Columnists

The Politics of Religious Conversion, Part II
- Janam Da Firangee, Sikhi Main Mangee

FATEHPAL SINGH TARNEY

I am deeply moved by the empathetic comments written in response to my column on religious conversion.

Although one comment began with “Though I am no fan of your writing(s) ...,” this opinion constitutes an important part of the challenge that I address in this follow-up, Part II.

First, I think I have painted with too broad a brush in depicting the insularity of Punjabi Sikhs regarding Western converts to Sikhi. Through the years, I have been warmly welcomed by so many Sikhs of Punjabi origin.

When I said that most people who are Sikhs are so by accident of birth, I did not mean to suggest that this was insignificant. People born into Sikh families have received a great blessing from God. Those of us who are Western converts have also received a blessing from God, but have been given a different path.

Allow me to discuss the problem via an analogy. Throughout my teaching career, I attended many a back-to-school night and parent-teacher conference and had dozens of parents compliment me on my teaching of their children. I would hear things like, “My son never showed any interest in history until this year,” and “I never thought I would be discussing the decline and fall of the Roman Empire with my 14 year old daughter at the dinner table!”

A parent from India once told me, “My 14 year old son has always been interested in science and math exclusively and here we were discussing the Indian Mutiny of 1857, thanks to you!”

However, all it takes is one parent to be critical or insulting and that is the experience that one dwells on and takes home. For example, “My son used to like history until this year!” Likewise, all it takes is one rude, inhospitable Punjabi to taint an entire experience for me or, for that matter, for a non-Sikh guest visiting a gurdwara for the first time.

So many of our problems in life are associated with haumai, or ego, and we tend to associate arrogance with self-conceit. I think that another characteristic of haumai is hypersensitivity and I have struggled with this throughout my life. I had a lady friend in graduate school who chastised me for my hurt feelings about a professor who was very critical of a paper I had written. She wondered how I could allow, after having survived the Vietnam War, an unpopular professor to hurt my feelings.

I have said on many occasions that my Christian wife has more Sikh friends than I have. My beloved mother, another devout Christian, worshiped at our gurdwara for the last four years of her life and was accepted by so many in our Saadh Sangat. No one ever questioned their regular presence at a Sikh place of  worship.

At the same time, it has always saddened me to see non-Sikh guests in a gurdwara greeted and recognized by a committee person, but then to receive only minimal attention and friendliness from sangat members.

The excuse that language prevents cordial interaction is unconvincing. One does not have to be fluent in English to smile at a guest.

I contend that a smile too constitutes seva.


September 16, 2015
 

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