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Tribal Justice

by I.J. SINGH

 

 

For Sikhs, the idea of "Excommunication" has dominated the news these days ever since this punishment was meted out to Prof. Darshan Singh, a celebrated exponent of gurbani.  Mine is neither a defense nor castigation of the man.  It is an exploration of the idea of ousting people from the community.

Humans have a fairly young history on this planet and we still remain very much a tribal people at heart.  What makes us "Top Dog" is neither speed nor strength because many other species are far better at those.  It is our brain - our mind - that makes us supreme. 

How did people manage to survive and thrive?  Primarily, by devising a strong socially bonded society - our tribal system.  Our environment was often hostile; the tribe necessarily small, where each member knew everyone else. The enemy was the outsider - often easy to define. 

Tribes had rules and the members lived and died by them. Therein lay safety. In time, religions and kingdoms emerged to create larger tribal units that carried the seeds of much material progress.

No matter the size, people had to design elaborate systems and laws to differentiate enemy from friend; survival depended on it.  This is exactly what states and religions have always done. The first steps then came to define barriers and fences between neighbours.

But how to keep the tribal members in line?  Rules and expectations of ethical conduct evolved concomitant with a system of governance to ensure loyalty to the code of conduct.  All the more important to be able to finger the renegade from within the community who fails to conform to the rules of the game.  The enemy within is always the more dangerous.

What then would be the most severe punishment for an enemy from within?  It is to be derecognized as a member of the tribe.  It is to be shunned by the community or to be ex-communicated and ousted from it.  In days of yore, excommunication was sure death. Mercifully, no longer so. But the intent remains unchanged. 

In fact, when pronouncing the severest sanction of eviction from the community, some religious ceremonies require that the prayer for the dead be recited.

We pride ourselves on our models of justice but, even though it has become significantly more nuanced and complex, our fundamental premise has changed very little. The idea is to no longer recognize the person who has sinned against his own people. Excommunication rhetorically asks: What greater sin could there be than the one of disloyalty to one's own people?

Thinking thus brought home to me how other religions deal with "heretics" within their own traditions. Not surprisingly, I found little substantive variety in how heresy, disloyalty and blasphemy are now seen. 

It was not always thus; not so long ago, heretics were routinely burned at the stake or otherwise condemned to death. The nature of religious punishment and sanction has changed, primarily because a death sentence is now the prerogative of the state; no other controlling legal authority may impose such ultimate sanction.  And governments guard this exclusive power jealously, strictly, forcefully and forcibly.

Since these days we Sikhs are making so much unwelcome news - defined largely by the climbing decibel level, personal innuendo and emotion - it might be instructive to explore Sikh tradition in juxtaposition to the experience of some larger and older religious traditions.

Historically, religions have used two different terms: Shunning and Excommunication - and I have trouble clearly delineating the difference between them. It seems that "Excommunication" comes to us principally from the Christian Church, while "Shunning" refers to its cultural antecedents, with or without religious overtones.

Excommunication primarily implies religious transgression and is the most grave of all ecclesiastical censures; it literally means not in communion or communication. In Christian parlance, this means that the person is no longer to receive communion at the church. 

We might recall that the late Senator Edward Kennedy, after his divorce and remarriage, was not allowed to receive communion in the Roman Catholic Church. This then is spiritual. Other forms of censure, such as shunning, banishment from the church and community, or public damnation may follow. Those who die in a state of excommunication are not to be prayed for publicly - hence neither public prayer for them in a church, nor burial in hallowed ground.

But as for all sinners, forgiveness and return to the fold on repentance is possible. Witness the example of Galileo who was excommunicated, and later forgiven 500 years later. Depending on the gravity of the issue, a decree of forgiveness may only be granted at the level of the Holy See. This speaks of an elaborate judicial process. Very few Protestant churches use excommunication.

In Islamic Law (Sharia), an individual or group may be branded kafir, meaning non-believer. Even in recent times, we also see honour killings as well as Muslim sinners being stoned or their body parts amputated in punishment handed down by Muslim clergy. Judaism allows the exclusion of an individual from religious community through the Cherem, a solemn ritual equivalent to excommunication. Both Muslims and Jews have a living tradition of religious Courts, even though sects differ in their interpretation and application. The best known Jew to be ostracized was the philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

Hinduism, perhaps because of the multiplicity of traditions within it, and Buddhism, do not appear to subscribe to the concept of excommunication. However, banishment and singularly harsh punishment in Hindu society based on infringement of the laws of caste is pervasive and still practiced. One only has to peruse Hindu laws as codified by Manu to see their mind-boggling complexity.

