Many of us were either not around or were too young when the Sikh quom marked the 500 Years of Guru Nanak. Many may not be around by the time we mark 600 Years. But we will always be held accountable for how we chose to mark this pious occasion of 550 Years of Guru Nanak. Times have changed; we will be leaving godowns full of records behind for future researchers to assess our work, approach, thought process, and, if you don’t mind, level of inherent honesty or lack thereof even when we were dealing with the Guru. This is a reportage from the frontlines of the ongoing celebrations, but with a look in the rear view mirror, too. Not everything in here will please you, and if, by any chance, nothing disturbs you, that, too, will not please the Guru.

WE ARE IN THE THROES of celebrations. Amid all this excitement at the opening of the Kartarpar Corridor, we are drowned in the ecstatic wafts of kirtan emanating from the guru ghars and the enthusiasm of the people and the state finding myriad ways to celebrate the Guru’s 550th year.

We are spreading the message of the Guru.

We have little time to pause and ponder about what this message of the Guru is. We have a very short window to spread it. We measure our life, conduct and social, political, religious selves in news cycles now.

We passed through the heady days of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in the run up to the 2019 election. Then the news cycle about elections and the unprecedented victory of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah consumed our mindspace. We spent the next phase ensnared by the news cycle about EVM machines. Time and again we fell for the ‘whither is the Indian economy’ news cycle.

Kashmir hit us and we didn’t know what to do, how to react. Weeks, then months passed, and we veered off Kashmir. For many of us, a weariness set in, a sense of ennui. New inanities took over our mind. Off and on, festivities suck us in. A gurpurab here, a Diwali there.

One way to celebrate was to have Guru Nanak’s message inform our every action every single day of every single year of our life. That’s seemingly very tough. So we chose another simpler, popular, better known, tried and tested way of celebrating the Guru.

And all of this is peppered with a thousand minor blasts of other news.

Add to all of this your own WhatsApp stream, Facebook explosions, Twitter chatters and incessant stream of messages in your inbox. On top of it, amid all this, we have to live our personal lives, too; read the newspaper, watch the umpteen television channels.

And then we have to make some space for the Guru also, because it’s an important occasion. 550 Years of Guru Nanak.

One way to celebrate Guru Nanak was to have the Guru’s message inform our every action every single day of every single year of our life.

That’s seemingly very tough.

So we chose another simpler, popular, better known, tried and tested way of celebrating the Guru.

The entire community began looking for celebratory projects. A march here, a kirtan darbar there, a run for peace here, a walk for love there. But it had to be bigger, better, glamorous, all oozing with razzamatazz, lined with shows of religiosity and spirituality as understandable by a media-savvy world. Everything reduced to an image, the image replacing everything.

So, all of a sudden, imagery took over.

A transnational corridor carried a massive imagery. It had a history. The community had been craving for it for years, often holding prayers to realize the dream. On the ground, the steps taken to turn it into reality were so few, so lacking follow up, and so intermittently spread, that one wonders how it finally came about at all. But the corridor did come about in any case.

We are an openly casteist society that marries and socialises as per caste, lives caste and lives with caste every hour of the day and night, and still loudly proclaims itself to be casteless. It is a truth everybody knows. That makes us utterly hypocritical, unafraid of the Guru. The gall that we have!

We did not see the community dwelling with any amount of seriousness on why the corridor came about when it did. It was helpful to not get into a serious discussion about why inimical nation states act in surprising ways when little on the ground had changed. Instead, we decided to take credit for the corridor — “We prayed, we prayed so hard that the governments had no other option left but to agree to the corridor.”

It is the same approach that we have with news cycles. We have learnt the subtle art of living our lives in a segmented, fragmented, compartmentalised fashion.

News cycles in one box, Guru in another box, personal life and conduct in a different box.

That’s a complete negation of Guru Nanak’s message. And we have chosen the pious occasion of 550 Years of the Guru for this abominable exercise, carried out in full public view, with international media gazing and our shenanigans often relayed on live television, beamed on global channels.

Look at the obstreperous arguments and cacophonous debate in the run up to the corridor — who should get credit, will a passport be required, should a passport be required, should we be asked to pay $20 fee, should it be open only for the Sikhs, how much marble was used, how huge the complex is, will it be ready, will there eventually be hotels, how many can go, what if someone decides not to come back, will Navjot Sidhu go, will the Sarnas go, should the PM have a separate stage, should there be a single stage, will Akali Dal dominate, will Amarinder refuse to go citing ISI angle, and a thousand other questions.

