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OP-ED March 6, 2003 Amongst the classes strongly condemned by Guru Nanak and shunned most by all his successors is the clergy class. In the Guru Granth it is disapproved of mainly for four reasons. Firstly because it extorts money out of simple believers by spiritual blackmail thus robbing the people also of the most satisfying spiritual experience. Secondly, it spreads demeaning superstition and empty ritualism for the purpose of mind control and extortion. Thirdly, it thereby distorts religious truths and dwarfs the vision of prophets to serve its own sordid ends. Fourthly, the clergy class becomes a potent instrument in the hands of political and social oppressors, and helps them in enslaving the people, whose spiritual liberation they are ostensibly seeking. In many verses of the Guru Granth, these failings and machinations of the clergy are explicitly brought out. Some of the more often quoted verses are reproduced here in parts. `rahau. pooja tilak kar ishnana. chhuri kaadh laivai hath daana. Bed parhai mukh meethi baani. Jeean kuhat na sange prani. (Gauri Mahalla 5, Guru Granth, p. 201); Verses like the eighth at p. 372 of Guru Granth (daan dai kar pooja karna. -- maan chhod gur charani laag. 4.8.) were uttered to expose the exploitative policies of the Hindu clergy and the clergy in general. (lai bhar kadhe viahu. kadh kagal dasse rahu. sun vekhu loka eh vidaan. man andha nau sujaan.' 4. Guru Granth, p. 471) (gaj sadhe trai trai dhotian tehre payan tagg. gali jinnah japmalian lotey hath nibagg. Oei har ke bhagat na aakheeae banaras ke thug;' Guru Granth, p. 476) (`kaadi koor bol mal khae;') (kaajee hoe ke bahe niae. Phere tasabi kare khudai. wadhi lai ke haq gavai. je ko puchhe ta parh sunai;' Guru Granth, p. 471). There are several such verses but one in which the Guru discusses the eventual fate of the Hindu, Muslim and Jogi holy men is also worth noticing for the purpose of this paper. Kaazi mullan hovai saikh.jogi jangam bhagvai bhekh. Ko girhi karma ka sandh. Bin boojhai sabh kharius bandh. (Basant Mahalla 1, Guru Granth 1169). The Gurus took many precautions for of preventing this class from arising amongst the Sikhs. They themselves committed their spiritual experiences to writing so that there may not be any scope for ambiguity on what these exactly were. The entire Sikh scripture is in the poetic form and most of it is set to musical mode thus rendering it easy to commit to memory. They wrote their message in the most commonly understood language of the people so that there would be no need for specialised understanding and interpretation by the particularly learned in a specified area. While imparting the final shape to the scripture, the incomparable editor Guru Arjun, took ample care to set it to requirements of grammar so that no word was capable of being severally interpreted. He also numbered every verse thus obviating interpolation. The Tenth Guru put the final seal on the scripture and in addition declared it to be the eternal living Guru. This signified that the Sikhs in future would need no other spiritual guidance outside the scripture. He went a step further and declared that his Khalsa would owe no allegiance to any mortal but must regard itself as the direct domain of Almighty. To guide the followers in the day to day affairs, in politics and social interaction under the scriptural provisions, he created the mystique of the Guru Khalsa Panth, the collective Guruship of all the believers. As will be obvious to the discerning mind, the Guru had unfolded a perfect plan for the complete spiritual and social liberation of humankind. By nature and because of historical development of the human race, humankind is plagued by insecurity and the consequent sense of helplessness, which propels cleverer or better-placed humans to seek power over others. The Guru was aware of this seamy side of human nature and likened the transformation of individual nature as a result of treading the Guru's path (with the aid of the Nam), as elevation of `netherworld creatures and animals into celestial beings.' (pasu pretho dev kare poore Gur ki wadiae). (manas te devete bhaie dhiyia naam hare'. Mahalla 5, Guru Granth, p.90) II When the Sikhs were in political power their social and spiritual norms were adhered to in the natural course. For instance, there are indications that during Ranjit Singh's time and before, there was no tradition of uninterrupted singing of hymns at Darbar Sahib, Amritsar. Much time was spent in interpretation of the scripture. It is also certain that women singers of hymns would participate and lead the congregations in prayer as a matter of routine. Vegetarianism becoming a