Category: Panjab

The Sikh-Muslim School in the Punjab – Prof Puran Singh

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It may not be inappropriate here to refer to a school of Nam-culture in the Punjab that must be so called to distinguish it from the Sufis (The Sufis being the Hindu-Muslim School of thought), the Sikh-Muslim School. It is well-known that Baba Guru Nanak was well-beloved of both Hindus and Muslims. In distant Baghdad, he counted disciples like Shah Behlol. At Mecca, he met Quazi Ruakan Din, the Pir of Uch and the latter bowed down to the Guru, begging of Him his sandals to be kept as relics in his dynasty and those sandals are still there. Farid Sani and others like Pir Makhdum Bahauddin were great devotees of Guru Nanak. Mardana was his disciple, Kamal of Kurham loved and died singing the Guru’s mantram “Glory be to the Guru” ! “Glory be to the Guru” !

And so this intercourse between him and the Muslim mystics became more and more intimate as the Guru’s culture spread. The Hindus recited Japuji, sang the Guru’s name, lived dedicated lives and went great distances to meet him. They gave up caste, and partook of the food at the Guru’s langar. Their doubts and superstitions were dispelled. And they came later on, in Sikh history, to be knows as Sahajdharis. These Hindus had abjured wholly the superstitious sundry faith of Brahminism and had taken shelter in the Guru. They formed the Sikh-Hindu School. The fact that this Sikh-Hindu School has automatically lapsed into Brahminism, however regrettable, shows that any school of new culture in India beset with so many quagmires of sects founded on smaller philosophies and empty dogmas, needs not only spiritual isolation, but physical isolation to live. Few Sahajdharis have survived, while the Sikh with beards and hair forming a kind of physical isolation still respond to the call of the Guru, as despite all their imperfections and poverty they still harbour the Guru’s spark.

In the time of Guru Arjan Dev, both Hindus and Muslims gathered round his person, Meeting him was a culture for all. The following extract from the pen of the Emperor Jahangir form His Memories shows how both Hiindus and Muslims gathered round Guru Arjan Dev, which the Emperor was of course unable to understand and appreciate as the great Akbar had done.

“So many of hte simple-minded Hindus, many many foolish Muslims, too had been fascinated by his ways and teachings. They called him Guru, and form all directions crowds of people would come to him”

The fact that Guru Har Gobind had to shelter a Muslim woman disciple from Lahore to Amritsar, to whom the Sikh name Kaulan was given, shows that there was already a reaction caused in some sections of Mussalmans. They might have been quite few due to political reasons, but the element of Intense devotion to the Guru was there among them. Ordinary surface-history does not record the meeting of the mystic ancestors of Bullah Shah and Waris Shah, but the litrature of these periods of the Punjab is full of internal literary evidence of the language of the Guru being used by these Muslim saints of the Sikh-Muslim School.

A most notable but invisible change had occurred. The Muslem poets of the Punjab gave up their Persian and Urdu in favour of the Punjabi language used by the Guru. Shah Hussain, Bullah Shah and Waris Shah, all belong to this renaissance which followed the influence of Guru Arjan Dev on the mind of his age and the age following immediately after him.

These Punjabi mystics belong to the Sikh-Muslim School, in which though nominally Muslims, they preached the Guru’s religion of love. and the Guru as God enough for the living beings of this earth.

The Punjab of the Gurus, whether Hindu or Sikh or Muslims, is essentially Sikh

Bullah Shah calls Inayat Shah his Sat-Guru. The Sikh has certainly no quarrel with names. It is the process of inspiration which must come to play under any names.

The dedicated and pure life of Sikh men and women must have had its effect all around it; so much so that it must be said that the Punjab of the Gurus, whether Hindu or Sikh or Muslims, is essentially Sikh. The new interpretation of Islam given by Iqbal as love is due to the un-conscious influence of the Guru’s presence in the Punjab. It is my faith, no Punjabi can escape the spiritual hidden effects of this great inspiration.

So also in the Sindh province. In the Punjab of the Gurus came caravans of disciples from Sindh, Kabul and Kandahar, from Baghdad and the Caucasus-Ranges and mingled as multi-coloured humanity in the job of the holy crowds, in the job of seeing him.

This pageant of the whole people made alive by the great magnetic influence of the Guru’s love and inspiration was life giving.

Recently in our days, there was a Muslim fakir in the district of Gujrat (This district is now in Pakistan) in Punjab who would, while going away or returning to his place, alight at Amritsar and pay his visit to the Golden Temple. He used to say, “What must have been the influence of the great Gurus, when after four hundred years, here by touching his marble floor of their temple, one gets the stream of Simrin, ‘Naming him’, so much quickened. The broken ones are united here. No impurity can stay here. A magnetic current of inspiration still flows here. Those who know aught of spiritual life and of Simrin can feel the flow of inspiration”. Such is the testimony of this mystic, evidently not openly of the Sikh School.

There are a hundred more Muslim mystics who practice Guru’s word, “Glory to Him!” “Glory to Him !” They sing “Blessed be Guru Nanak !”

Though history does not trace the social tradition of a decade ago of which I myself have been a child and eyewitness, there has been great amity almost; amounting to kinship as of blood between the Sikhs and the Muslims in the Villages. The other day I went to a village and lived as a the guest of a Muslim family of farmers. Their simple rustic feeling and service reminded me of the Sikh, and I melted away into the feeling. “These are the Sikhs of my Guru, the untutored children of God !”. Seeing them I almost cried, “How good to be Muslims if such sweet love and service is Islam !”

Sikh life cast a halo of spiritual softness, almost that of the Budha’s sculptured face on the Land of the Five Rivers and mellowed down the tone of the very speech of the Muslim. These were the social effects of the Sikh-Muslim School.

Rai Bular, the Bhatti child of Talwandi (now Nanakana) has left behind in the very blood of his offspring a feeling of worship of Guru Nanak.

These followers of Guru Nanak loved the Gurus, served the people, and thought ill of no one. Their universal goodwill, their angelic demeanour, their saintly lives drew an involuntary and silent homage from the people of the Punjab. Even the old Pathans of the Indian Frontier bear witness and say, “The Sikh is a Fakir, his prayers reach God. Bow to him as a man of God whenever you see him”.

The Guru loved the people, made no distinction between the Hindu and the Muslim. It was the spirit of the Guru’s love unshackled by sects and creeds that went deep into the soul of the people.

Invisible transformations were many, but great impetus to a universal friendship between man and man was given by the Guru. He awakened the people to a new spiritual and social consciousness. He awakened individuals to cosmic consciousness. All religions met in the Guru, loosing their names. The past was fulfilled and all the future hovered round the song of the Guru. The “Guru” was thenceforward a whole religion of love, for people. It was a new liberty.

Guru was thenceforward a whole religion of love, for people. It was a new liberty.

