Current Events
When Will The Phoenix Rise?
by RAVNEET KAUR SANGHA
The building is broken down, paint peeling off. There are more plants growing on the parapets and the nooks of the walls than in the so called main garden. The path-way to the building no longer exists; all there is is sand, more sand than the beaches of Bondi.
The rooms are cubby-holes smeared with a paint which is of a bygone era, bleached of life, windows with iron bars as if blocking away any ray of light or sunshine which might dare to creep in and spread some warmth. The floor doesn't exist. Uneven, it's strewn with excuses of desks and chairs. The black-board has no slate on it. The walls have faded painted alphabets, both in English and Punjabi, but the lines have disappeared as if the struggle to survive was too much .
The entire compound has a dead, neglected feel.
This is a senior secondary school run by the government in a prominent village in Doaba, Punjab.
A rich state is in ruins now, fallen.
It is holding its S.G.P.C. elections today.
The polling booth was made for this electorate, each side fighting for the panth, claiming to hold the keys to heaven and salvation.
The ideology is long lost. The only qualification considered important and mandatory in this new environment is an open, flowing beard. Yes, of course, I understand and appreciate and honour that one must follow the discipline of the faith and honour the Punj Kakkaars. But wherefore the additional rigidity, the rigor mortis, that has set in within a faith of love and compassion.
Why have we become prisoners in the hands of a handful of corrupt politicians who have shrouded themselves in an air of religiousity? When convenient, they always fall back on religious extremism. I worry that excess always positions itself for a fall, eventually. It digs its own grave.
The scene at the voting booth is both hilarious and sad at the same time (the pun is intentional). Everyone is claiming his vote is for the panth: a triangular contest is on the cards. One is "the true son of the Guru-ghar", the second is for "the real Akali Dal", and the third hails "the hard-core Akali Dal ( Amritsar)".
All of them are clad in white kurta-pajamas, impressive with their blue turbans and flowing beards.
I wonder which oil works for the long, right-colored salt-and -pepper beards? And pray, how do all of them get them perfectly pointed at the ends? Even Dumbeldore would be jealous of these beards, our primary export to Holly wood ... apart from Ms. Mallika and her ample bosom.
The battle is to be won on the platform of divinity, which of course is closely guarded by the S.G.P.C., the same lot who will not allow women to do kirtan in the Darbar Sahib. Nor is a Hindu or a Muslim allowed to do seva - no truck is to be given to the memory of Bala and Mardana.
Who appointed us the moral guardians of this faith which is the most modern in the world - a religion which is the only one in the world which treats all as equals. A tolerant faith. The keeper of the community kitchen where no one is big, small, rich or poor, high or low.
But we have been overrun by buyers and sellers who trade our souls for votes.
I see the common man, woman voting ... just because it is "for the guru-ghar". It effectively seals each question, every doubt ever raised by any one. No one dare raise a voice of dissent because doing so means questioning the Supreme One. No one ever wants to be caught in that cross-fire.
The hour is nigh.
It is time for generation ... and a new generation. A revolution. A resurrection.
It is time for the phoenix to rise ...
September 18, 2011
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), September 18, 2011, 12:39 PM.
Millions of uneducated or dogmatized people are voting fodder for all politicians and 'religious leaders' who can promise them better roads or even paradise, yet live material and egotistical lives themselves. South Asian is ridden with clannish behaviour, factionalism and violence on an industrial scale. The Punjabi people need the right education in non-violence, and need to free themselves of sectarianism - whether caste, superstition or religion based.
2: Harinder (Uttar Pradesh, India), September 18, 2011, 1:35 PM.
Like Guru Nanak's fight against janeu and similar rituals. It is time for inner cleansing.
3: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), September 18, 2011, 1:48 PM.
You are absolutely right, Ravneet. It is amazing how slippery has been the slope and how precipitous the fall. Your call for action couldn't be more timely for we have absolutely no way to go but upwards from where we now are.
4: Harpreet Singh (Delhi, India), September 18, 2011, 2:36 PM.
While watching S.G.P.C. election news on TV, I became very sad. In less than one hundred years, see where this glorious Sikh organisation has reached. Are these people qualified, by any stretch of the imagination, to be members of such a great Sikh body. The sangat must now use their offerings and daswandh judiciously and not make the cash boxes of gurdwaras overflow, in order to stop corruption and politics. We should not forget corrupt Mahant Narain Das of Nanakana Sahib who was responsible for the murder of two hundred great gursikhs in 1921. He too had a lot of money and power, being the custodian of the great Sikh gurdwara at Nanakana Sahib. Yet, Sikhs were able to join hands and topple him, even though he had the might of the British Empire behind him. We can do it again, even it requires similar sacrifices.
5: Baljit Singh Chohan (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), September 20, 2011, 5:04 PM.
Very well said. They only need votes. By playing dirty politics, they even register false voters: e.g., Kalamati becomes Kalamati Kaur or Ramu Bhaiya turns into Ram Singh in the rolls. I have seen one person smoking openly in Village Badal as he voted in the S.G.P.C. election. I don't know where the panth and Akali Dal are going and what they trying to prove by doing this. I heard of parents getting together on their own in Punjab to organize a World Kirtan Darbar for kids under 14 yrs age by inviting kids from all over the world. Shame on the S.G.P.C. - this is their job! They should be focusing on schools, seminars on gurbani village to village, and campaigns against drugs.
6: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), September 22, 2011, 9:48 AM.
It should be noted that to most people in the world today, religion is not a spiritual affair for a secure afterlife or a better place after death, but for acquisition of wealth. The politicians in Punjab have proved themselves no different.