The Guru is a walking, talking threat. He can inspire men and women to question the state of affairs in any regime. He not just teaches us to question, he even trains us in how to seek answers, how to affect the course of things. He prepares us to fight for the truth. And he makes us fearless. Is there another way of defining a revolutionary, the kind regimes everywhere are afraid of? And yet, it is the regime that is celebrating the man!

These questions consumed the masses no end. They fought and abused and bloodied each other on the social media. Everything about every question was the definition of hyper. And it was all being done in the name of the Guru.

Now, imagine, what would have happened if we had really engaged with the message of the Guru?

While engaging with a Guru who envisaged a casteless society, we have the gall living caste and living with caste every day, and yet call ourselves Guru Nanak Naamleva. On 550th, if we had really meant to engage with his message, we would have been discussing and arguing and fighting with each other about whether we should recognize and formally state our failure on dealing with the caste question, and should the community decide to make a massive announcement to itself and to the world that the day of the Guru shall be the end of the caste system in the community. We know we need this shock therapy. We would have had scholars telling us that such a goal would be utopian, that we needed to take several steps towards that goal, and we should instead fix 2069 for this announcement. That debate would have gotten us into a mess so tangled that we would need the blessings of the Guru to untangle ourselves, but it would have been much more fruitful to land in that mess and go through the exercise.

So far, we have been running away from this question of caste. We are an openly casteist society that marries and socialises as per caste, lives caste and lives with caste every hour of the day and night, and loudly proclaims itself to be casteless. It is a truth everybody knows. That makes us utterly hypocritical, unafraid of the Guru. And we dare to celebrate the 550 years of Guru Nanak with aplomb and show!

And we think we can hoodwink the Guru. The gall that we have!

Where is the debate about predatory fees and costs being imposed on those seeking education in the universities of the land where the Guru dwelled. Where is the debate about the kind of educated youth our universities and colleges are churning out? Where is the debate about the dignity of labour? Where is the debate about the fights our young, educated women are having to wage against notions of patriarchy, fighting all alone? Which side do you think the Guru must have blessed?

For a Guru so revolutionary, we have projected him sans any edginess, shorn of all his aggressive approach to truth and to truthseeking. For a guru who does not compromise one wee bit, we project him as someone who is so accommodating that we shall find a place at his feet despite our charlatan behaviour.

He argued. He intervened. He dug his heels in. He stood up to falsehood.

He cared little that someone was a Moghul badhshah. And he cared little that the man he loved could only offer him the poorest form of leavened bread. As a child, he could question the shallow rituals of tying a holy thread and as a preacher he could question the rituals of aarti.

Even in those times when means were fewer and terrain was uncharted, he travelled more than most do even today, with all the comforts and means available in the world. He had a family, left it behind, and then went and spread enlightenment because he could not allow the darkness to prevail. Human beings everywhere were his family.

The man’s a pure threat — a walking, talking threat. His words are revered. He can inspire men and women to question the state of affairs in any regime. We project him as a problem solver but the man can be a real problem creator. He teaches us to question. He trains us in how to seek answers. He prepares us to fight for the truth. And he makes us fearless. Is there another way of defining a revolutionary, the kind regimes everywhere are afraid of?

And yet, it is the regime that is celebrating the man.

How come we have allowed that to happen? Because we have now moulded the Guru in our own image: flexible, adjustable, accommodative, fits any definition, is suitable for all. The regime is not afraid of the Guru’s message spreading far and wide. Instead, it has appropriated the message. Look at the effort and resources being spent in getting the showbiz style celebrations going. It’s a Guru Nanak of the coffee-table book that they want us to embrace. We are being deprived of the Guru Nanak who would want us to engage with the actual problems and challenges of our times.

How come the entire celebrations of Guru Nanak’s 550 Years pass off without any engagement with the state of the millions in Kashmir, literally barricaded from the rest of the civilisation on this planet with concertina wire rolls and confined inside their homes, their streets stuffed with jackboots of the state? Who among us seriously thinks that Guru Nanak would have watched the celebrations without being terribly, terribly anguished about the fate of Kashmiris today? Quick, raise your hand, please, and stop reading any further if you did.

The Guru spent the last years of his life cultivating the land at Kartarpur. His metaphors come from peasantry. ਮਨੁ ਹਾਲੀ ਕਿਰਸਾਣੀ ਕਰਣੀ ਸਰਮੁ ਪਾਣੀ ਤਨੁ ਖੇਤੁ। How are we engaging today with the state of those who pursue the same vocation? What is the community’s response to farm suicides? To deaths of men who go down the gutter to make sure sewage drains are not clogged? To a system where the dirtiest of jobs are reserved for a particular lowered caste? All in the land where the Guru lived!