fetish is also a later development. We know from history that meat was cooked and consumed by the Sikhs, in the very vicinity of the Akal Takhat up to 1725 CE. Difficulties came to the fore when the British occupied the Punjab in 1849 and, being aware of the liberating influence of the Sikh faith decided to control the springs of Sikhi, that is the Gurdwaras. The British administration strictly adhered to this policy until the first quarter of the twentieth century. In this it singled out the Sikh shrines for control. This arrangement was unique in the colonial history of the sub-continent as no direct control of the Hindu and Muslim places of worship was resorted to. Fortunately we have a document confirming the motives. The then Punjab Lieutenant Governor R. E. Egerton's letter dated August 8, 1881 from Simla to Lord Rippon the viceroy is in existence. It reads: My dear Lord Rippon, I think it would be politically dangerous to allow management of the Sikh temples to fall into the hands of a Committee emancipated from Government control; and I trust Your Excellency will assist to pass such orders in the case as will enable to continue the system which has worked out successfully for more than thirty years." (See Narain Singh, Jathedar Bhai Kartar Singh Jhabbar, Singh Brothers, Amritsar, January 1988, p.31). The next natural step was to place the hostile and the Hinduised mahants in-charge of Sikh shrines. This new priestly order belonged essentially to the rival faith and was steeped in the medieval, uninformed and irrational mindset. It utilised its primacy in Sikh affairs to import certain rituals and practises, which were perfectly in order in their parent Hindu faith but militated against the basic and profound doctrines of Sikhi. These included idol worship in the more prominent Sikh places of worship and several other crude and some very subtle, rituals. It was then that the so-called low-caste Sikhs were banned from making offerings of traditional krah-prasad at Sri Darbar Sahib, Amritsar. These pujaris did not recognise marriage according to Sikh rites. Sunder Singh Majithia's son Kirpal Singh married by anandkaraj ceremony. The mahants at Darbar Sahib refused to accept that family's offering. (Narain Singh Op. cit., p. 99). Several books were written, ostensibly by devout Sikhs to sustain these un-Sikh-like practises in place. (One such is Gurbilas Patshahi Chhevin by an anonymous writer) The arrogant mahants treated the Gurdwaras as their personal property. One of them went to the extent of declaring that women, who came to worship in the shrines belonging to them, rendered themselves liable to molestation and nobody had the right to interfere in the mahants' enjoyment of this right. The British administration connived at such reprehensible claims and perverted rights. It was precisely the molestation of women worshippers in two important Sikh shrines which infuriated the Sikh masses and provided the final impetus for reforms in the Gurdwaras. (On January 24, 1921, a lady of Tarn Taran, whose own son had been drowned in the temple tank by the pujaris, related to the congregation at the Akal Takhat how women were being regularly molested and intimidated at the Gurdwara. (See Pratap Singh, Akali Lehar, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, Amritsar, March 1975, p. 94. In 1918, seven ladies including a thirteen-year old child were molested at Nankana Sahib. Ibid. p. 100. See also Narain Singh Op. cit., pp. 140 and 142). It led to the congregation praying for liberation of the shrine, which happened within the next three days.) To emphasise the right of every Sikh, regardless of caste, to make offerings at the central shrine led to emancipation of Darbar Sahib and the Akal Takhat from the clutches of the mahants on October 12, 1920. What was happening in the Gurdwaras controlled by mahants, was reported in the papers of the times and is described in the literature produced by the Singh Sabha leaders. The mahants were totally opposed to the Khalsa ideals and identity. They spared no opportunity to make that known. They did not approve of the kirpan wearing Sikhs and would forcibly remove the kirpans from their persons. (See the incident quoted by Narain Singh, Jathedar Bhai Kartar Singh Jhabbar, Singh Brothers, Amritsar, January 1988, p. 139). The mahants of Tarn Taran shaved, drank alcohol, ate halal, visited prostitutes thus violating the entire Sikh code of conduct. One of them did not even believe in Sikhism and was a leader of the Arya Samaj (Narain Singh, Ibid. p. 145). - a faith that criticised the Guru and sought to convert the Sikhs to Hinduism. This was a part of the British plan to make the Sikhs feel enslaved in every way During