A reference to the pure Punjabi literature created by Bullah Shah and Waris Shah would show the atomic structure of its words, that this is the language; of Guru Granth, with an individual note, of rapture from each poet. Particularly the whole tone of Bullah Shah is distinctly of the colour of the Guru. He refers to the transient pleasures of the world as “plucking of Kasumbha flowers”. The Guru also calls them the false dye of Kusumbha as compared with the fast dye of the maddar-root to which the joys of soul are compared.

“The men of deeds , of practice of His presence have crossed the river.

I am left behind, defeated in myself.

I have been picking Kusumbha buds from these fields of life”.

He refers to Simrin as “Spining of cotton yarn” He refers to man as the Bride who is to make preparations here by making sufficient yarn and cloth for her “dowry” and refers to the home after death as the Home of Her Bridegroom. This is exactly in the spirit of the Gurus, in the very same phrase.

“Sat Guru has made me un-manifested manifest me.”

(Sat-Guru nealakh lakhya hai) – is a whole refrain of Bullah’s one poem which reads life a tune taken from Guru Granth. Bullah Shah sings directly out of his soul, but he is truly inspired by the Guru-atmosphere in the Punjab.

Shah Hussain, whose songs are so poignant with aching love for God, is strongly resonant of Guru culture. All great things refuse to be classed. They go everywhere and get classed with everything. But to swing the pendulum is to impart new life to it. Sikhism has been, all along supposed to be a blend of Semitic and Aryan cultures. From my study of Guru Granth, the most authentic record of the Guru’s mind, I can say that it is the historic culmination of Buddha’s religion. the religion of the truly illumined, the truly illumined of all races and countries. Few would deny the true spiritual and human culture first starts from Buddha in this world, it is Buddha’s gospel that in the life of Christ becomes true Christianity1. By Christianity I mean the Religion of Christ himself. “Those who have seen the Son, have seen the Father”. And the Christ’s inspiration gives Islam its humanity. Semitic and Aryan cultures seem to have in animal sacrificing cruelty a common ancestry. Islam in this latter aspect is Vedicism, a dualism and goes to conquer the Kafir like the Aryan of the old conquering the non-Aryan.

Islam by its attitude of conquering others and hating the Kafir and the animal sacrifices in the name of Allah, presents difficulties to the modern thinker. Islam lives in the first great Caliphs. Islam lives now only as an aggression a kin to that of an Empire-maker.

Guru Nanak sympathised with the Muslims in their fall from true Islam into the mad religion of empire-making and crushing their fellow-beings under their heels, and there are many passages in which he as their teacher admonished them back to the right conduct, right feeling and right contemplation. The wise and truly religious therefore, bowed down to the Guru.

The religion of the Gurus thus is the Great Humanity of feeling which makes man good without an effort, and is but a “looking up”, “a gazing up” towards God. Men and women looking up to Him forever, waiting for His coming, opening their mouths like rain-birds to the shower of His Love. A moment comes when by His favour, man is transmuted into a god. And all effort of creation is to produce that great man of God. If any animal is to be sacrificed in love of Him, it is the animal-in-man.

The synthetic blending of things take place in the realms of the intellect; the Guru lives in the soul of the Universe, in the spirit of life, in the labour of Love, in the inebriation of that Great Beautiful. A new present start with the Guru. The future is all his.

  1. These are individual opinions. ↩︎

Guru Nanak And Divine Grace – Prof Puran Singh

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Guru Nanak rose with tumultuous moral indignation, but unperturbed himself. And he rose as a new genius of Heaven, a spontaneous ‘Buddha-personality – the Handicraft of Creation. In this mind, there is at last no kafir, there is none who stands in need of anything but God’s mercy. The Guru says that Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh all are in great need of becoming true men. All the need of the great sympathy of that one cosmic spirit which pervades this creative Nature and Nature’s creation is He in person, whom we can touch flesh to flesh, and not a dead machine that merely revolves.

Guru Nanak condemns false creeds and crooked politics and the unjust social order. He condemns the hollow scriptures and isms of the times; he condemns barren pieties, asceticism’s, trances, sound-hearing yoga’s, bead-telling, namaze’s fasts, and all the formal vagaries of religious and political hypocrisies. He condemns them without sparing any, for it was all darkness in the world and men.

True Islam had declined long ago – a great spiritual momentum has already produced a communal cohesion of a great mass of men who did and thought as they chose, mostly like the old conquering Aryans and Brahmins. Islam then established in India as a religion had become a tyranny. It was just lip-profession as in the case of the Hindu and Christian. Lip-profession covers the bestiality of man in his social of political tyranny.

Guru Nanak takes up, like a giant, the long-rooted conventions of Hindu and Muslim on the palm of his hand and pitches them into the sea. Off with cant. Away with nonsense. Down with lies.

This calmness of Guru Nanak is superhuman; this is the power of the New Presence of God revealed through him.

Luther’s melodrama of burning the papal bulls is the wrath of a mere man, it is the small theatrical show, of an extraordinary human power. The true power of the Infinite is, never agitated like that. It never seems so extraordinary, so out of the way, so theatrical. It is the powerful calf of unfathomable depths.

Here, in the Punjab, was the wholesale destruction of all such systems in a glace, in a smile, in a presence. Down with the dead form and the evil minded social order. Down with false Islam, and false Hinduism; take to the true creeds. He filled the people with Himself.

The people forgot their past errors. Here was a man at last, their friend, their God, on whom they, like animals in distress, had been used to call in their distress and sorrow, as taught by those rare hidden nameless wanderers that came and sat under their trees with them, who were inexplicably happy and begged food at their poor doors.

God came to them suddenly from nowhere. And he was so human, yet inscrutable in his strange, wondrous miraculous “natural super naturalness.” And they were face to face with Him on whom they used to call as “Hari, Krishna”, “Krishna”, “Rama”, but here was He a man !

Great was the joy of the people, They merged all other names in Him, all scriptures in His speech. The soul of a whole people suddenly rose to its inner sovereignty. Pundits and scholars may now read the word of the Guru, as their learned treatises might assist them, but to the seekers of truth, the people, then and now it is as simple as the rising of the sun on their mud huts. It was the cure for their suffering. It is the end of their dark night. And His Word on their lips can mean only one thing-it is the Guru, His love, His Mercy, His Help. To the disciples of the Buddha of Kapilvastu, all scriptures were resumed in the name Buddha. To the disciples of the Christ, the whole of human history gathered in and shone before their loving gaze in ‘Christ’. The Sikhs of the Punjab forgot all the past in the new light that flooded their hearths and homes, that illuminated them; they saw it was God’s Universe. Death is not the goal; the body of flesh and its dead rotten finalities are not the end. The people understood this one thing-call on Him when are in difficulty, as the child calls on the mother and the Guru comes to your aid. There is He.

This is all the meaning of the Guru’s song to the people. To sing His praise, to love Him – this is essential, what else is needed ?