We are talking day and night about Guru Nanak who preached ਵਿਦਿਆ ਵੀਚਾਰੀ ਤਾਂ ਪਰਉਪਕਾਰੀ but have not held even a single discussion, a single debate on the predatory fees and costs being imposed on those seeking education in the universities of the land where the Guru dwelled. These score and a half of private universities and their fee structures were approved by governments that we voted into power time and again. These same governments have been celebrating the centenaries of Sikh gurus and our historical milestones, splashing massive funds. When did we resist such predatory fee structures?

Where is the debate about what kind of an educated youth our universities and colleges are churning out? Where is the debate about the dignity of labour? Any such debate would have forced us to engage with the decimation of trade unionism at our workplaces, and we are so afraid of any debate about a Sikh construct becoming about an issue appropriated by the Left, just as the Left is worried that its ideas will get hijacked if it mentions the name of the Guru in the context of dignity of the kirti masses.

Has the community responded in any meaningful way to the concerns of today’s young, educated women who are questioning notions of patriarchy and fighting back, often all alone? We have chosen to be blind to girls fighting lonely battles for equality on university campuses, in work places, in salary structures. The women of Punjabi University, Patiala and Panjab University, Chandigarh won those fights, and without most of us lending a hand, without the community owning up their struggle. Which side do you think the Guru must have blessed?

But we are all cock-a-hoop about the razzle-dazzle celebrations we have rustled up in the name of the Guru. It’s been happening earlier, too, and is nothing but Bollywood-isation of what should essentially have been an affair more reflective of the state of the common Sikhs of the Guru. Where is the inward look? Where’s the sense of a connection with the Guru at a very deeper level?

Those running the show only care about the imagery generated — everything must be big, chunky, glitzy, bling-studded, gold or emerald thrown in. All we want is to make it the biggest show on earth. We are flailing about for that tag, we little puny men!

The celebrations may be happening inside gurdwaras, or in the presence of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. But those running the show only care about the imagery generated. So, everything is big, chunky, glitzy, bling-studded, gold or emerald thrown in. This is government-backed corporatisation of Guru Nanak going on before our very eyes, and we are happily gulping it because we are brought up on Bollywood or Hollywood versions of what celebrations or happiness or pleasure is all about.

All we want is to make it the biggest show on earth. We are flailing about for that tag, we little puny men!

The profit-oriented pharmaceutical sector in India is a scandal with dimensions that has no parallels even in the much-maligned corporate world. In Guru’s own land, in the very villages and towns where the Guru lived, poor people are dying for lack of treatment not because the treatment does not exist, not because it is not available near their place, but because they cannot afford it. And in many cases the treatment is not so costly because it actually costs so much, but because pricing policies are such.

We have a Guru we can talk to every hour of the day. We have a Guru that talks to us in every situation we find ourselves in. What kind of a conversation are we having? The Guru in the gurdwara, well decorated, airconditioned with rows of string lights making it look all so beautiful, and we in our homes, snug and comfortable. The rest of the world can go to hell!

Predatory pricing means predatory practices against human beings. This is akin to human hunters hunting human game. Imagine the followers of Guru Nanak, who said ‘‘ਏਤੀ ਮਾਰ ਪਈ ਕਰਲਾਣੇ,’’ not even talking about the issue in the 550th Year of Guru Nanak. Raise your hand if you think the Guru would not have talked about it so loudly, so cogently, so humanely, that we would have been on the verge of a revolution. If you did, then dear reader, a little bit more engagement with the Guru will surely help.

The Gurus have left us a Guru for the present times — the Living Guru in the form of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. We have a Guru we can talk to every hour of the day. We have a Guru that talks to us in every situation we find ourselves in. What kind of a conversation are we having? The Guru in the gurdwara, well decorated, airconditioned with rows of string lights making it look all so beautiful, and we in our homes, snug and comfortable. The rest of the world can go to hell!

The Guru’s words were the foundational stone for such an army of truthseekers. What battles are these truthseekers waging these days? To get a video approved? To fight for their own separate stage? To try and take pot shots at an Imran Khan, using Guru Nanak’s shoulder because their own droop under the weight of their sins and vested interests?