this period, (approximately from 1850 to about 1920), some inexplicable alien rituals came to be practised in the Darbar. Women were compelled by circumstances to hold back from participating in the daily routine there. The Singh Sabha movement, which aimed at purifying the faith of un-Sikh-like practises that had crept into the Sikh faith, addressed most of the aberrations and remedied the matter to a great extent. Many of these alien practises continue to this day. Some of the readily identifiable ones are: the practise of continuously burning a clarified butter lamp among the glitter of electric lights. Constant recitation of the hymns to the exclusion of exposition, taking out the presiding copy of the Guru Granth to kothasahib located in the Akal Takhat and washing the Darbar floor with milk in imitation of the shaivite ritual (in all probability it is also inspired by it) are some others. Continuous reading of the scripture (on payment) for the benefit of absentee devotees all around the ambulatory path of the Darbar, is one of the more disturbing ones. It is observance of one of these rituals that has caused the present controversy and the crisis in Sikh affairs. The concept of paid, permanent, institutionalised clergy also dates back to this period. Our ideal was Bhai ----- Singh who was the scripture reader at the time of Ranjit Singh but was well known to live only on his own meagre earnings. His duties consumed much time and in consequence he was so poor that he could not even afford an iron plate to bake his daily bread on. Ranjit Singh on hearing of his plight was so moved that he invited him to receive ample gifts from him. The scripture reader would not come, so Ranjit Singh went to his humble hut to make the handsome gift. The Singh locked himself inside the hut and sent a message to the king that he was perfectly at peace with his poverty and wanted no remuneration for the privilege of serving his Guru. III The doctrinal position of equality of sexes, one of the fundamental beliefs of Sikhism, which again is at the heart of the matter, may now be discussed. Several interested parties have been projecting the Sikhs as steeped in the medieval mindset. The editor of the Hindustan Times recently compared our hero and Man of the Century, Baba Jarnail Singh Khalsa with Osama bin Laden, who is currently the most hated of the West. Just then another piece appeared in the Indian Express to say harp on the `archaic' forms and norms of behaviour supposedly existing in Sikh society. Such journalists and others must be feeling quite let down that not a single Sikh from any walk of life has contended during the course of the recent controversy that women do not have equal rights in religious and civic matters. This is not surprising at all to those who are familiar with the religious training imparted to every Sikh from early age. The spiritual world before Guru Nanak was firmly in the grip of the Semitic concept of Original Sin that no thought could ever be entertained about the equal rights of both sexes to spiritual or social progress. In the Semitic religions women continued to pay the price of Eve eating the forbidden fruit. To begin with Christianity was monastic in nature. An early Christian saint spent most of his life alone atop a tower presumably under a vow of renunciation and as a demonstration thereof. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and the Order of Jogis in India continued the same tirade against women. Tulsidas the proponent of the most popular form of Hinduism declares her eternally liable to be beaten and kept under strict control at par with `a drum, an uncouth person, a shudra and an animal.' The Hindu superman for all ages is still the celibate Hanuman. In the Middle Ages the original Shankracharya was excommunicated from the order of ascetics because out of filial affection and duty, he had touched the body of his dead mother to give it a ritual last bath. This was considered against the vows of the sect. The Great Buddha abandoned his beautiful wife Yashodhra and their little son Rahul, renounced the world before setting out on a spiritual journey. Woman to early Buddhism, was a temptress. At the deathbed he, on the persuasion of Anand, reluctantly agreed that women could join the monks. He allowed it with a loud lament feeling that because of the concession, the Buddhist religion would not last the projected one thousand years but only five hundred. Asceticism of Mahavira and his followers is too well known to merit elaboration. It continues to be the Jain ideal. The Saivite Jogis whose cult was the most popular one at the time of the Gurus, treated and likened the woman to a female serpent and a white