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!