How do you think Guru Nanak was placed, materially? Study the inflation figures, factor in the GDP growth since, and calculate the social standing of Mehta Kalu’s family 550 years ago. Why do we think Guru Nanak went off to travel in lands far and wide? ਬਾਬਾ ਦੇਖੈ ਧਿਆਨੁ ਧਰਿ ਜਲਤੀ ਸਭਿ ਪ੍ਰਿਥਵੀ ਦਿਸਿ ਆਈ। The guru was never into miracles; he saved us from all such non-sense. He didn’t just close his eyes and realised that things were too bad, and immediately went about rectifying matters. He thought, applied his mind, did deep chinta, found out, studied and decided that the state of affairs needed his intervention, a proactive engagement that will require years of travel, writing, preaching, spreading the light of knowledge, fighting the demons of darkness and ignorance.

When the Guru ਚੜ੍ਹਿਆ ਸੋਧਣਿ ਧਰਤਿ ਲੁਕਾਈ, he did not look for tie ups with the governments. He knew he was up against the regimes. It did not take long for the regimes to recognise the power of his revolutionary message and they were soon in conflict with his disciples down the ages. Our tradition of martyrdom is a living proof that being a Sikh is akin to being the force of resistance against repression, against injustice, against lies shoved down the throat of common, innocent, poor people.

The Guru’s words were the foundational stone for such an army of truthseekers. What battles are these truthseekers waging these days? To get a video approved? To fight for their own separate stage? To try and take pot shots at an Imran Khan, using Guru Nanak’s shoulder because their own droop under the weight of their sins and vested interests? These are the men and women we have virtually delegated the celebrations of Guru Nanak’s 550th Gurpurab to? What’s wrong with us?

Out there, massive wars are on. Out there, the children of poor are being cheated of their entire lives. Out there, kids from the economic strata I came from are studying in schools that are so resource-less and soul-destroying that they will never be able to tell their story, to feel what it is like to have a voice. For those who know that Guru Nanak was the voice of the voiceless, where is the debate about stealing the voices of millions of people?

The media, whose role and god-ordained duty it was to be the voice of the people, has increasingly become the voice of the voice-snatchers. Of course, all glory to those who are responding to their inner voice even in this muzzling, muffling world of hyper media, but the debate about this theft of the sangat’s common space is missing from the celebrations in the name of the Guru.

We are even afraid of starting a conversation about how the hype over the corridor has resulted in the entire celebrations centring around Kartarpur Sahib, where the Guru left for his heavenly abode, and has relegated Sri Nankana Sahib to the background.

So intertwined with nature was the Guru that his message is being used by climate saviour warriors till date. ਪਵਣੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਪਾਣੀ ਪਿਤਾ ਮਾਤਾ ਧਰਤਿ ਮਹਤੁ। But we know that people’s access to drinking water in Punjab, as reflected in official figures, will put to shame any decent human being. The India-level data is even worse. For those who claim that a single death due to malnutrition is a blot on humanity, who are never tired of boasting about their tradition of langar, who make news for establishing a langar in godforsaken places where even regimes find it unable to reach, please reflect within and begin a conversation about the malnutrition deaths in Punjab, in India, in the world. Forget the governments, we needed to set ourselves a higher agenda. On 550th, we should have told ourselves: Every such death from now on shall be on us, and we vow to face our Guru without blood on our hands.

That was the way to celebrate 550 Years of the Guru.

The Global Hunger Index figures should have been at the core of any debate on the current state of affairs within the Sikh community. Sadly, we missed the bus exactly when the Guru was offering us a ride. Don’t tell me it was difficult; you knew it already. We are the children of the Guru who had forewarned us — ਜਉ ਤਉ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚਾਉ। ਸਿਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਤਲੀ ਗਲੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਉ। Do not offer excuses. You are under the ਸਿਰੁ ਦੀਜੈ ਕਾਣਿ ਨ ਕੀਜੈ  command. If we were looking for our Nanak, we would have found him within ourselves the day those hunger index figures had broken our heart and left us frustrated and angry and seething with rage at the regimes. But pray, we are so busy celebrating the Guru! Just look at the bling!

Whose and which policies affect our Punjab, the land of the Guru, in sinister ways? What is our engagement with the world’s military weapons empire? Where is the debate about peace, about global capital flows squeezing the life out of poor regimesm, about the poorest of the poor condemned to live under those regimes? We are refusing to take a stand on the hottest issues that future generations will face. And we think the Guru will be happy if we just get 550 of this, 550 of that!