Religions that have a functioning ecclesiastical system of justice do present a finely calibrated gradation of religious punishment within the general rubric of excommunication or shunning.

Shunning removes the lawbreaker from the community and its life. This could include varying degrees of social boycott, including not being welcome to shop in the community's marketplace. The degree of shunning, I suppose, depends on the nature and severity of the sin. Shunning thus can be particularly painful to the shunnee, even more so than religious excommunication.

The Sikh practice on such matters is more complex than it seems, possibly because our religion is so young. But every religion has to have an internal system of conflict resolution. And we do as well.

The Gurus gave us the rudiments of a good, forward-looking one, but we seem not have valued it or really done anything with it.  Let's parse some givens and see where they lead us.

Guru Hargobind gave us the Akal Bunga. Known through much of Sikh history as the Akal Takht, it has been the site where matters impacting our survival and affecting our existence could be discussed and decided. To the Sikh psyche, where the Harmandar is the epitome of our inner spiritual journey (Piri), the Akal Takht signifies the external world and worldly matters (Miri) for the collective Panth. The two remain inseparably intertwined. Therefore, to me, arguments that Guru Hargobind did not grant us the Akal Takht where justice could be rendered sound silly.

Two historical nuggets might be instructive.

Guru Har Rai shunned his own son Ram Rai because he had changed a line of gurbani in deference to Emperor Aurangzeb.

The second matter speaks of an occasion when Guru Gobind Singh and some Sikhs passed by the gravesite of a respected Muslim, and the Guru saluted it with his arrow. In the traditional Indian culture, that is not uncommon but Sikhs are enjoined to refrain from such acts of reverence to the dead. The Sikhs took exception to the Guru's action. The Guru paid a fine as penalty.  He was thus testing the judgment, maturity and independence of Sikhs. 

These examples tell me that Sikhs are expected to design and operate a system of justice that would govern their lives. 

The fact that Sikhs compiled the Rehat Maryada (Code of Conduct) in the 20th century and also created a new Takht (seat of authority) as recently as 1966, tell me that the collective body of the Sikhs (Panth) has the authority to create institutions for both their spiritual and temporal needs.

From such reasoning, I conclude that Sikhs can design and refine an ecclesiastical system of internal justice. We have a rudimentary system in place that is largely dysfunctional at this time. Not to fix it would be an abrogation of the rights, privileges and duties as Sikhs that are granted to us by our Founder-Gurus.We now have a panel of five Jathedars who manage the five existing Takhts.

At this time, two of the five Jathedars do not seem to subscribe to the Rehat Maryada. This would be somewhat akin to a situation in the United States if three or four judges of the nine on the Supreme Court did not accept the primacy of the Constitution as a binding document. This absurdity tells me that our Sikh system of justice is currently broken. 

Nevertheless, even with this sadly imperfect system, over the years we have judged some Sikhs wanting and prescribed varying punishments: Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a much admired ruler of his time; the former Chief Minister of Punjab, Surjeet Singh Barnala; and  Professors Piar Singh and Pashaura Singh come to mind. Some Sikhs have been excommunicated - Teja Singh Bhassaur, Prof. Gurmukh Singh, and now Prof. Darshan Singh. 

The first two expulsions were later reversed; the last happened only days ago. I know that this list here is incomplete.

In Sikh parlance, the person who has been judged guilty is a "Tankhahiyya" - someone against whom a penalty has been levied.  In its severest form - that hearkens back to our tribal ways - the writ requires Sikhs to not break bread with the excommunicated, nor marry a daughter to such a person or his son. Apparently this stricture does not apply to marrying one's son to the daughter of the guilty parent. Why?  Because in the traditional Indian culture, at marriage, a daughter adopted the customs and the way of life of her husband and in-laws, but the converse did not happen. This appears to be a patently unfair idiosyncrasy of the patrilineal, feudal Indian social reality - needing serious reinterpretation. 

The edict asks the faithful to practice a total social boycott of the guilty person. Clearly, it does not stop the excommunicated from attending religious services at the gurdwara, since gurdwaras are open to all, even non-Sikhs, but probably bans the guilty from a visibly active role there.

Sikhs are now found all over the globe but those in the diaspora are not represented in the hierarchy of our religio-political institutions in India. They have to be equal partners in the equation, along with the India-based Sikh organizations, such as the Sikh elective representative bodies in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (SGPC) and Delhi (DGPC). Clearly, the writ of these two bodies does not span the whole of India, much less the rest of the world.

