating movements for change which do not have a guarantee of success. So your true Indian solution is....do nothing to combat the problem other than segregate yourself within the community even more and try and fight from there. That is so dumb. No one is blaming Sikhi for it, rather it is the fault of so called Sikhs who fail to live up to a central plank of the faith. DOn't get it wrong, I'm not exactly over the moon at what has happened but I can't sit around acting like I'm surprised at it. What, and you don't see this happening all ready. You need to get out a bit more. There are still not stigmatised and harassed as much as so called lower castes are they, your comparison doesn't work because the situation isn't well...comparable. They shouldn't need to, this should have been the place to go to get away from that crap. Instead of the house of the Guru being gareeb niwaaz, it's becoming a centre of sucking their blood by ignorant people who then turn around and claim they are the 'truest' Sikhs. Then you have people like you, who take the matter lightly, and you are meant to be educated! So again, you totally let arseholes in our community pretty much completely off the hook. Well done. No wonder we make no progress when even educated brothers can't recognise a serious internal problem when he sees one. I haven't got anything else to say to you about the matter. You've just perfectly highlighted the kind of inert mentality that almost guarantees that nonsense between Sikhs over caste will carry on without any serious challenge.

Can you read the older stuff where the words aren't separated?

When the centre of the faith was more urban, it seems to have valued literature and learning more. Today we associate Sikhs with pendu rustics who don't really have much interest in literary pursuits, but all of the manuscripts in your link show that this is a relatively new development.

Something quite superstitious attributed to Guru Amardas ji???

Found this description: Looks like our people were showing an interest in political science even back then. O, how we have fallen.....

Well what about all the hordes of 'respectable' Sikhs who stay around and emanate the caste based oppression? You could equally question whether they are truly Sikh or not? If their hypocrisy casts doubts on this, then maybe you could explain the situation as fake caste loving Sikhs chasing off poor people who want to become Sikh with their ignorant backwards bullshit? That's another way of understanding it without excusing oppression.

What, do you honestly think that every Sikh affiliated with the faith purely out of deep spiritual reasons? DO you honestly think the promise of a better social order didn't play a part. Or a chance to change the political scene wasn't a consideration for those who may have felt oppressed under the Moghuls? Those Sikhs that formed the nucleaus of the original panth in Kartarpur WERE part of a new social order. Sikhs DID become increasingly political. Mughal politics DID play a big part in the course Sikhs were to take. A distinct political overview WAS a characteristic of the faith from our Gurus time. The way you've separated the spiritual from the social and political isn't reflected in Sikh history at all. How many contemporary/near contemporary sources talk of how the Khalsa merged the 4 castes into one for example. I do believe that egalitarianism is ONE of the cornerstones of Sikh belief. This emanates from Sikh spirituality - it's not something separate from it. I don't think he is looking at it from a spiritual angle at all. He is looking at it from social angle if anything. One that seems to believe that things such as caste discrimination are natural/normal and that people should just learn to live with them. I don't agree. That is where we differ. Some people (like yourself perhaps?) might think following religious rasams without paying too much attention to stark internal problems with discrimination is an acceptable path for Sikh spirituality, but a lot of people would disagree. Some would feel that it is just a cop out in having to face up to and deal with pretty shameful dynamics amongst us. One that's gone on for way too long and one whose effects are there for all to see now. Suggesting people accept discrimination as a member of the panth (like kds did) is a load of bull, I'm sorry but it is true.

As you always do, you've just excused the masses of Sikhs who act worse than Bahmans with their nonsense. You are a proper pendu, I don't care if you think you are 'urbane'. In the end a keystone of Sikhi is the notion of equality. Once they figured out that in reality being a Sikh doesn't result in being treated in a respectful and dignified manner, it is no big surprise (to me anyway) that they decide to separate. Thing with attempts at self empowerment is that they have no guarantee of success. Blacks did not have a guarantee of an improved situation for themselves when they started their civil rights movement in the US but they went ahead with it anyway. It will be the same with any other group fighting for change, there is no guarantee that Dalits will improve their situation with what they are doing, but doing something is still infinitely better than doing nothing and accepting the status quo like placid cowards. What can we say as Sikhs? If we fail to deliver the promise of equality and dignity for fellow brothers based on such patently unSikh like principles such as caste, do we really expect them to stick around? I think any oppressed people with any spirit/heart will try and change their circumstances in one way or another. These people tried the Sikh way and the majority caste loving Sikhs failed them. I'm not going to sit about and judge or condemn their attempts at a better life. How they go about self empowering themselves is their own business. They can say "We tried the Sikh way for centuries and it didn't deliver its promise. Our own fellow Sikhs created the very environment that we sought to escape from in Hinduism." If they cut ties with Sikhs, so be it. I'd have probably done the same in their shoes. No one isto blame for all this other than the arsehole Sikhs who follow caste and supremacism like Bahmans. The question that remains in the end is whether or not you are a backwards idiot of some sort, because you really do seem to struggle to grasp the quite straight forward concept of people naturally moving away from environments that are detrimental for them and seeking a better deal or risking striking out on their own to try and carve a better life for themselves in the face of failure and risk. I imagine for them it is a case of action is better than inaction.