Whose and which policies affect our Punjab, the land of the Guru, in sinister ways? What is our engagement with the world’s military weapons empire? We are a border state, located in a nuclear country openly talking about enmity with a neighbouring country that also freely talks about using its nuclear weapons. And we see no reason to talk about nuclearisation and military weapons empire even when we celebrate 550 Years of Guru Nanak? Are we raving mad, or criminally hypocrite?

We have no debate about Donald Trump and his policies. We have no debate about how US Fed Rates and interests are squeezing the life out of poor regimes and poorest of the poor condemned to live under those regimes. We are not engaging with the explosive situation in the Middle East. We have no view on the terrible things that global capital flows are resulting in. We are not worried about the new classes being created by meta data ownerships and regimes’ increasing power over human beings as a result of 360 degree roving Orwellian eye and deep, penetrative gaze of governments into our lives.

For a religion so much in consonance with modern science, we as a community should have had a stand on Edward Snowden. Is he helping save the humanity, or is he a criminal as is being portrayed by world’s big powers? Will he be blessed, or will he be damned?

The world is watching human beings destroying the only planet they have. More aware people everywhere are making it their lives’ mission to talk about, fight for and sacrifice their lives for saving the planet. We satisfy ourselves by cooking langar in a gurdwara on CNG gas and then seeing it being reported in a good for nothing Punjabi newspaper splashed across three columns. Is that the level of engagement we think will suffice to please our Guru? Is our Guru so easy to please?

We are dealing with one of the toughest guys on this planet to please, for such was his own life and conduct. The standards he set are goddamn impossible to live up to. And yet, we have no option but to try and live up to them. The Guru is watching how hard we try, and don’t you try to hoodwink him.

When we invite a supremo politician to lead the celebrations, when we decide not to factor in the fact of 2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat riots, when we want to overlook the prime movers of the politics of hatred that has gripped India with a saffron fervour, we are trying to hoodwink the Guru. When we want to keep our celebrations of the 550 Years of the Guru pristine by choosing not to talk about the next wave of religious fervour knocking at our doors since the Supreme Court’s verdict on Ayodhya dispute is just hours away, we are trying to hoodwink the guru.

Why, when we have the entire world’s attention, have we decided not to talk about 1984? One thought the community always wanted the world to pay attention to genocidal killings of Sikhs. The problem is that genocidal killings are not patented by any one side. Nefarious politics demands immoral compromises. Any talk about 1984 will trigger talk about 2002. And once that Pandora box opens, we will soon be getting into a debate about the regime-backed gangs currently active on the roads of India, hunting followers of a particular religion to save a particular cattle.

We forget that we are dealing with the real, gold-standard Fakhr-e-Quom, not the earthy mortal variety. The Guru cares little about the sanctity we have associated with the numeral figure of 550. His message was no less valid in his 549th year, and will not lose any sheen by his 551st birthday.

We are dealing with one of the toughest guys on this planet to please, for such was his own life and conduct. The standards he set are goddamn impossible to live up to. And yet, we have no option but to try and live up to them. The Guru is watching how hard we try, and don’t you try to hoodwink him.

The shenanigans of gold coins and 550 trees and 550 scholars and 550 cyclists pedalling in the name of the Guru are least likely to please him, but if you are alone, have little money to spare, but are angry and sad that the local civil hospital does not have enough life-saving medicines and are still not tired of filing RTI applications to know the state of affairs and keep flooding the editor of the local vernacular newspaper with letters detailing the state of affairs and pleading that it deserves to be reported in a better way in the newspaper, then you are doing Guru Nanak’s work. He will find a corridor to reach you and you shall be His.

You do not need a corridor to reach him. That’s his domain. He will find a corridor to reach you and you shall be His. You only need to do his work, walk his path. He’s kind, he cares. He comes and he rescues.

That’s the kind of man you are dealing with. You do not need a corridor to reach him. That’s his domain. You only need to do his work, walk his path. He’s kind, he cares. He comes and he saves.

There’s no other way to Dhan Guru Nanak. And you do not even need to say it 550 times. Once is enough. Just mean it.

The author, SP Singh, is a senior journalist who has worked with leading mastheads, anchors the TV show ‘Daleel with SP Singh,’ writes the weekly Punjabi Tribune column, ‘Likhtum BaDaleel,’ and dabbles with equal felicity in English and Punjabi. He lives in the termite-hills infested back-of-the-beyond of Chandigarh, but is accessible on singh.india@gmail.com.