Jesus Christ, the Buddha of Palestine, had added the Pasion to the Nirvana of the Buddha of Kapilvastu, and Guru Nanak, The Apostle of Nankana, added to the Nirvana and Passion the love of men, Sadh Sangat in which there was no ‘Kafir’ and no castes. Man and his God are one. In Guru Nanak all the former prophets are fulfilled and completed.

Guru Nanak, The Apostle of Nankana, added to the Nirvana and Passion the love of men, Sadh Sangat in which there was no ‘Kafir’ and no castes. Man and his God are one. In Guru Nanak all the former prophets are fulfilled and completed.

The Name “Guru” the teacher, or the Dispeller of Darkness, “The Logos-in-body”, “The Infinite-in-person”, he passed on to his successor. He could not live without the people, the disciples. He must sing and there was his minstrel, Mardana. He must gather crowds of angles around him, he was happy seeing great congregations happy and free in that great inner love which no one can name, and no one can say he knows it not, as Goethe puts it. He added simple home life to the individual, freedom to man and made him responsible to a society of gods. Man was made out of his inner goodness, spontaneously responsible of Love. Happily responsible to himself and not to the legislature ! In the society of man, conceived by Guru Nanak, came the resurrection of the individual as well as his sweet death. 

"God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease and rest and joys,
Myself each traitor to myself.
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My cog wherever I go,
Yet one there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me,
Break off the yoke and set me free.

The soul ripens in the company of the Guru’s devotes. He has become now multitudes.

Guru Gobind Singh – In Him, Guru Nanak’s sword in unsheathed. The Buddha had stood between the doe and the huntsman, the Christ between the people and the tyrants, the rulers, the kings. It is here too the same mercy, the same compassion. The tore humanity into no sects. Hindus and Muslims met round him as Disciples. The work ‘Sikh’ means learner.

And the feeling of every new Buddha exhausts the one patterns of its expression forever. With the Guru, Heaven unsheathed its sword to save the people from both religious and political oppression-the fanatic, savage oppression of the oppressors. This feeling has yet to work in spontaneous progress of man till Humanity ripens, and the visible proof of His sword being the sword of self-sacrifice, as was the Cross of the Christ, and being but the symbol of his compassion, is marked on the face of his people, these Sikhs, his disciples. Far away, separated from the Guru, for more than two centuries, after Guru Gobind Singh’s time persecuted, hunted, tortured-the Sikh, humanly speaking, has borne untold suffering, Yet here he is, When, in 1923, he was mercilessly beaten by the iron-shod, blind lathis of the police at Guru-ka-Bagh, near Amritsar, beaten unconscious and felled, he again rose and went towards the “Door of the Guru” ; again he was beaten unconscious, he fell and rose again with the same direction in his soul, the Sikh in him still unbeaten. There shone the light of the Guru on his face. It is same if we Sikhs blame the oppressors. Blaming is the way of cowards, those gone degenerate.

In the times of Guru Gobind Singh there shone the same light on the horseback of the Khalsa. No! The Sikh did not end in the barrack-room, as says Tagore, the poet who is not intimate with the inner animal in the Sikh, the animal that lifts its dumb eyes to his Guru, his God. They certainly do not know him, who say so.

If the Guru and his disciples took up sword, it was not with the hands of a Lenin or a Napoleon; it was rather as a Joan’ d Arc or like the wives of the Inca, when caught unawares by the barbarous Spaniards. Mere cries of a blind history should not be able to hide the sun of Truth; that Guru Gobind Singh waged war is a myth.

The Sikh when beaten at Guru ka Bagh was not alone; he was not an individual, he was like his Guru, whole multitudes; he was the people, even as today.

There were women on the roadside chanting the name of Guru and giving their brothers the milk of affection to sip before they went onwards to be beaten to death. No victor was received with greater honours, no king was ever given a more sincere welcome. This is the Sadh Sangat of the Guru, there is a spirit of self-sacrifice for the people, infused forever into a whole people. If the Sikh is still ignorant of the great Sikh consciousness. If the Sikh is still ignorant of the great humanity of his Guru, if he gets small and miserable at times, and is ferocious like the lion, it is the exhibition of his own vexation, not the Guru. All evil about him is thick darkness; but great is the spark that shines therein. It is only the spark that we should see. Darkness is every where in this world-a wholly unsatisfactory world-if the spark is lacking.

Guru Gobind Singh’s noble feeling is as divine as of the Buddha, as passionate as of the Christ, and as intensely human as of Muhammad. And he is the Guru, the God-personality which as a myriad facets.

He did not save his sons, nor his wife or mother or father. He lived and died as one who gave his all to the people. He sacrificed the propagation of his religion too, if the people could be saved. He did not call the people to any kingdom-he called them to death, to affliction. It is the summons of the Guru that still calls the people and they die hearing his voice. This intense love of the people for him is an expression of his feeling for them, not so much of their feeling for Him.

Not that Guru Gobind Singh felt not the pangs of a man and a father; he felt as the Buddha felt when Rahula asked him for his patrimony. See Guru Gobind Singh in Lakhi jungle after Chamkaur when he asks, in the extreme poignancy of that human feeling, that someone should go and get the news of his other two sons whod had gone to Sirhind side; two were lost before his eyes in the battle of Chamkaur from where he came to Lakhi jungle. The messenger had gone; Sirhind is many miles away and he asks them. “Has he returned, what news ? ” “No, Sire ! not yet” , they say. “Ah ! go and get on a high tree and look out; he must be coming.” Such is the father in Guru Gobind Singh. This man of keen, affectionate feeling as a man, a son, a father, a husband gives away his all for those whom he loves so intensely-in the service of the people; and he loves the people as no one every before him did. He calls them of his own blood, The Khalsa, the Beloved child of Guru Gobind Singh. The disciples become the children of God, of his Blood. There is the feeling of Buddha in the breast of Guru Gobind Singh, the same renunciation, the same Nirvana, the same good will for all living beings, and yet it no more wears the “Yellow Robe”. A wholly new shape, long tresses knotted on the crown of his head, a soldier’s dress, a sword by the side, and riding on his bay charger. He librates the slaves of centuries from the horrors of persecution and the idle speculation of metaphysics; puts the strength of gods into their muscles, makes them men, and they despise death and go riding like kings , these very grass cutters, howers of wood and drawers of water. And he asks soldiers to die to make human misery less and human happiness more. In vain does his disciple breathe who does not live and die for His great divine pain for his fellow beings.