At this time, of course, there are many structural issues with the Takhts and their Jathedars - they owe their positions to the S.G.P.C., which owes its own existence to an act of the Indian Parliament dating back to the Colonial era. This remains an historical anomaly for an independent religion in a free country. The Jathedars, at this time, are a hostage to Punjabi and Indian politics.

Keep in mind that while we respect the office, we may not always be that kindly disposed towards each incumbent. As an example, the Presidency (in the U.S.A.) is universally respected, the person who occupies it at any given time may not be.

I can envision the Takht Jathedars acting collectively as the Supreme Court of the Sikhs. The infrastructure needed for such a Rota or the "Sikh Supreme Court" does not exist at this time. In such a theoretical model, how would the Jathedars be appointed and how would they be impeached and removed, if necessary. What authority and independence would they have?  What qualifications and worldview? A credible scholar, Dr. J.S. Neki, has raised these concerns in a recent publication.  I, too, have debated these inter-related issues in other essays that are available on sikhchic.com and elsewhere.

It is important that we continue to accept the reality of the existing system while developing the movement for change. Success will come, but not in a day. Yet, we need to evolve our own local and regional institutions - not to challenge the Akal Takht as a competing center of power, for that would be throwing out the baby with the bath water - but because we need them to address our local and regional concerns.

The Rota of five Jathedars, like the Supreme Court, need not be involved in every petty issue - from local gurdwara membership; local election disputes, to the matter of tables and chairs in local langars. The Akal Takht (in consort with the other four Jathedars) should act as the highest authority only when matters before it are of significance to the larger body of Sikhs worldwide. And then it would act in continuation of what local and regional bodies (like lower courts in secular society) have already considered.

In this system, I would anoint the Akal Takht as the seat of the Chief Justice, because it would be consistent with our history and tradition.

In the meantime, I wrestle - along with many readers - with how the concept of excommunication fits in a religion that, at its core, is a forgiving tradition grounded in humility. 

My point is that such systemic changes as I suggest today flow neatly from our tradition; they are not a departure from it, and that the Sikhs worldwide have the authority to institute them.

We need both short-term answers that would likely not be entirely satisfactory to our problems today, while we continue to work on some long-term solutions.

It seems to me that, at the end of the day, all justice is tribal, and that's what it should always be, even when we have a tribe that is all over the world. Justice has to operate by rules that the tribe finds fair, progressive, representative and transparent, as well as protective of its interests.

 

ijsingh99@gmail.com

February 18, 2010

Conversation about this article

1: Harinder (Bangalore, India), February 18, 2010, 12:14 PM.

Let us have the most modern Judicial system in the world. It will require the best and most spiritual and innovative legal minds amongst us.

2: Kam Singh (Birmingham, United Kingdom), February 18, 2010, 1:30 PM.

Some members of the Sikh community are, in my opinion, moving fast in the direction of the Spanish Inquisition era of Christianity, and extremist Wahaabi Islam, in which 'enemies' of Islam have 'takfirs' placed on their heads, and are rendered as apostates. I look at some Sikhs today and see growing intolerance and hatred.

3: H. Singh (San Diego, California, U.S.A.), February 18, 2010, 10:16 PM.

The idea of excommunication or punishment to someone based on his or her beliefs sounds like decrees issued by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue in Saudi Arabia. Let there be freedom of thought without any fear of banishment. Isn't this what Sikhi promotes?

4: Gurjender Singh (Maryland, U.S.A.), February 19, 2010, 6:46 AM.

Excommunication of Prof. Darshan Singh ji (former Jathedar of Akal Takht) is a biased and politically influenced decision by the current jathedars. There should be an open discussion of all the issues by Sikh scholars before taking any decision as the Sikh Maryada (rules) was formulated by a group of Sikh scholars/ Elders. Sadly, some of the practices currently at a few of the takhts are against maryada, and there is disagreement even amongst the current jathedars vis-a-vis those practices. Some of the traditions do not make any sense for Sikhs, such as 1) Washing the floor of the Golden Temple with milk; 2) Doing aarti with a thaali and deepak (oil lamp) at Hazoor Sahib, etc. These and many others are obviously leftovers from the times our places of worship had been taken over by hindu mahants - with the encouragement and support of the British rulers and their divide-and-rule policies. If Sikhs want to maintain the dignity, holiness and freedom of the Akal Takht, then the jathedars should be selected by a finely-honed selection process, and not by a political party. It is time to wake-up and unite the Sikhs. It is a humble request to all the jathedars to please maintain the dignity of the Akal Takht and the other Takhts so that Sikhs can be guided without any division. It is a very serious issue that privately most of the Sikh leaders do not like the way the Akal Takht is operating, but they are afraid of speaking out openly.

