Daily Fix

Conclave

T. SHER SINGH

Spring is in the air. The snow is melting. The icicles are ebbing. The air can be taken in gulps again. 

Right on cue, my door bell rings one morning early this week … yes, it’s Ernie.

“Time for coffee?” he asks.

He’s a Catholic friend I’ve known ever since I moved to this village. Occasionally, we get together for a couple of hours over coffee and muffin, and review the goings-on in the world.

“You been following the papal circus?” he asks, as soon as we sit down in the café.

He knows of my interest. I think I may have impressed him once by bragging about the week I spent in the Vatican a dozen years ago, and the fact that I had even managed to meet John Paul II, albeit ever so briefly.

I nod and deftly throw the ball back in his court. It’s his Pope and I don’t want to offend him with an insensitive remark.

“Well,” he says, his Irish tongue-roll as musical as ever, “they disappointed us badly when they chose Benedict. And, as expected, he‘s disappointed us with all these wasted years. And now, finally, this inspired act …”

He pauses for effect …

“ … of abdication! The good Lord finally got through to him, didn’t He?”   

I’m still not ready to jump into the fray. I let him continue.

“So, will they disappoint us again, or will they try to save the sinking ship, eh? The million dollar question is, will they give us a John Paul, or will they saddle us with another Benedict.“

I grunt my approval of his assessment.

“So, what do YOU guys do,” he asks. “Do you go through the same bloody mess every few years too?”

Hm-mm-mm, I say to myself, I never thought of it that way. What DO we do?

The wheels in my head whir and whirl quickly, and I change focus. Strange, I’ve never given much thought to how we manage our own affairs, certainly not in this context.

Ernie’s staring at me, waiting for an answer. 

I explain to him that our situation in Sikhdom is somewhat different. To begin with, we have no priests, no clergy. No one stands in anyone’s shoes, Peter’s or Paul’s.

Yes, we do have leaders. Jathedars, we call them. Group leaders. They manage and oversee and manage the Five Takhts, the seats of authority. And there’s one who presides as the jathedar of the Akal Takht in Amritsar. From time to time, they address areas of concern or interest in the community, and then issue edicts. Which apply to Sikhs worldwide.

But since they are nowhere akin to a pope or hold any real religious authority, their selection process has attracted little attention. No one replaces our scripture. Yes, we do have a living leader: it is the Living Word. There’s no room for another.

Odd, I say to myself, but we as a community don’t do much, do we, to monitor or participate in selecting our petty jathedars, though.

I explain to Ernie that there’s a reason why. The selection used to be by the community until about 175 years ago. The Sarbat Khalsa fulfilled the role of ensuring that the best man was given the job.

Then, the British took over Punjab and usurped Sikh affairs, seeing merit in controlling the selection of the Sikh leadership. It was easier to meddle in Sikh affairs that way, and mess with them.

Ever since, off and on, we as a community get a good leader and then the state steps in and steers things away … and the community suffers. Grievously.

The process was inherited by the Indians when the British summarily jumped ship and a newly created India was left behind. Suddenly, a nation with a narrow-minded, short-sighted Hindu majority, and no interest in protecting minority interests, became the Goliath, and the miniscule 2% Sikh population was left with no power to wrest its destiny.

Ever since, and even today, our leaders are virtually hand-picked by a hostile government. A rag-tag band of ruffians belonging to another religion, if one can call it that. Invariably, they tend to select the worst and the weakest amongst us to ’lead’ us.

As a community, we seem to have thrown up our hands. Hence, there’s little public awareness of how our jathedars are actually selected -- the ‘democratic’ electoral aspect that may lead up to it is but a façade.

So, unless we have a revolution akin to the great Gurdwara Reform Movement of the 1920s -- and I briefly explain to Ernie what it was -- we will remain leaderless. And rudderless. Adrift in the sea, like Yann Martel’s and Ang Lee’s Pi, with predators pacing back and forth on the rocking boat, ready to pounce on us.

Ernie nods sympathetically.

“Remember, I’m Irish,” he says, “we’ve been through the same crap for centuries!”
 
We’ve emptied our coffee mugs by now, and get up for refills.

“But I’m not sure what’s worse,” Ernie begins, as we settle back in our seats, “you with your nation hijacked by the corrupt and the ignorant, or our religion at the hands of, well, 115 tired old men … dressed in bright red frocks and white lace and tons of gold and jewels … claiming their biggest qualification is that they haven’t ever had healthy sex … and spending their lives hiding those amongst them who habitually diddle pubescent boys and helpless women … imagine, they’re going to be choosing our next leader!”

I let my mind wander.

So, we’ve decided that our two respective religious communities are in crisis. How are the others doing?

I rack my brain and can’t think of a single religious leader of world stature.

Except, maybe, the Dalai Lama. And all he does is utter platitudes with the frequency and gravitas of fortune cookies.

Who else is around to save the world?

The ayatollahs and the mullahs who have distorted Islam to the point of no recognition as the great movement it began a millennium ago?

Or the rabbis who have made it their life-work to steal land from others, while spitting at their own women for wanting to find joy in life?

The evangelicals who live in crystal palaces and amass ill-gotten wealth, promising dividends in the hereafter?

The brahmins and their surrogates who freely rape, pillage and plunder, offering nothing but utter misery in return?

Yes, I say aloud, it’s nice to watch the pomp and splendour around the selection of a new Pope. But, surely, it’s but a reminder to all of us … Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu … that it is time to deep-six the very idea of religion, and come up with a better, brighter alternative.

Strange, but Ernie and I agree on this.

Having resolved the path the world needs to take hereon, we head home our separate ways. Ready to keep an eagle eye in the days ahead on the colour of the smoke wafting out of the Sistine’s copper chimney.

March 13, 2013

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