Ace so­ci­ol­o­gist, thinker, teacher and ide­o­logue Di­pankar Gup­ta’s re­cent ar­ti­cle on the im­age of Sikhs has come as a whiff of fresh air for the Sikhs and the Sikh so­cial me­dia cir­cle is agog with grat­i­tude. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh, in this open let­ter to the cel­e­brated au­thor, ac­knowl­edges his de­scrip­tion of the Sikhs and how Sikh re­li­gious ethos helps them in build­ing an en­vi­ron­ment for self­less ser­vice through its com­mit­ment to Sar­bat da Bhala -Wel­fare for all hu­mankind.

DEAR DI­PANKAR GUPTA: GREET­INGS FROM A GRATE­FUL SIKH PEO­PLE!  Thank you for ac­knowl­edg­ing the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikhs dur­ing the pan­demic in In­dia and the world. Your ar­ti­cle in the Times of In­dia, “Sikhs are dif­fer­ent. Rou­tin­i­sa­tion of ‘Se­wa’ primes them to help oth­ers. The pan­demic demon­strated this,” comes a great re­lief to the Sikhs, who may not be be­grudg­ing for recog­ni­tion due to their pos­i­tive in­doc­tri­na­tion of Sikh prin­ci­ples, nonethe­less, it is soul-sat­is­fy­ing to bold Sikh Samar­i­tans on and off the field.

You have right­fully men­tioned how it has en­abled many to change the stereo­typed im­age of the Sikhs per­pet­u­ated by Bol­ly­wood and the ma­li­cious­ness of some black sheep amongst the Sikhs them­selves.  

Your un­der­stand­ing of the re­li­gious ethos of the Sikhs which makes it pos­si­ble to place Sewa -ser­vice to hu­man­ity as part of their life is a whiff of fresh air from the abu­sive rein­ter­pre­ta­tion by the Rashtriya Swayam­se­wak Sangh and oth­ers who go the whole hog to ma­lign the Sikhs, their re­li­gios­ity, their cul­ture and even their hu­man­i­tar­ian Sewa. 

I am sure that the Sikh and non-Sikh stu­dents whom you so ably taught at the School of So­cial Sci­ences, Jawa­har­lal Nehru Uni­ver­sity, New Delhi for three decades would not be car­ry­ing any bias against Sikhs as a com­mu­nity. 

It is in­deed a huge trib­ute to the hu­man­i­tar­ian work of the Sikhs for you to say that “Peo­ple from dis­tant Croa­tia and Syria ac­knowl­edged the help Sikhs gave them dur­ing their night­mare mo­ments, and nei­ther did the US hes­i­tate to re­name New York’s 101 as Pun­jab Av­enue to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tion of Sikhs to the city.”

Like you, the Sikh com­mu­nity it­self,  jour­nal­ists, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and some Bol­ly­wood per­son­al­i­ties, notwith­stand­ing Kangna Ra­naut, have saluted their brethren who, to use your words, “From pro­vid­ing oxy­gen to am­bu­la­tory ser­vice, to feed­ing the poor, the Sikhs are nearly al­ways the first to help. Even when re­la­tions quail to pick up a Covid corpse, Sikh vol­un­teers will­ingly, and un­hesi­tat­ingly, come for­ward.”

A se­nior jour­nal­ist friend of mine once shared with me that “I was born into a Sikh fam­ily and, pri­mar­ily, that’s why I was a Sikh.  As I grew up, and ac­quired an agency in the mat­ter, stud­ied about my re­li­gion and oth­ers, I de­cided to re­main a Sikh. My pri­mary rea­son was that I saw in Sikhism many pro­gres­sive val­ues, dogged pur­suit of right­eous­ness and truth, and a life­long com­mit­ment to love and com­pas­sion.”

For you to men­tion this in the Opin­ion columns of the Times of In­dia that, “Sikhism alone that ser­vice to oth­ers is an im­por­tant as­pect of de­vo­tional prac­tice for the laity, es­pe­cially for the laity, within the tem­ple premises,” is touch­ing the ba­sic thrust of the fifth largest and one of the youngest re­li­gions in the world.

“In Sikhism, it is not the great, the gifted, the sage who serves or­di­nary peo­ple but it is or­di­nary peo­ple who serve or­di­nary peo­ple. Nor is there a spe­cial pre­mium re­served in Sikhism for serv­ing the guru, the maulvi, the dea­con, which is above serv­ing every­day peo­ple in­clud­ing those who are non-Sikhs too.”

“In Sikhism, it is not the great, the gifted, the sage who serves or­di­nary peo­ple but it is or­di­nary peo­ple who serve or­di­nary peo­ple. Nor is there a spe­cial pre­mium re­served in Sikhism for serv­ing the guru, the maulvi, the dea­con, which is above serv­ing every­day peo­ple in­clud­ing those who are non-Sikhs too.”

Thank you for clar­i­fy­ing Char­ity per se and the Sar­bat da Bhala -Wel­fare of all hu­man­ity-in­spired Sewa con­cept and prac­tice of the Sikh peo­ple.

As the pan­demic will con­tinue to bother us for long, this decade will be the Sikh Decade for Sewa and Com­pas­sion.

I have no hes­i­ta­tion in think­ing that as the Covid19 pan­demic is here to stay, for some years, as pre­dicted by WHO and other bod­ies, this decade will be the Sikh Decade of Sewa and Com­pas­sion. The ubiq­ui­tous Sikhs -men and men, will be pre­dom­i­nantly vis­i­ble in the fore­front of Food for All, Health for All and Dig­nity for all cam­paigns, dis­pro­por­tion­ate to their tiny pop­u­la­tion world­wide.  

The fi­nal ar­gu­ment, how­ever, would be the one, which was rel­e­vant for my se­nior jour­nal­ist friend. He told me, the clinch­ing deal for him to re­main a Sikh was the cre­ation of the Khalsa by the Guru. This cre­ation he said was, “a de­c­la­ra­tion of war.”  It was, he adds, “a per­ma­nent war against tyranny, op­pres­sion, false­hood – in what­ever shape or size – and in every cen­tury.”

The next decade has to be one where Sikhs ded­i­cate them­selves to Jus­tice for All.

He, how­ever, rued the fact that “to­day, most of us in this army of the Guru are ab­scon­ders from the bat­tle­front.  Ab­sent with­out leave is­n’t a good po­si­tion to be in when one is in a war.”

While be­ing com­pas­sion­ate, it is time for Sikhs to stand up to in­jus­tice and op­pres­sion -any­where, every­where and at all times. If they be­gin now, maybe the next decade will see the Sikhs cel­e­brate it as the Decade of Jus­tice for All.

Thank you again and may we see an abate­ment of Sikh stereo­typ­ing in the times to come.

Sin­cerely

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News

Ti­tle photo cour­tesy: www.gov­er­nan­cenow.com