5: Hardeep Singh (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), February 19, 2010, 1:17 PM.

Thanks, Dr. Sahib, for taking up a very critical issue. As you have mentioned, we are an evolving faith, I agree we need to review the role of the jathedars and the functioning of the S.G.P.C. The original forming of the S.G.P.C. was a very positive step towards the preservation of the principles of the Faith, but the structure and management style adopted to propagate those principles were flawed and have surely failed us. Before 1925, our gurduara institutions were managed by British government appointed masands who were managing them with their regime-oriented mentality, and now still today they are managed by outside sources through proxy, with the same regime- and controlling- mentality. Though we were able to change the people, we haven't been able to change the mindset. The S.G.P.C. has become a corporation with employees on payroll, thus generating a clout of bonded laborers. Any income coming from a faith-based initiative is to be very carefully spent. Current practices are taking us back to the pre-Nanak period when religion was used as a commodity to run the household. We need to also apply a Sikhi style of management, which is focused around the mindset and spirit of 'To Serve and Contribute', not to control and rule. Controlling and ruling are opposite to the concept of freedom, and thus averse to Sikhi.

6: Peejay (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), February 19, 2010, 3:37 PM.

Great comments by all the caring Sikhs. Our Sikh institutions have become very regressive, contrary to the Sikh principles. A good start would be to eliminate some of the anti-Sikh rituals being carried out, such as washing the floors with milk, arti with oil lamps, and sacrificing goats for tilak, etc.

7: Tejwant Singh (Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.), February 23, 2010, 5:37 PM.

Inder ji: Thanks for the shake up and by golly it is needed. Also, thank you for clarifying at the outset that this wonderful essay of yours is neither a defence nor castigation of Prof. Darshan Singh ji, to avoid misinterpretation of the title. Come to think of it, the world has shrunk so much that we are a tribe of different hues, creeds and faiths. It could be in the terminology or in the semantics that the limited language gives us, but in my opinion Sikhi is not based on handing out justice, rather it is based on tools of motivation. Justice requires punishment if one has done something wrong. Sikhi is not about punishment. Gurbani gives us the tools how to get up, dust off and carry on after having fallen. So the Sikhi system should be based on that aspect. The One is not judgmental. Judgments mean punishment or rewards, guilty or innocent. There is no grey area, no room left for improvement when one has done something wrong. Many religions, including the three Semitic ones, are based on the idea of reward and punishment. All religions that proclaim Hell and Heaven and also claim the certainty of which reincarnation the person is going to come back as in his/her next birth believe in God to be just, hence judgmental. Ik Oankaar is the instiller of goodness, the motivator who picks us up when we are fallen rather than kicking us while down, hugs us when we make a mistake or two and encourages us to do it better the next time, rather than smacking us. In other words, He is the true Father and Mother. Gurbani is full of verses stating all this and much more than what I have mentioned here. Many think that the concept of Miri-Piri was created by our Sixth Guru, which is not the case. This vision of Miri-Piri was created by Guru Nanak by telling us to lead the life of a householder. When our visionary Guru, Hargobind, created the Akal Takht, it faced the Harmandar which showed that all decisions taken by the people sitting at the Akal Takht should be based on gurmat ideals given to us in the Guru Granth. In other words, Miri can only be taken care of if one understands and practices Piri. Without practicing Piri, we have no inkling how to handle the decisions of Miri. So, in order for this to happen, one has to follow gurbani. Otherwise all decisions that are taken are based on me-ism, laced with ego. One more significant thing to notice is that the Harmandar has four doors, which has a great tangible aspect of Sikhi. These four doors show that all are welcome. No one is shunned, no one is rejected, no one is ex-communicated. How can one ex-communicate Gobind, who is in everyone? So, the system that should be created needs to be well thought-out, where voices of all Gobinds should be heard. In other words, rather than punishment of any kind, there should be tools taught to motivate so we can control the five thieves within which make us do bad things. My last point is that I am not a sucker for sakhis. Gurbani is a stand-alone tool box. It needs no sakhi to justify anything in the Guru Granth. Only those sakhis that compliment gurbani should be accepted, the rest should be discarded. This essay of great vision and the blueprint of Miri needs no sakhi because you have explained very well what kind of framework is needed for us to be able to resolve our problems. The sakhi of Ram Rai seems anti-Gurmat to me.