Religion was purified by the compassion of the Thathagata, the Buddha; human love by the mercy of Jesus Christ, and it is the Guru’s great love of the people that is now filling all the noble tendencies of mankind. Now is needed the compassion of the Buddha, the love of Jesus the Christ. Now appears in addition the divine brotherhood of Sadh Sangat of the Guru, and all the previous Buddhas fulfilled in the Guru. All religions must take it up, all political creeds must bow down to it, science must work for it, so hath the Guru willed. Modern politics has been purified by the Guru and social reconstruction ushered in, which shall be now the universal tendency of the whole future struggle of man. The law of love is to dominate all spheres of human activity. False justification of human tyranny as the law of Karma is to be extinguished by the Law of forgiveness.

The Buddha of Nankana and Anandpur has risen and He is to be fulfilled in every individual man as the past Buddhas and in one Universal Human Society in a lyrical divine fellowship with its face towards God1. In Guru Nanak, in Guru Gobind Singh the true democracy of humanity is to be realized. All previous tiger-history is to be put away and all nations have to open their bibles and read the sweetness of human love in their soul and heart, their speech and service. Such is the new future of man, to be realized in the Guru’s City of Joy.2

  1. This is rendering of Gurmukh ↩︎
  2. Anandpur – is the city of joy ↩︎

ਆਖ਼ਰੀ ਸ਼ਾਮ : ਹਰਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਹਿਬੂਬ

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ਸਿੱਖ ਸ਼ਹੀਦ ਦੀ ਅਰਦਾਸ

[ਕਲਗੀਆਂ ਵਾਲੇ ਦੇ ਦਰਬਾਰ ਵਿਚ]

ਹਰਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਹਿਬੂਬ

ਤੂੰ ਆਵੀਂ ਕਲਗੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨਾ ਸਾਡਾ

ਤੂੰ ਆਵੀਂ ਕਲਗੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨਾ ਸਾਡਾ,
ਸੁਪਨਾ ਪੁਰੀ ਅਨੰਦ ਦਾ, ਬੇ-ਨੂਰ ਦੁਰਾਡਾ।
ਤੈਂਡਾ ਰਹਿਮ ਪਛਾਣ ਕੇ
ਮੈਂ ਨਿਸਚਾ ਕਰਿਆ,
ਰੁੱਤ ਘਾਮ ਪਰਦੇਸ ਦੀ
ਕੋਈ ਬੂਟ ਨ ਹਰਿਆ,
ਸੁੰਞਾ ਸਤਲੁਜ ਚਿਰਾਂ ਤੋਂ
ਬੇ-ਨੀਰ ਹੈ ਦਰਿਆ,
ਰੁਲਦਾ ਨਾਮ ਹਜ਼ੂਰ ਦਾ, ਕੋਈ ਵੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ,
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀਂ ਕਲਗੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ।

ਰੋਹੀ ਘਾਮ ਦੀ, ਮੁੱਕਿਆ !
ਤੇਰੇ ਕਰਮ ਦਾ ਪੈਂਡਾ,
ਸ਼ੁੱਕਰ ਦੀ ਜੂਹੇ ਵੜਦਿਆਂ
ਸਾਹ ਟੁੱਟਿਆ ਮੈਂਡਾ,
ਸੁੱਟਿਆ ਖ਼ਾਕ ਜੀਰਾਂਣ ਵਿੱਚ
ਰੋ ਤੋਸ਼ਾ ਤੈਂਡਾ;
ਬਹਿ ਕੇ ਬਾਜ਼ ਦੇ ਖੰਭ ‘ਤੇ, ਦਿਲ ਰੋਇਆ ਡਾਢਾ !
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀ ਕਲਗ਼ੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ ।

ਸੁੰਞੇ ਪੱਤਣ ਚਿਰਾਂ ਦੇ
ਕੋਈ ਖਬਰ ਨ ਤੈਨੂੰ,
ਸਤਲੁਜ ਭਰਿਆ ਲਹੂ ਦਾ
ਛੱਡ ਮਿਲੀਏ ਕੈਨੂੰ?
ਸ਼ਹੁ-ਤਕਦੀਰ ਦਾ ਖੇਡਦਾ
ਬਿਨ ਦੱਸਿਆਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ;
ਮੁਲਖਾਂ ਵਾਲਿਆਂ ਲਾਇਆ, ਦਰਵੇਸ਼ ਨਾ ਆਢਾ,
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀਂ ਕਲਗੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ।

ਦਾਮਨ ਤੈਂਡਾ ਪਾਟ ਕੇ
ਵਿਚ ਰੁਲਿਆ ਰੋਹੀਆਂ,
ਜਿੰਦਾਂ ਲੱਖ ਨਿਮਾਣੀਆਂ
ਤੱਕ ਸਰਸਾ ਰੋਹੀਆਂ,
ਟੁੱਟੀ ਅਰਜ਼ ਮੁਰੀਦ ਦੀ
ਸੁਣ ਹੰਭੀ, ਮੋਈਆਂ;
ਜੋਬਨ ਪਿਆ ਮੁਕਾਂਵਦਾ, ਸਿਰ ਝੁਲਦਾ ਜਾਡਾ —
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀ ਕਲਗ਼ੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ ।

ਗੋਰਾਂ ਘੁੱਪ ਹਨੇਰੀਆਂ
ਸਾਹ ਹੌਲ ਕੇ ਡੋਲੇ,
ਗਲੀਂ ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੇ ਬਾਗੜੀਆਂ
ਉਹ ਫੇਰ ਨ ਬੋਲੇ,
ਕਿੰਨੇ ਸ਼ਹਿਰ ਆਬਾਦ ਨੇ
ਤੇਰੇ ਦਾਮਨ ਓਹਲੇ !
ਹਿਕੋ ਵਾਰ ਹੀ ਤੱਕ ਲਏ, ਅਸਵਾਰ ਜੇ ਡਾਢਾ —
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀ ਕਲਗ਼ੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ, ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ ।


ਸੁੰਞਾਂ ਮੂੰਝ ਬੇ-ਰੁੱਤੀਆਂ
ਤਿਰਾ ਦਿਸੇ ਨ ਦਾਮਨ,
ਨ ਕੋਈ ਹੁਕਮ ਹਜ਼ੂਰ ਦਾ
ਨ ਪੈੜ ਨ ਜ਼ਾਮਨ,
ਦੂਰ ਘੰਗੋਰਾਂ ਉਠਦੀਆਂ
ਕਿਤੇ ਲਸ਼ਕਰ ਜਾਵਣ,
ਜਾਪੇ ਸਾਡੇ ਸਿਰਾਂ ਤੇ, ਕੋਈ ਰੋਸ ਤੁਹਾਡਾ—
ਤੂੰ ਬਹੁੜੀਂ ਕਲਗੀ ਵਾਲਿਆ ਕੋਈ ਦੇਸ ਨ ਸਾਡਾ।
ਸੁਪਨਾ ਪੁਰੀ ਅਨੰਦ ਦਾ, ਬੇ-ਨੂਰ ਦੁਰਾਡਾ।

