The Re­vival of Sikhi sem­i­nar at the first-ever In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence in In­done­sia truly lived to its name, cre­at­ing a deep in­ter­est in Sikhism, es­pe­cially amongst the youth. A galaxy of speak­ers from dif­fer­ent coun­tries en­abled Sikh In­done­sians to re­solve to ex­pand the In­done­sian Sikh coun­cil, to fol­low the Mool Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar across the coun­try and to strengthen ef­forts for a Gur­mat-based life.

Achiev­ing the pri­mary pur­pose of re­vival of in­ter­est in Sikhi, as in­ten­tioned by the or­gan­is­ers, the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence dur­ing the first week of De­cem­ber, saw an over­whelm­ing, ded­i­cated and fo­cussed par­tic­i­pa­tion by the Young Khalsa -boys, girls and kids, in­tently lis­ten­ing and im­bib­ing the spirit of the speeches. A galaxy of speak­ers from var­i­ous cor­ners of the world, brought to­gether un­der the lead­er­ship of vet­eran Sikh In­done­sian Bal­want Singh, sup­ported by Global Sikh Coun­cil, at Gu­rud­wara Guru Nanak Dev Tang­gerang Se­la­tan Jakarta, led the cel­e­bra­tions of 25 years of ex­is­tence of the Gur­d­wara Sahib in this pre­dom­i­nantly Mus­lim na­tion.

In ac­cor­dance with the wishes of the Sikh San­gat of In­done­sia, num­ber­ing around 5000, af­ter months of prepa­ra­tion, Sikh In­done­sians from across the dif­fer­ent is­lands of the coun­try, rep­re­sent­ing 5 Gur­d­waras and speak­ers from Mum­bai, Delhi, Pun­jab, Malaysia, Hongkong, Switzer­land and the United States, par­tic­i­pated in the In­ter­na­tional Sikh con­fer­ence which con­cluded with the unan­i­mous adop­tion of the Jakarta Res­o­lu­tion to re­solve to unify Sikhs in the coun­try un­der one plat­form by strength­en­ing the In­done­sian Coun­cil for Sikhs. It was a hugely worth­while ex­pe­ri­ence which will go a long way in bridg­ing the global gap be­tween Sikhs of one re­gion and an­other.

Open­ing the con­fer­ence, Bal­want Singh shared the his­tory of the Gur­d­wara, chal­lenges faced and plans for the fu­ture for the Gur­d­wara Sahib as well as the Jakarta Gur­mat School. The chief guest Ba­pak K. S. Ar­sana the min­is­ter for pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion PHDI (Parisada Hindu Dharma In­done­sia)  ex­tend­ing full sup­port to the In­done­sian Sikh com­mu­nity on be­half of his pres­i­dent and the or­gan­i­sa­tion, lauded the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikhs in the free­dom strug­gle of In­done­sia and in zeal­ous na­tion build­ing of the coun­try. He also re­leased the first-ever Spe­cial print edi­tion of the World Sikh News, es­pe­cially crafted for the oc­ca­sion. 

Seek­ing a com­mit­ment to ad­here to the teach­ings of Gu­rus and un­flinch­ing com­pli­ance to Sikh Re­hat Maryada, GSC Pres­i­dent -Lady Kan­waljit Kaur via Skype from Lon­don, greeted the sem­i­nar par­tic­i­pants who de­lib­er­ated on a va­ri­ety of is­sues and ad­dressed many con­cerns. 

For­mer In­done­sian gov­ern­ment leader Harbinder­jit Singh Dilon urged Sikh in­tel­lec­tu­als and schol­ars to frame a com­mon out­look for Sikhi so that peo­ple in coun­tries like In­done­sia do not get con­fused.  The found­ing mem­ber of Global Sikh Coun­cil -GSC, Gul­barg Singh Bassi from the United States of Amer­ica, pre­sented the threat of dis­tor­tion of Gur­bani and the Sikh Re­hat Maryada hap­pen­ing in a planned man­ner and steps to be taken to en­sure com­plete ac­cep­tance and com­pli­ance of the Sikh Re­hat Maryada.

