Sikhs are still a glob­ally un­known com­mu­nity! We think we are well known. No. More than 70% have never seen or heard of ‘Sikh’, and re­main in­trigued! In Lon­don, many whites, Africans and Arabs have never heard of ‘Sikhs’. They ini­tially think we are ‘Mus­lims’. What does this re­veal about our out­reach as a com­mu­nity, our Gur­d­wara pub­lic out­reach and our com­mu­nity and na­tional lead­er­ship? Where is our ex­em­plary be­hav­iour which should de­fine us? We need to look within and take Sikhi with­out.

On the eve of the 550th birth an­niver­sary of the First of the Ten Gu­rus of the Sikh faith, the World Sikh News calls for a global di­a­logue across world com­mu­ni­ties, plat­forms and world me­dia about Guru Nanak’s pro­found, com­pre­hen­sive and rev­o­lu­tion­ary life phi­los­o­phy of eth­i­cal liv­ing on all as­pects of ex­is­tence – hu­man rights to an­i­mal rights, caste dis­crim­i­na­tion to race dis­crim­i­na­tion, wom­en’s op­pres­sion to ho­mo­sex­ual op­pres­sion, free­dom of speech to free­dom of dis­sent, pro­tec­tion of na­ture and the planet to eco­log­i­cal hu­man ram­page, eco­nomic in­equal­ity to cap­i­tal­ism and com­mu­nism.

Guru Nanak’s ac­tivist and trans­for­ma­tive life mes­sage has been ig­nored, mis­un­der­stood and un-pro­filed for far too long. It needs to be taken out of the closed box of the id­i­otic, in­com­pe­tent and grossly in­sin­cere likes of those in­sti­tu­tions that have con­trolled and man­aged it in the Sikh sphere. They have not only not mis­man­aged it, but in­su­lated it and kept it con­cealed from the wider non-Sikh world. In­deed, through their stale, rit­u­alised and un-en­gaged meth­ods; they have alien­ated the Sikh masses, let alone en­gaged an outer au­di­ence.  The method of preach­ing has be­come drab and dreary; lack­ing in in­tel­lec­tual di­a­logue and stim­u­la­tion. It is dis­con­nected from world is­sues. It has re­mained in­su­lar and rit­u­al­is­tic, feed­ing into self-pre­serv­ing sys­tems and prac­tises only. 

Guru Nanak’s em­pha­sis on truth makes us ad­mit that one of our apex bod­ies -the SGPC, our priests -the fee­ble and ill-trained and un­trained Granthis, our dog­matic, diehard and ra­bid mis­sion­ar­ies called ‘Par­charaks’ and the wholly messy and unin­spir­ing Gur­d­wara lead­er­ship has failed us in mak­ing us an in­te­grated and en­gag­ing part of the world com­mu­nity. They have ef­fec­tively snatched our col­lec­tive po­ten­tial to be world con­trib­u­tors and pi­o­neers as we used to be.

“I look into the sky, I see Sikhi. I touch wa­ter, I feel Sikhi. I feel the cold, I feel Sikhi. When I have a stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion with an­other hu­man, I feel Sikhi. I share food with some­one, I feel Sikhi. I buy food for a home­less per­son, I feel Sikhi. I save a life on the Lon­don un­der­ground, I feel dri­ven by Sikhi. I feel in­spired and mo­ti­vated by the warm, in­ti­mate, lov­ing, car­ing Guru Nanak!   ”

Nev­er­the­less, all is not lost. In­di­vid­ual ex­em­plary work holds us in good stead and that is the sil­ver lin­ing to the dark hori­zon.  Marx and En­gels may or may not have drawn in­spi­ra­tion from Sikhi but there is no doubt that Sikhi was the demon­stra­ble pre­cur­sor of the Marx­ist utopian vi­sion.

No­tably, through colo­nial sup­pres­sion, geno­cide, state­less­ness and per­se­cu­tion of the Pan­jaabi peo­ple, it’s in­dige­nous Sikhi phi­los­o­phy and Pan­jaabi-Sikh in­sti­tu­tions -still to this day, are sub­ju­gated by the su­per­im­pos­ing Brah­min-Hindu In­dian state. This has greatly stymied, re­tarded and dis­torted the clear and un­in­hib­ited ex­pres­sion of Sikh ide­al­ism and a global Sikh eth­i­cal out­look. The ab­sence of a sup­port­ive and en­hanc­ing state struc­ture has greatly di­min­ished Pan­jaabi-Sikh ex­pres­sion glob­ally, as well as within, it seems a fait ac­com­pli.

Guru Nanak’s sem­i­nal mes­sage has re­mained hid­den from the world au­di­ence. Yet, it is man­i­fest in daily, piece­meal acts of pro­found kind­ness and jus­tice in lan­gar; voices for an­i­mal rights and wom­en’s rights; fight against caste op­pres­sion; fight­ing for the planet and na­ture and the fight against In­dian state op­pres­sion and im­pe­ri­al­ism.

“The en­tire earth and ex­is­tence is a sa­cred Gur­d­wara!!! Live it! pro­tect it! Care for it! share it! Be part of it!  ”

All who are do­ing this, Sikh, Pan­jaabi and oth­ers alike are in­spired by the same core, nat­ural phi­los­o­phy prac­tised by the ac­tivist, rad­i­cal life of Guru Nanak and fur­ther ex­pressed through the nine suc­ces­sor Gu­rus. This needs to be pro­jected, de­bated, dis­cussed and shared 550 years on, at a global plat­form to ad­dress the con­tin­u­ing world cri­sis where Sikhi prin­ci­ples are ever more rel­e­vant and vi­tal! Guru Nanak pow­er­fully spoke of the hu­man world as a for­est on fire, with small glimpses of green life, few and far be­tween. 

The de­crepit Sikh re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, main­stream Gur­d­wara com­mit­tees and all like them have demon­strated their ut­ter in­com­pe­tence and in­sin­cer­ity in spread­ing and shar­ing the Sikh mes­sage with res­o­lu­tion and con­vic­tion. Eth­i­cal Sikhi lives and breathes in the wider world, away from these dead per­son­al­i­ties and build­ings of these pu­trid re­li­gious-po­lit­i­cal elites!  

I look into the sky, I see Sikhi. I touch wa­ter, I feel Sikhi. I feel the cold, I feel Sikhi. When I have a stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion with an­other hu­man, I feel Sikhi. I share food with some­one, I feel Sikhi. I buy food for a home­less per­son, I feel Sikhi. I save a life on the Lon­don un­der­ground, I feel dri­ven by Sikhi. I feel in­spired and mo­ti­vated by the warm, in­ti­mate, lov­ing, car­ing Guru Nanak!  

The en­tire earth and ex­is­tence is a sa­cred Gur­d­wara!!! Live it! pro­tect it! Care for it! Share it! Be part of it! 550 years on since Guru Nanak, let’s take Sikhi to a global au­di­ence – away from the poi­so­nous, de­crepit in­su­lar­ity where it has been left stacked and straight-jack­eted for so long.

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Sikhi is call­ing out to the world, and the world con­science is call­ing for some­thing like Sikhi to come and show di­rec­tion and lead­er­ship!