A silk scarf on the neck of pigs! These discriminatory people know damn well Sikhi is against these things and still continue. No amount of preaching is going to change these ignorant pendus. They are more concerned with land, prestige, wealth, status, ego and feeling better than the next man than Sikhi. Who in their right mind would want to be anywhere near them? Our Guru's have already given them the message and they have chosen to ignore it. Plus we can all see their society falling apart, under the weight of their own stupidity. Let karma humble them. Sikhi's future isn't in the pends of Panjab.

Plus lets face it, today the vast majority of our people aren't of any sort of literary bent. Here in England you see wasps reading all the time, on the buses, on the trains, in the parks, on their lunch breaks etc. Regularly reading is part and parcel of middle class culture. The industry based around written English is massive. In contrast the average Panjabi commonly doesn't seem interested in the written word beyond that deemed absolutely necessary. It seems to be a cultural thing? Hell, even the working class, grunt, English foot soldiers in the Anglo-Sikh wars were writing and publishing their accounts. How many Sikhs wrote any thing similar? Truth is our lot don't place a lot of value on educational things like learning a language fluently in a foreign land. For the common pendu, if they can get by, it is enough. In short there really isn't the will or motivation.

How long did people expect them to continue bearing the brunt of discrimination without giving up on the faith? By the sounds of it, you appear to have expected them to do so indefinitely?? At least have the commonsense to see the cause and effect relationship here. Don't blame the effect - it's the cause that makes it happen. Anyway you're Indian so you probably will have great difficulty seeing beyond these types of frameworks as they are normal/natural to your frame of reference.

You use of language is interesting. Personally I see it as Panjabis being dumbass and not being bothered to learn English properly (more stupidity and lack of forethought). Hardly any of the freshies here seem to have bothered judging by their usually busted up English. I have to say Hindu Panjabis seem to have better grasp of English than Sikh Panjabis here for some reason? Good on the South Indians for learning English. Personally I feel that more placid characteristics of South Indians played a big part in the decision by western companies to invest there as opposed to the north where people seem to be more violent and society less cohesive - so called warrior people. lol

I think (intelligent) people are always interested in health concerned issues and the very matter of the clear neglect in understanding the health concerns that uniquely face us as a community in the diaspora makes it even more important to give the topic a high priority. If you stick your stuff under the Health and sports section, people can find related material easily and quickly which can help them develop an informed understanding of the situation. I think these medical professionals of Indian descent in America are beginning to touch on the issue (you may have seen this before): http://www.sikhawareness.com//index.php?showtopic=13477

What you are saying here is that they should accept second rate membership of the panth and just ignore it by keeping away from the oppressors. Can you honestly not see how much of a short sighted 'solution' that is?

What makes you think they can read English?

Today I realised that some of those South Indians simply don't have a clue about Sikh protocol and are not being arses. I think they have to be shown how to mutha tek. Because a few was sitting there in the divan and after I mutha teked they got up and did it. It was like they saw how it was done and then did it. I REALLY think we should be using the Dasam Granth for parchaar towards such people (as I hear it is closer to the Hindi they understand). A part of me is very happy that Guru ji's institute still helps feed the needy and vulnerable. As a famous folk singer put it, we are getting the interest on that investment Baba Nanak made with his sacha sauda.

Interesting article. You should create new threads for this type of stuff in the health section. I guess the unequivocal message from multiple sources is that if you are of Indian descent - you are a walking heart attack waiting to happen..... Thing is we don't even have people doing medical R&D with an emphasis on our own unique needs as brown folk! It can't help that the strategy for dealing with this in the west seems to be slightly altering the majority white strategy a bit! We have so many 'Asian' doctors, we need specific research to identify and combat our own unique predispositions.