Noted Sikh scholar from Malaysia Dr Kar­min­der Singh gave a pow­er­ful pre­sen­ta­tion on Sikh youth and em­pha­sized the sig­nif­i­cance of re­li­gious tol­er­ance based on his ex­pe­ri­ence in the US.  Vet­eran scholar and trav­eller Col Dr Dal­winder Singh Gre­wal from Pun­jab made a pre­sen­ta­tion on Trav­els of Guru Nanak in South­east Asia, em­pha­siz­ing that he was en­gaged in re­dis­cov­er­ing the truth about Guru Nanak’s visit to In­done­sia and other South­east Asian coun­tries.

GSC Sec­re­tary Gur­deep Singh Kun­dan from Switzer­land em­pha­sized upon the need for strength­en­ing the mem­ber­ship and scope of the Global Sikh Coun­cil and how it can play a role to win back young­sters into the Sikh fold.

Se­nior Re­search Fel­low at the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute -Harinder Singh from the US pre­sented his views on the dy­namism re­quired of the next gen­er­a­tion Sikh leader in his pre­sen­ta­tion ‘The Next Sikh: Clear, Con­sis­tent and Cur­rent’. Dr Har­bant Singh from Malaysia took the au­di­ence through the lives of Gu­rus through their mes­sages in his pa­per ‘Sikhi Lens of The Gu­rus – a con­cep­tual analy­sis’.

Prof. Rav­jeet Kaur from Chandi­garh shared views on the im­por­tance of Sidak camps and the work of Keerat Foun­da­tion im­part­ing ed­u­ca­tion to chil­dren un­der age 15. Gurmel Singh rep­re­sent­ing Singh Sabha Hong Kong spoke on teach­ings of Sikhi and its rel­e­vance in pre­sent times.  Gur­mat school stu­dent from Hong Kong -Sur­jan Singh dwelt on his love for the Sikh way of life. Renowned doc­u­men­tary film­maker from Delhi Dr. S.P  Sab­har­wal em­pha­sized the role of Guru Granth Sahib in our daily lives.

“On the heels of the cel­e­bra­tion of Gur­purab of Guru Gob­ind Singh on 5 Jan­u­ary, the con­fer­ence de­cided to adopt the Mool Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar as pre­pared by Pal Singh Pure­wal and adopted by GSC and other bod­ies. It was em­pha­sized that by adopt­ing this cal­en­dar all Gur­purabs will have fixed dates and will en­able Sikhs in In­done­sia to be in sync with the Global Sikh com­mu­nity.”

Bhupin­der Singh Kohli from Mum­bai screened a doc­u­men­tary de­pict­ing self­ish­ness and dwelt on Sewa as a key pil­lar of Sikhi and how it mo­ti­vates him to serve hu­mankind ir­re­spec­tive of re­li­gion, caste, creed, age and gen­der.  Leader of the Singh Sabha Mum­bai -Kul­want Singh trav­elled the Shabad Guru Ya­tra and its mes­sage through his power-point pre­sen­ta­tion.

Dur­ing one of the ses­sions, the movie Eh Janam Tuhmhare Lekhi based on the life of Bha­gat Pu­ran Singh was screened which was ap­pre­ci­ated by all par­tic­i­pants of the sem­i­nar.

One par­tic­i­pant af­ter an­other deeply ap­pre­ci­ated the con­sis­tent cam­paign-like ef­forts of Bal­want Singh, which made the con­fer­ence pos­si­ble and ac­knowl­edged the con­tri­bu­tion of all par­tic­i­pants who made ex­cep­tional pre­sen­ta­tions for the re­vival of Sikhi in In­done­sia. The spe­cial World Sikh News edi­tion was a talk­ing point amongst the par­tic­i­pants, es­pe­cially the youth who got a spe­cial place in the pub­li­ca­tion.

Pri­mary fo­cussed for Re­vival of Sikhi in In­done­sia, the San­gat re­solved that in or­der to in­cul­cate love and re­spect for Sikhi, all in­di­vid­u­als and Gur­d­waras will im­ple­ment the Sikhi Re­vival Plan sug­gested by the Global Sikh Coun­cil, whose out­line was pre­sented by its for­mer Pres­i­dent, Gul­barg Singh from the US.  

The Sadh San­gat of In­done­sia re­solved to dou­ble up the ef­forts to ex­pand the In­done­sia Sikh Coun­cil to in­clude all Gur­d­wara bod­ies in In­done­sia as a par­ent body which would rep­re­sent the Sikhs at the na­tional and in­ter­na­tional level on all so­cial, re­li­gious, cul­tural and po­lit­i­cal mat­ters con­cern­ing the com­mu­nity. In this re­gard, it was fur­ther de­cided that the frame­work and con­sti­tu­tion of the In­done­sia Sikh Coun­cil will be pre­pared.