Deep Sidhu – Essence of Punjab

~ harpreetsinghs ~ Leave a comment

Deep was a phenomenon that happened with Punjab. there were many colours to his personality. When the news of his death came every one was shocked. I have never seen or heard of this kind of mass grieving taking place. Sikhs all over the world especially youth felt his loss the most. Every one felt that they have lost someone of their own. Why was that? Even people who are not very active in panthic (Sikh religious) circles felt his loss. It was because he was able to connect to every Sikh’s inner self (which even they them selves didn’t knew) when he talked passionately about issues related to Sikhs and Punjab. He took all his inspirations from Sikh history, he connected Sikh youth that had been disconnected from their own roots to their glorious past. His love and passion could be easily felt from his speeches which appealed to inner self of people. Other wise changing people just by speeches is not possible there are lots of good orators around who have good command on the speech but are only speaking through intellect, probably that is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is defined first as the “acquaintance” with facts, truths or principles, as from study or investigation. Knowledge is intellect driven and can be gained from books, news, research etc, but wisdom on the other hand has to do more with insight, understanding and accepting of the fundamental ‘nature’ of things in life. It is full understanding to the soul and feeling fully connected. As prof Puran Singh has correctly stated that Intellectual analysis is never right, perception by the soul is never wrong. Deep had that soul perception.

Intellectual analysis is never right, perception by the soul is never wrong. Deep had that soul perception.

Existential Crisis

When Deep came on to scene during start of farmers protest he made a point that this is not only just the case of three farmers ordinances for Punjab or the case of MSP (minimum support price) this is the case of existential crisis of Punjab. Now this begs a question as to why was it the question of existential crisis or what is existential crisis ?

Answer lies in the Sikh philosophy never to dominate any one and neither to be dominated (ਭੈ ਕਾਹੂ ਕਉ ਦੇਤ ਨਹਿ ਨਹਿ ਭੈ ਮਾਨਤ ਆਨ ॥) that all human beings are created free and equal and any kind of forced domination is totally unacceptable, may that domination could be of any form physical, mental , physiological and these three bills were taking the centre’s domination over the states to next level. Sikhs and Punjab had already been the biased treatment from the centre and these three laws would take it next level. Deep represented what youth of Punjab felt but was not able to express, because of the resentment the people of Punjab had against centre. Punjab had a long history of suffering after 1947 which included:

  1. broken promises by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, struggle to get a Punjabi speaking state post 1947 when rest of India was re-organised on linguistics basis at that time centre not recognising Punjabi as a language and eventually Sikhs had to suffer to pay with their blood to get a Punjabi speaking state from which states like Himachal Pradesh and Haryana were carved out and a very small Punjabi speaking province was created.
  2. In 1984 Central Sanctorum the very heart of Sikhs Sri Harmandir Sahib was attacked by full might of army and resulted in destruction of the temporal authority (Sri Akal Takhat Sahib), then their genocide being committed in November 1984.
  3. Punjab and mainly Sikhs getting subjected to draconian laws such as TADA in 1980’s which resulted in wiping out thousands of Sikhs including young and old men and women in fake police encounters. The human rights activist Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra who exposed this internationally was also killed.
  4. Punjab had been going though economic genocide as no new industry was encouraged in Punjab to increase its dependency on to centre and to keep Punjab mainly agrarian economy and while keeping Punjab mainly agrarian economy Punjab’s waters were taken illegally from Punjab and was given to Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. So Punjab’s farmers had to use ground water for their crops which caused the ground water table of Punjab to go down drastically and as a result Indian Punjab is on the verge or becoming desert.
  5. In 2000’s drugs were specifically introduced in Punjab, which caused most of the youth who survive the period of militancy in Punjab became drug addict.
  6. Lots of Sikh political prisoners have completed their jail sentences but are still languishing in jails for no apparent reason.

Deep didn’t see farmer’s bill in isolation but connected every thing together with the global picture and correctly identified that this is governments next step in the above mentioned things already done and this will the last nail in sealing the fate of people of Punjab because if these bills were to be implemented it would eventually lead to the domination of big corporates over farming and would leave farmers at their mercy and Punjab being agrarian province and majority Sikhs in Punjab are associated with farming, that is why it was existential crises for Punjab and Sikhs as it would take away even the last bit of free will that they have.

He correctly identified that people at the grassroot level are either not aware of the political rights or are not able to express them selves because of the amount of oppression in Punjab for example three Sikh youth were jailed for keeping literature that is perfectly in their democratic rights ( AFDR regrets life term to three youths) Deep stood up and became the voice for all those disenfranchised people who were suffering from State’s oppression and made them aware that this was the case for their existential crises because they are continuously going through a genocide which was going on at all fronts i.e. physical, economic, cultural etc.

Why is Deep a Shaheed (Martyr) for the people of Punjab ?

First lets see what is the definition of Shaheed as per Sikhi, as per Sikhi one who willingly want to play the game of love that person gives up their love for their own life and walk on the path of love.

ਜਿਉ ਤਿਉ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚਾਉ ॥
ਸਿਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਤਲੀ ਗਲੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਆਉ ॥

As Prof Puran Singh states: Much is in sprouting and more in the seed, and all is in the Guru who made us so to love freedom as to prefer death and dissolution to slavery of the soul. Better wholesale ruination than the extinction of the Guru’s Lamp of Love, lit in the shrine of our hearts. This burning love for freedom in the Sikh soul is bound to make life on this earth full of perils, and any unjust kings and despotic potentates against him; and so it has ever been, also if we look at other Sikh Shaheeds (martyr’s) right from the Guru period till date then we see that they made a conscious decision to proceed on the path of truth shown by Guru out of their love for Guru then to waver from it in any way to save their own skin.

This burning love for freedom in the Sikh soul is bound to make life on this earth full of perils, and any unjust kings and despotic potentates against him

Now if we consider Deep. He came into Sikh struggle from his love for Sikhi & Punjab, by leaving the luxurious life that he was leading in the high rise apartments of Mumbai and driving expensive cars, and dining in the most expensive restaurants. He left his successful career as a corporate lawyer where he had worked with big corporate houses such as Sahara India Pariwar, British law firm Hammonds, and then becoming the legal head of Balaji Telefilms. He selflessly left all that to stand with disenfranchised and marginalised community (Sikhs of Punjab) who had been at the target of state’s oppression from last four decades. He knew the path that he has chosen is full of perils because by doing that he was coming directly in confrontation with state as he was talking about Sikh sovereignty and defended the democratic rights and aspirations of Sikhs for their own independent nation (which are not wrong in any sense ). Deep knew that on this path he could end up loosing his life because he mentioned the same in one of his talks. He knew clearly what he was up against. There were multiple assassination attempts made on him, but he never backed down from the cause he was passionately attached and believed in. He had full faith in Guru Sahib. That is the reason why he is a Sikh Shaheed because he full-filled the definition described about about the Sikh Shaheed that the one who chooses to follow the path of Guru purely out of their love for Guru irrespective of the dangers they might have to face.