ant, association with whom eats into the spiritual merit that any man may have ever earned. To them she was a seductress and a temptress. One prominent Jogi (Bhangarnath) had even the audacity to chide Nanak for leading a householder's life. God naturally came to be portrayed as a male. Denigration of women, constituting half the human race came to in-built in the spiritual system of all religions before Nanak. In the world so heavily loaded against women, it fell to the share of Guru Nanak to utter the most significant words ever recorded in all spiritual history. At page 685 of the Guru Granth, the most compassionate man of all ages says in the measure Dhanasari (ghar 2 ashatpadian), sunn mandal iku jogi baisae. Naari na purakh kahhu kou kaise. `In the region of nothingness, presides a Jogi, who can say whether it is a female or a male.' Thus he conceived of the Ultimate Reality as equally possibly being a female. Thereafter, he and his successors continued to address God both as Mother as well as Father. (In the ramkali measure which was most used by Jogis, the fourth Nanak says at page 882 of the Guru Granth, Nanak pita mata hai hariprabhu ham barik har pratipare.' God is my Father and Mother and I am a child being brought up by God.') In Gauri Sukhmani, the Fifth Nanak affirms, tum maat pitaa ham baarik tere, you are Mother and Father and we are your children -GG page 268. The Bhatts were merely affirming the tradition when in Swaiye Mahalle Chauthe ke they wrote: `aape nar aape fun naari `He himself is the male and again Himself is the female.' (Guru Granth, p. 1403). Guru Arjun the consummate editor placed the composition at the very concluding part of the scripture to emphasise it all the more. Guru Nanak's own homecoming after prolonged missionary tours lasting sometimes a decade is touchingly described in the Janam Sakhis. It stands in direct contrast to the narrative related of Adi Shankracharya. One such story says, Baba ran towards his mother, fell at her feet and `cried much and cried much' out of sheer joy of seeing her. Bhai Gurdas the amenusis of Guru Granth calls woman `the other half of man' and as the foundation of the householder's life, a `doorway to final release.'(mokh dwari) In contrast to the Jogis term her as narak ghor ka dwara `the doorway leading to the most rigorous hell.' It is the tradition of centuries, which leads the Sikhs to consider a woman equal to a man in all walks of life. It is qualified somewhat (?) only by the equally prevalent tradition of chivalry. IV Sikh women were the first in the world perhaps to get an equal right to vote for electing the members of an elected body (the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee) in the year 1925. It is certain that women in England, the `mother of democracies' did not exercise that right at that time. All recent history has confirmed that the feeling of equality of sexes is well established in the Sikh panth. On March 9, 1940 the Religious Advisory Committee of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee gave expression to it when it adopted a resolution in favour of allowing the women to perform service inside the Darbar Sahib at par with men. It is signed by some of the most learned and the most devoted of those times. On February 9, 1996, it was followed by a formal order of the prominent religious persons. It was as a result of the convergence of the interests of four interest groups. Unfortunately, the religious sentiment and principles were only exploited for some other purpose. Had the intention been to restore the rights to women, a determined attempt would have been made to ensure compliance by calling a Sarbat Khalsa (a general assembly of all Sikhs interested in expressing an opinion on the issue) to reiterate the principle. In the absence of that procedure, all actions become merely a part of the group struggle for assertion. This is what happened in the present case. One interest group consisted of the clergy, who are eventually appointed by an individual and are plagued by the eternal problem of acceptance by the panth. This problem is inherent in the mode of appointment. It has created many a crisis but has never been adequately addressed. In issuing the February 9, 1996 orders, the clergy were in part tackling the need (born out of insecurity) to project themselves as supreme movers in panthic affairs. They chose a proposition on which they could not be wronged. Equality of sexes could not be questioned. In the bargain they hoped to assert their usurped right to issue a `hukamnamah' without consulting the Sarbat Khalsa. They sought to create the illusion that they were ordering their parent body about. They appear to have taken it as an