Current Events

Defending Our Gurdwaras

by PARMINDER SINGH

 

 

Like many Sikhs across the world, I too was moved by what we saw in the news from Britain these last couple of days.

Hundreds of Sikh-Britons standing guard outside gurdwaras, daring rioters and looters to pick a fight. In the context of the  government failing to protect its citizens amid a social unrest which certainly did not have any method to its madness, here were a group of citizens ardently standing up for something real.

Rightfully so, this story has caught serious momentum. The national and the international media have covered it and Sikhs
everywhere have posted photos and stories on their Facebook pages.

Many of us in the far-flung diaspora have been looking for ways to watch the streaming coverage online. During all of this, Britain's brave Sikhs even became a trending topic on Twitter!

This was a big moment - something about this story viscerally hit us.

But why?

Perhaps we were looking for a feel-good story in the midst of a serious social problem reeking with chaos and anarchy. Maybe it was just cool seeing Sikhs displaying the chardi kalaa spirit on live news.

This is all true, but I think the root cause was deeper than this.

Interestingly, the photos on Sky News reminded me of Baba Deep Singh defending the sanctity of Harmandar Sahib. We experienced a deep, emotional connection to our history of sacrifice and struggle. Gurdwaras have been threatened before, and each time, we have actively defended our ground. This was not our first rodeo.

So then we might ask, why did Baba Deep Singh act with such vigor when he heard of the threat against Harmandar Sahib? What motivated him to act?

Well, the Sikh gurdwara is a sacred piece of real estate for us - it is where the Guru’s Saroop resides, it is where our martial and spiritual sides meet. Like the Punj Kakkaars, the Gurdwara too is a physical representation of our faith. Our Sikhi has sustained gloriously through almost six centuries, through thick and thin, because these physical symbols set us apart and give us meaning - they are gifts from the Guru and we must protect them.

It doesn’t matter who you are and how many people you’re bringing with you, you’re not going to mess with that.

Taking a step back, then, I find it worthwhile to raise an even tougher, perhaps controversial, question. In today’s world, what exactly are we defending?

Where do gurdwaras fit into Sikhi today and how can we better defend them? And, at the same time, engage with them?

It might be helpful if I provide a little context to my question.

I grew up in the United States. As kids, my little brother and I would go to gurdwara weekly. We had a full schedule of Punjabi classes, kirtan instruction and sports at our gurdwara. This was great - the connection to our local gurdwara was live and active.

However, then I went away to college. After school, I worked in a couple different cities and now I go to graduate school in another. Like many in my generation, I have been moving around every couple of years chasing after different opportunities. We’re an ambitious generation, right - perpetually on the move.

In each city I have lived in, though, it has been hard to plug into the local gurdwara and really engage. So, instead, I developed my Sikhi and made sangat through conferences and retreats. And as I talk to more of my peers about this issue, I kind of feel like we all did. And if we didn’t, we just drifted away.

Interestingly, then, the gurdwara went from being the central place where we engaged with Sikhi to something on the periphery.

There are a couple plausible reasons why this happens.

We’re young and idealistic, so we’re turned off by the politics that inevitably come up at gurdwaras. We’re also, like I said above, perpetually on the move - so it’s practically difficult to really set roots down and build a community.

But these, kind of, sound like excuses. Let’s pause and look at history again.

After the Sikh Raj, we had a really tough time maintaining our Sikhi. We lost political power and, ultimately, our gurdwaras, too. In this context, the Singh Sabha movement emerged. Among other causes, this movement was focused on taking back our gurdwaras. Think about the thorny gurdwara politics Singh Sabha leaders had to face!

Nevertheless, these leaders knew that taking back the gurdwaras would give them an organization - a network - upon which to build a movement.

So let’s roll this forward to today. We are defending our gurdwaras from rioters and looters, but we also need to defend our gurdwaras from being ignored by our very own, from becoming relics of the past. As young people especially, we need to engage our gurdwaras with bright and fresh ideas.

For instance, the potential power of organizing our gurdwaras into a broader network - under one banner - is tremendous. There are so many gurdwaras out there doing wonderful things in their communities - we need them to share their successes and challenges and let us know how we can help their cause, even replicate their success. We need a forum of communication between our gurdwaras. We need a single curriculum for Punjabi school so we don’t reinvent the wheel every time a new gurdwara is set up.

The leading Sikh civil rights organizations - SALDEF, The Sikh Coalition, United Sikhs, and others – need to unlock the fundraising power in gurdwaras so they can lead change in other areas.

More broadly, then, what we really need is a gurdwara strategy.

Now this note is not meant to provide any prescriptions - far from it, actually.  I am not smart enough to even begin such an endeavor. Instead, it is meant only to provoke dialogue and debate.

The Sikh-British sprung to action this week and made us across the world feel a little prouder to be called Sikh.

Now let’s do our part and defend our gurdwaras too.

 

[Parminder Singh is a student at Harvard Business School and a graduate of Yale College. Prior to attending business school, he worked in private equity and investment banking. ]

August 11, 2011

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