In the end I would only say that Deep represented the character sketch of youth correctly predicted by Prof Puran Singh in his poem ਜਵਾਨ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ( Youth of Punjab)

ਇਹ ਬੇਪਰਵਾਹ ਜਵਾਨ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ,
ਮੌਤ ਨੂੰ ਮਖ਼ੌਲਾਂ ਕਰਨ,
ਮਰਨ ਥੀਂ ਨਹੀਂ ਡਰਦੇ ।
ਪਿਆਰ ਨਾਲ ਇਹ ਕਰਨ ਗ਼ੁਲਾਮੀ,
ਜਾਨ ਕੋਹ ਆਪਣੀ ਵਾਰ ਦਿੰਦੇ
ਪਰ ਟੈਂ ਨਾ ਮੰਨਣ ਕਿਸੇ ਦੀ,
ਖਲੋ ਜਾਣ ਡਾਂਗਾਂ ਮੋਢੇ ‘ਤੇ ਉਲਾਰਦੇ ।
ਮੰਨਣ ਬਸ ਇਕ ਆਪਣੀ ਜਵਾਨੀ ਦੇ ਜ਼ੋਰ ਨੂੰ
ਅੱਖੜਖਾਂਦ, ਅਲਬੇਲੇ, ਧੁਰ ਥੀਂ ਸਤਿਗੁਰਾਂ ਦੇ,
ਆਜ਼ਾਦ ਕੀਤੇ ਇਹ ਬੰਦੇ ।
ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨਾ ਹਿੰਦੂ ਨਾ ਮੁਸਲਮਾਨ,
ਪੰਜਾਬ ਸਾਰਾ ਜੀਂਦਾ ਗੁਰੂ ਦੇ ਨਾਮ ‘ਤੇ ।

These carefree young men of Punjab,
they mock death, Not afraid to die.
To do it with love, then they will give their life
They are not enslaved by anyone, Standing up with clubs slung over the shoulders,
Just believe the emphasis of their youth
These stubborn and determined, smart and handsome
These freed (sovereign) men of Guru
Punjab neither Hindu nor Muslim,
The whole Punjab lives in the name of Guru.

– Harpreet Singh

Standing for Rightious

~ harpreetsinghs ~ Leave a comment

ਸੂਰਾ ਸੋ ਪਹਿਚਾਨੀਏ, ਜੋ ਲਰੈ ਦੀਨੁ ਕੇ ਹੇਤੁ || ਪੁਰਜਾ ਪੁਰਜਾ ਕਟੁ ਮਰੈ, ਕਬਹੁੰ ਨਾ ਛਾਡੈ ਖੇਤੁ ||

सूरा सौ पहचानिये जो लढ़े दीन के हेत ।।  पुर्ज़ा पुर्ज़ा कट मरे, कभु ना छाडै खेत ।।

(He alone is the true warrior both spiritually and worldly who fights against injustice and for oppressed. He may cut apart piece by piece but never leaves the battlefield.)

Person whom I am talking about today lived by the above principles of Sikhi and gave his life. He was a true Sikh of Guru, a Singh, a lion that he alone stood up against state’s oppression and injustice that happened during 80’s and 90’s in Punjab. He stood up for humanity during dark times when even the media was not ready to acknowledge the innocent killings of Sikh youth and instead backed the butchers of Punjab (KP Gill and Beant Singh (Punjab’s CM)). That was the time when he stood up and discovered the mass cremation records of up to 25,000 young Sikh men who were illegally killed in fake encounters. Roar of this singh caused state to go on back foot and he was threatened that “he has only found 25,000 records of the many more that happened and it won’t cost them to do one more if he doesn’t stop”.

Needless to say he didn’t stopped and filed his report in United Nations human rights commission about the atrocities being committed in Punjab. He was abducted on 6th September 1995 from in front of his house in Ludhiana (Punjab) and was brutally killed.

Reason what I am highlighting here is not that he too was killed illegally by state but the thing that he knew what he was doing and what that could land him into but then also he was unmoved (A Light of Justice). On reading an excerpt from his close acquaintance that he told this man to be careful about his life as well  to which this man replied.

ਹਵਾ ਕੇ ਸਾਥ ਭੀ ਰਿਸ਼ਤੇ ਬੜੇ ਪੁਰਾਨੇ ਹੈਂ।ਮਗਰ ਚਿਰਾਗ਼ ਤੋ ਹਰ ਹਾਲ ਮੇਂ ਜਲਾਨੇ ਹੈ।

हवा के साथ भी रिश्ते बड़े पूराने हैं। मगर चिराग़ तो हर हाल मैं जलाने हैं।

This showed his commitment to the values of Sikhi and humanity which are popularly referred to as:

ਸਿਰ ਜਾਵੇ ਤਾਂ ਜਾਵੇ, ਮੇਰਾ ਸਿੱਖੀ ਸਿਦਕ ਨਾਂ ਜਾਵੇ

सिर जाये तो जाए पर मेरा सिखी सिधक ना जाये।

(Happy to get myself beheaded but not betraying my Sikh Values)

Sardar Jaswant Singh ji Khalra gave his life to protect each of us and one of the important ideals which our faith demands. His Selfless sacrifice not only deserves our gratitude, but also our commitment to continuously strive to live up to those ideals.

On this note I would conclude this article by saluting the great man and may almighty give us all the strength to stand for righteous.

To mark the UN international day of disappeared Khalsa Aid has launched an exhibition Lapta. It showcases portraits and interviews that expose truth behind the forced disappearances in Punjab.

1984 a Shock Therapy…

~ harpreetsinghs ~ Leave a comment

1984. The year that changed the Sikh psyche forever. This year is entrenched in every Sikhs mind, because of what happened in June and Nov’84. In this post I have tried to make an attempt to explore the real reasons of this attack in perspective of current situation of Sikhs and Panjab. 

We all know that reasons that the popularly known for the attack on Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) are :

  • Anandpur Sahib resolution – Akali dal passed this resolution in 1973 and main stream media dubbed Sikhs as separatists and wanted to break away from India.
  • 1978 Vaisakhi Masacare – 13 Sikhs were killed on 13th April 1978 Vaisakhi during peaceful protests.
  • Indira Gandhi wanted to create a divide between Hindus and Sikhs and win forthcoming general elections.
  • Indira Gandhi was hell bent to teach Akalis a lesson because they opposed  her during emergency.