opportunity to advertise their supreme position in Sikh affairs. Harbhajan Singh Yogi who was the foreign inspiration, perhaps aimed no higher than getting some advertisement himself besides being a part of the historic process. His wife and devotee took part in the one time sewa. He too has always been in need of legitimacy since his Yogic interpretation of Sikhi is ever destined to remain in the grey area. It is rumoured that due to Yogi's manoeuvring Bhai Manjit Singh garnered an international recognition for issuing the relevant order. It may have been the additional benefit all of the three active parties aimed at. A charitable view of such motives is possible and will harm none. The third party was the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which had its own pretensions to uphold. It has usurped the powers of the Sarbat Khalsa for all practical purposes and wants the arrangement to continue forever. In the incident under discussion, Manjit Singh Calcutta, its then General Secretary represented it. There were personal motives also. He had been a friend of Harbhajan Singh Yogi for a long time and may have just thought of obliging him besides reaping the usual beneficial fallout valuable for a politician. A person supporting such an ideal was bound to become popular with half the Sikh population at least. The fourth necessary party to the execution of the manoeuvre, was the body of persons who consider it their birthright to go on performing this sewa from generation to generation. They did not protest too loudly once they knew that it was to be a simple one-time affair and that their right would remain intact thereafter. Conclusion: The real problem in the to be perceived as in-built into the present case is not the equal right of women to perform the sewa - that has never been in doubt. It is the wrangle to wrest the powers, which in reality, very legitimately belong to the Sarbat Khalsa. It is also the existence of many meaningless rituals that have stealthily crept into Sikh places of worship - a product of the colonial past. These are the core problems. These rituals have no place in Sikhism and must be shunned totally. A policy decision regarding them must be taken soon before it leads to other difficulties. For any meaningful resolution of the situation, involvement of the Sarbat Khalsa is the pre-condition. People at large are not as ignorant now as they have been in the past. The bid of the clergy appointed by a political person heading the SGPC, to establish their own supremacy over the Sikh masses, must eventually be to the detriment of the Sikh panth. We have seen the mahants. We have already had a `Jathedar' who would have us believe in spite of the nash doctrine that the kulnash Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh is the descendant of Lav and Kush the sons of Sri Ram (whose historicity is a matter of faith). How dangerous the supremacy of such clergy in Sikh affairs can be is easy to realise when we read it in the context of the present day Hindutva policies being pursued by the rival and numerically much superior faith. We can ignore the immediate danger only if we are prepared to deprive humankind of the most elevating spiritual and cultural gifts of our Guru. It would be equally disastrous to reap the clergy class. It will perform only the functions performed by their counterparts in all ages. One function will be to spiritually and politically enslave the Sikh people liberated by the Gurus with their own sweat and blood. There is no doubt that the Sikh clergy (inclusive of new fake gurus) will be as heartless as their Hindu and Muslim counter parts in the medieval ages. Three recent examples of this are worth remembering. On February 19, 2003, more than three hundred people presented themselves at the Takhat of the most compassionate Guru at the behest of the clergy and they kept them waiting for the whole day. Eventually dismissing them in the evening without even exchanging a word with them. Such callousness is the natural attribute of clergy who live on exploitation. On February 22, 2003, the other pretenders to inherit the legacy of the Sarbat Khalsa spilt the blood of about five hundred people asking for a hearing. In the style of Narainoo at Nankana Sahib on February 20, 1921, they let loose their musclemen on the unarmed men women and children chanting satnam waheguru. The sexual exploits and other doings of new fake gurus of Nawanshahar, Sirsa and Noormahal have been exposed too recently to need detailed discussion. One effective solution to several of our problems is the custodian of Sri Akal Takhat appointed by and responsible to the Sarbat Khalsa.
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