8: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), February 24, 2010, 4:22 PM.

Thank you, Tejwant, for focusing on sakhis (parables) and their use. All religions have them - for instance, in Christianity, the ones on the virgin birth of Jesus or his resurrection. Most are semi-historical, hagiographic narratives that may not always fit a logical framework. Yet they form the core literature of every religious tradition and play a part in connecting a people to their traditions. The two that I cited are in that mold; they are widely known and are an integral part of Sikh lore and oral tradition. In this column, my purpose was not to dissect them for logic or authenticity and I did not follow that temptation; that would have been distracting. Most readers are familiar with them and they helped me support the case that Sikhs need to explore a system of internal justice and conflict resolution. My use of these sakhis here is meant to serve a very narrow purpose.

9: Tejwant Singh (Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.), February 25, 2010, 8:17 PM.

Inder ji: The sakhis in Christianity about the virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection are part of the Old and New Testaments. The sakhis in Sikhi are not part of the Guru Granth which is a stand alone entity and is unlike any other scripture. So, the system on internal justice, correction, motivation and conflict resolution should solely be based on nothing else but the gurmat ideals given to us in the Guru Granth, in my opinion. [Editor: "Nothing else but ...? Sounds like what the Taliban or the Christian fundamentalists would say ... and I don't mean it as a compliment. The Guru Granth does not deal with specifics of conflict resolution, just as it does not lay out recipes for cooking, horse riding, etc. It expects us to use common sense in all aspects of our daily secular lives.]

10: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), February 26, 2010, 8:27 AM.

Tejwant, Christian gospel is in the New Testament, though the antecedents of Christianity are tied to the Old. However, the issue is that the parables of Jesus that I cited, no matter where they are located - in the scripture or outside of it, do not always fit a logical paradigm. Since they are in the scripture, often people interpret them literally, and that can and does create problems - such as with the writings in the Genesis (Old Testament). Our scripture (Guru Granth) has no such hagiographic accounts - except minor inclusions like some Bhagat bani perhaps. But that is not the issue here. The issue here is that such accounts, no matter which religion, have become an important part of the tradition and lore of that religion. Thus they form the idea of the religion for many. One needs to take note of them. Such sakhis deserve logical parsing but that would have been a distracting sideshow here. My purpose was to take note of their existence in the belief structure of many to argue that we need a system of justice in managing our differences. I certainly do not expect to see any such inclusions in the Guru Granth for two reasons: one, that many sakhis may be wholly or in part apocryphal and secondly because Guru Granth is largely silent about much historical detail - it is not a formulaic book of recipes. (Limited historical references are there, especially on social practices of the times.) A religion, when designing institutions to serve a community, looks to its gospel and scripture for sure, and also draws on its traditions, lives of its founders and prominent associates, and history. That is the point. Lore and literature then become relevant. They just need to be probed and heard or cited carefully and cautiously; they should not go beyond their limited application to usurp or distort the message. See also the editorial note to your earlier comment. Much appreciated.

11: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), February 27, 2010, 12:18 PM.

I am, today, in the unwanted and piquant situation of disagreeing with the Editor in his retort to Tejwant Singh drawing an unfortunate parallel between his comment with what Taliban and other fundamentalists might say. Tejwant has strong opinions, strongly expressed but, by no means is he a fundamentalist or talibanesque. I would ask Tejwant to consider what I said in my earlier comment that when religions establish institutions they model the institutions on lessons from the scriptures, literature, traditions, history, lore and lives of iconic figures in their society. And that's what we Sikhs need to do in the matter of internal justice, etc. And also in the mix is an awareness of the times and society in which we now live.

12: Ravinder Singh Taneja (Westerville, Ohio, U.S.A.), February 27, 2010, 2:13 PM.

In my opinion, Tejwant ji is a taliban in the original and positive sense of the word - as is I.J. Singh - and I hope to be! The Taliban is a passionate lot, so opinions can be expressed forcefully. I agree with Tejwant ji that gurmat ideals should be foundational, but as I.J. Singh points out, we are also shaped by our history and environment - I would say that our institutions are primarily driven by history, experience and necessity but should be "committed" to the upholding of gurmat ideals. Tejwant ji, I would not dismiss saakhis out of hand; viewed in the right context, they are profound teachers.

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