All the above reasons that I have listed and several others were there but in my opinion they were not the main reasons for the attack because if they would have been the main reason then they would justify following:

  • Why Sri Darbar Sahib was attacked with full military might specifically on 3rd of June the martyrdom day of 5th Guru of Sikhs Sri Guru Arjan Dev ji (who got the Gurudwara constructed in 1581) and when thousands of pilgrims were paying their respect at Darbar Sahib and thousands of those pilgrims  got killed.
  • Why 37-40 other Gurdwara’s in Panjab were attacked at the same time when Darbar Sahib was attacked and innocent pilgrims including women and children were killed.
  • Army commandos getting trained by Mossad prior to attack in mid 1983 at secret location in Israel. Why UK and Russia got involved in advising India on how to attack. All these preparations were done one year in advance even before Sant Bhindrawale moved inside Darbar Sahib complex (He moved into Darbar Sahib complex in late December 1983) . Indian Government’s official line have always been that “they were left with no choice but to attack Darbar Sahib to flush out Bhindrawale and his men”. So if Indian government was forced to take an action then why was it planning for attack since early 1983, because if they wanted to arrest Sant Bhinderanwale then they could have easily done that because he moved into Akal Takhat by the end of 1983. but the idea was not to arrest Sant ji or to sit with him on negotiating table to resolve the crisis peacefully but to attack at the heart of Sikhs. So Sant Bhindranwale’s moving inside Darbar Sahib was a reaction of the government’s policy to attack Darbar Sahib and not the cause of attack. It is worth mentioning here that Gen SK Sinha has mentioned this in his interview that he was asked to give tanks back in 1981 during Mehta chowk incident to which he refused. After that Gen laid down the procedure on if at all army had to go in any Gurdwara what procedure would be followed which obviously was not followed. Lest that Gen knew the intentions of the State were never to resolve any thing peacefully.
  • Army looting the rare historical manuscripts from Sikh Reference Library and burning the rest of it. Those manuscripts have not been returned to Sikhs till date.
  • Why Sikh genocide took place in Nov’84 after Indira Gandhi was killed on 31st October. It was not a spontaneous out burst of anger of the people against Sikhs in Delhi and other states.  It was a pre-planned attack on Sikhs because the arsenal that was used in it and the kind of planning that had been done to identify Sikh homes by using voter lists and Ration card lists. That kind of detailed planning and execution can not be done over night (Indira Gandhi was shot on 31st of October 1984 and Sikh massacre started on the morning of 1st of November and continued till 3rd of November ) it takes weeks to plan if not months, which states that this genocide was planned and had to happen anyway. Killing of Indira Gandhi had just bought its execution date forward.

Now this begs for a question that why to go to such extreme against a minority that doesn’t even constitutes 2% of the whole population of the country and the community that had suffered most amount of losses during freedom struggle for the country, then in 1947 during partition  and after that in 3 wars against its neighbouring countries and had always stood by the side of India ? Detailed answer to this question could fill couple of books so won’t go in much detail here but a simple answer is the project of Nation building (Fascism under the garb of Nationalism) required few fundamental changes to be implemented to assimilate Sikhs (and eliminate those who can’t be assimilated) which couldn’t have normally be implemented. So The Shock doctrine was implemented.

Shock doctrine

only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change”. First comes the war, designed according to the authors of the Shock and Awe military doctrine, to “control the adversary’s will, perceptions, and understanding and literally make an adversary impotent to act or react.

Next comes the radical culture shock therapy which uses moments of collective trauma to engage in radical social and economic engineering. This is how the shock doctrine works: the original disaster – the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as a blaring music blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.

To understand this better lets see following changes that took place after 1984 in Panjab.

Change of Education system in Panjab and Status of Punjabi in Sikh households

Punjabi is being treated as second grade language in Schools. Kids in Panjab are being urged to talk in Hindi. All this has happened in a state where people have struggled and spilled their blood to get a state on the basis of language after 1947 when all other states were carved out on the basis of regional language but centre refused to do the same for Punjabi.

Post 90’s Punjabi was put on the back seat in Sikh homes (both inside and outside Punjab). People started giving preference to Hindi or English for a simple reason that they didn’t wanted to be looked down upon by speaking Punjabi and wanted to considered secular by the majority community. This inferiority complex was instilled in Punjabis post 84 Shock. Those Punjabis who spilled their blood to get their state started disowning their own language.

Punjabis should learn about the love for their own language from Tamilians, French, Jews, Chinese and other communities (Doesn’t matter which country they live in their second and third generations also speak their native language at home and they are proud about it). We all know about the ill effects of disowning our language so won’t go in detail here but In relation to Sikhs the effect it has is that Sikhs believe in SSGS (Sahib Sri Guru Granth Sahib) as their living Guru which is in Gurmukhi. If Sikhs don’t learn to read and write fluent Punjabi then they are incapable of reading and understanding SSGGS and will have to depend upon others for translations and interpretations because people  interpreting could be deliberately misleading others because of their own vested interests or of their masters or they could be merely misinformed themselves.  This is happening now a days where state supported lecturers are misinterpreting Sikh scriptures either to propagate nationalistic agenda or merely to misguide Sikhs and create a divide among them so that they be kept busy in fighting over petty issues which are of no big importance but Sikhs currently are wasting their time, energy and resources in trying to prove them selves right and fighting over them.

All this is happening because either Sikhs don’t want to read or not able to read themselves mainly because of falling standards of Punjabi and also because of willingness to read. In such case lack of understanding of the language becomes an obstacle in trying to understand the text and that makes the person dependent on the interpreter (in this case the kathavachaks / lecturers ) and the person chooses the interpreter according to ones own mind (man-mat) and not according to Guru’s mind (gur-mat) and eventually becomes totally dependent on the interpreter / middleman.

This defeats the whole purpose of Shabad Guru and making SSGGS as eternal guru of Sikhs so that they can read and get guidance directly from Guru and don’t depend on anyone for it.

Liquor and Drug culture.

Liquor and Drugs had no place in Punjabi and Sikh culture (apart from few outliers which are always there in every community) but now Panjab and liquor have become synonyms. “Apna Panjab hove, Ghar di Sharab hove – Gurdas Maan” I am sure 90% of Punjabis would have heard this song. Liquor was specifically glorified in 90’s after the militancy was crushed brutally in Panjab by killing thousands of innocent young men, women and kids in fake encounters(of which there are no records till date) . In late 90’s when Panjab was mourning its brave men who have been killed by state at that time singers were given the task to reshape Panjab’s culture and sing such songs which disconnects Punjabi culture from Sikh Culture. Things changed swiftly while people of Panjab were reeling from the shock of 1984.

It’s a well-known fact that drug abuse have far reaching effects on human mind starting from shrinkage of Brain cells to having fertility issues and affecting the next generation as these drugs change the gene expression of user. This is a different kind of Genocide Panjab is subjected to.

Objectification of Women. 