“Shar­ing ideas and ex­per­tise makes a re­ward­ing and suc­cess­ful ex­pe­ri­ence for the youth of our so­ci­ety. The fire of youth must be used not just to build ca­reers but to build homes and com­mu­ni­ties based on love and giv­ing.”

Sangeet Kaur and Man­mith Kaur Bhuller

The In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cern at the pre­vail­ing con­fu­sion re­gard­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of Gur­purabs. The Sadh San­gat re­solved that as ad­vised by the Global Sikh Coun­cil and many other in­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions, the birth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji will be held on 5 Jan­u­ary 2018 and 5 Jan­u­ary every year as men­tioned in the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar.

On the heels of the res­o­lu­tion to cel­e­brate Gur­purab of Guru Gob­ind Singh on 5 Jan­u­ary, the con­fer­ence de­cided to adopt the Mool Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar as pre­pared by Pal Singh Pure­wal and adopted by GSC and other bod­ies. It was em­pha­sized that by adopt­ing this cal­en­dar all Gur­purabs will have fixed dates and will en­able Sikhs in In­done­sia to be in sync with the Global Sikh com­mu­nity.

In view of the forth­com­ing 550-year Cel­e­bra­tions of the ad­vent of Guru Nanak in 2019, the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence re­solved to ask the In­done­sian gov­ern­ment to de­clare 2019 as the Year of Re­li­gious Tol­er­ance.  The In­done­sia Sikh Coun­cil will take this up in April 2018.

With a clar­ion call to meet every year, the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence in In­done­sia was a har­bin­ger of much-needed change and fo­cus on how we man­age our Gur­d­waras and the steps we take to in­cul­cate love for Sikhi amongst the next gen­er­a­tion.

Speak­ing to WSN, the speaker from Mum­bai -Kul­want Singh said, “It was ab­solutely re­mark­able to see the su­per ex­cel­lent ef­forts  and or­gan­i­sa­tional skills to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness of Sikh ed­u­ca­tion by de­vel­op­ing high stan­dards of learn­ing with com­pre­hen­sive and mod­ern teach­ing ma­te­ri­als.”

From the­ol­ogy to Gur­mukhi, from his­tory to Pan­jabi, from Gur­mat to Kir­tan to Quizzes and Com­pe­ti­tions, from lan­guage arts, in­clud­ing con­tem­po­rary Pan­jabi and the Gu­ru­mukhi script  -all of these kept more than a hun­dred stu­dents en­gaged through work­shops in les­son shar­ing, plan­ning processes, with am­ple op­por­tu­nity to pro­vide feed­back dur­ing the two days. It was in­deed Re­vival of Sikhi in ac­tion.

Not only was the Sikh youth made aware of their rich her­itage but also of the need for un­der­stand­ing and tol­er­ance amongst com­mu­ni­ties. The process of con­cur­rently eval­u­at­ing the sem­i­nar was a unique process. The con­struc­tive di­a­logues to de­velop a lifestyle that is Guru-ori­ented for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions and fos­ter net­work­ing among par­tic­i­pants were very im­pact­ful.

Shar­ing of knowl­edge on Sikhi in the con­text of im­proved gov­er­nance, ac­count­abil­ity, and ef­fec­tive de­vel­op­ment de­liv­ery and re­sults were other key ar­eas of the hands-on ac­tion work around the sem­i­nar, fa­mil­iar­iz­ing the par­tic­i­pants with the de­vel­op­ment of new ap­proaches in mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of life.

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Speak­ing for the stu­dents, co­or­di­na­tors Man­mith Kaur Bhuller and Sangeet Kaur con­cluded, “Shar­ing ideas and ex­per­tise makes a re­ward­ing and suc­cess­ful ex­pe­ri­ence for the youth of our so­ci­ety. The fire of youth must be used not just to build ca­reers but to build homes and com­mu­ni­ties based on love and giv­ing. With di­rec­tion and guid­ance, they can change the very shape of the world and we can have a peace­ful world. If we com­ple­ment the flame of youth with a sense of fo­cus and ur­gency, they have the power to move worlds.”