Sikh Women had played a very important role in Sikh history starting from era of Sikh Gurus to 18th century to as recently as during 1980’s and 90’s in Panjab. They have always been classed equal to Men in Sikh culture (contrary to the norm of Indian society). Sikh Gurus have always recognised and promoted important role played by women in shaping the society for e.g. during 18th century when Sikhs were fighting Ahmed Shah Abdali and other oppressors and liberating the slaves (consisted mainly women) whom they have captured from rest of India then at that time it were Sikh women only who were preparing their kids in line with Sikh teachings and making them strong enough to stand for righteous. Mir-Manu decided to break the back bone of Sikhs by capturing their women. These women were asked accept their defeat and convert to Islam, which they didn’t accept. When they rejected that then they were made to grind wheat grains the whole day using hand-mill in scorching heat and at the end of the day were given half chapati to eat and half bowl of water to drink. Even their little ones killed and cut into pieces in front of them and their pieces were put in their mothers lap. Mothers were made to wear the necklaces made out of those pieces of their kids. But then also they didn’t give up and remained in high spirits (ਚੜਦੀਕਲਾ) and that’s why their next generation was also in high spirits.

It was this attitude of being in high spirits and having liberal (Azad) thoughts (that comes directly from SSGGS teachings), standing for the righteous  were and are not according to the likings of the state may it be 18th century, 19th century (British powers) or post 1947. To counter this post 1994 the songs and singers who just objectify women, glamorize drugs, liquor and guns were promoted which can be seen easily from the Punjabi songs now a days.

This gives rise to treating women as mere objects and undermines their intellect and importance. It classes them as weak and the one who is always dependent on men for her security, livelihood etc. This not only creates a imbalance in society by giving rise to issues like rapes, dowry, female feticide etc but also produces a generation that is weak and have slave mentality.

Panjab’s Water Crisis

It sounds untrue that the land that derives its name from 5 rivers is facing this problem that it’s at the brink of disaster and runs the risk of becoming barren land because its being robbed of its natural resource (water).  Panjab’s  water is being supplied to other states like Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi and whatever is left for Panjab is not sufficient for its own irrigation needs. All this water that is supplied to other states is for FREE and Panjab must buy other resources that it needs to fulfil its demands from other states. According to Indian constitution all states can sell their natural resources and generate revenue and buy resources from other states.

These waters that are being given to other states are not in accordance to National and International Riparian Laws, according to those laws water is a public good like the air, sunlight, or wildlife. It is not “owned” by the government, state or private individual but is rather included as part of the land over which it falls from the sky or then travels along the surface. They also state that people of the land where it flows have the first right of its use( Riparian Laws).

To give a brief overview of this:

Panjab has an area of 105 lac acres, and approximately 5 to 6-acre feet of water is required annually to mature an acre plot for a normal paddy-wheat rotation. So minimum annual requirement of the total cultivable area comes to 52.5 M.A.F (million acre feet). Based on flow data available waters of Ravi and Beas were estimated to be 15.25 MAF.  Out of this following allocation were done by tribunal in 1986

  • Rajasthan (non-riparian) – 8.6 MAF
  • Haryana (non – riparian) – 3.83 MAF
  • Delhi (non – riparian) – 0.2 MAF
  • Panjab (riparian) – 5.00 MAF
  • Jammu and Kashmir (riparian) – 0.65 MAF

Total 18.28 MAF. Tribunal reached at this figure of 18.28 by considering surplus water below base stations of which 40% was considered utilizable. Which had been more of the error nous theoretical assessment but has no relation to the ground reality.

To fulfil its irrigation needs Panjab has gone down the route of getting water out of tube wells which has dropped the water tables in Panjab drastically. Now here one could argue that Panjab should explore dry irrigation system but then also the question remains that shouldn’t Panjab should be paid for selling its natural resources?

When Punjabis fought for their water rights in 80’s and they were classed as separatists, but today Panjab is fighting this losing battle because these changes were implemented as part of the shock that was delivered in 1984 and the havoc that it created for next 10 years. Panjab water issues have resulted in a lot of poverty in Panjab with farmers either committing subsides or at the mercy of petty handouts by state. Their kids not getting proper education because of the lack of finances.

Here it’s worth mentioning Educate Punjab who are doing a commendable job in this area.

Fake Deras in Panjab

In present day and age there are roughly 9,000 deras of babas in Panjab and they seem to preach their own version of Sikhism. They are used as major vote banks both by the state and centre and are given heavy grants. These Deras are promoted because they are exactly opposite to the ideologies of Sikhism of promoting Shabad Guru. Deras and baba’s had always been there in Punjab since British times but why they have multiplied so much and have become so powerful and popular post 90’s. Then the short answer lies in the fact that they get the monitory support from state (e.g. Radhasoami(this is about Delhi land grab but they have done similar land grabs in Beas as well with the support of both centre and state government) , Ram Rahim ) and at the same time the falling standards of Granthis (priests) in Gurdwara.

Part of the reason of falling standards is Sikh political institutions like Sri Akal Takhat Sahib, Shiromni Akali Dal and SGPC have been corrupted and infiltrated by state and are working in centre’s interest then in the interest of Panjab and Sikhs. This infiltration was also result of the 1984 Shock.

All the above couldn’t have been accomplished without shocking the whole community in 1984 because Sikhs had simply rejected previous attempts of assimilation and tempering with their culture, but unfortunately today Sikh community has been left rudderless.

Third and final step of Shock doctrine

After the shock is delivered and while changes are implemented if anyone resists then they are rounded up and taken to jails where bodies and minds are met with even more shocks.

Panjab endured this pain for ten years from 1984 onwards and is still happening now when innocent people are locked up since last 2-3 decades and are not being released even after their Jail term is over. Latest case of Jagtar Singh Johal in which innocent Scottish guy has been illegally kidnapped and locked up and no charges have been proved till date against him and now he is being threatened to be killed and burned alive by the police.

Can this ever get Fixed?

IMHO the answer is yes because as Prof. Puran Singh has said “Punjab na hindu na musalman. Punjab Sara Jindaa Guraan de naam te.”  So, with the help of biggest light and the constitution that Sikhs still have in the form of SSGGS and Guru can’t be taken away from Sikhs (provided they read understand and implement what is being said in SSGGS). It’s the need of the time for Sikhs to return to their basics, return to their mean position because until and unless they will not return to their mean position they will keep on swinging from one side to another like a pendulum from one political party to another.

But then the question is how to return? I guess the answer is through music. We all know that music has big psychological effects and it was music only that was used as a tool against Sikhs (as discussed above) and it is music only that will help Sikhs return. As it’s there in SSGGS that  “ਕਲਜੁਗ ਮਹਿ ਕੀਰਤਨੁ ਪਰਧਾਨਾ“ (In dark age of kal-yuga i.e in this age of ignorance, singing of the lord’s praises are most sublime and exalted, i.e. attach with the wisdom of Gurbani).

Finally, Sikh politics should be as per SSGGS the way Maharajah Ranjeet Singh did then only Sikhs will be sovereign* in true sense.

*Will try and cover this in more detail in next post.

-Harpreet Singh