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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly In Organized Religion:
Janam Da Firangee,
Sikhi Main Mangee

FATEHPAL SINGH TARNEY

 

 

 





I have a cousin-brother who is vehemently opposed to all forms of organized religion. He cites financial corruption, sexual exploitation, violence in the name of religion, and other forms of hypocrisy, past and present.

The latest evidence he provides is the Buddhist persecution of the Muslim minority in Myanmar. He questions the popular image of the calm, meditative, non-violent nature of Buddhists.

My retort to my cousin-brother is this: were human beings perfect, we would have no need for organized religion because we would already have merged with the Divine. It is precisely because of our humanity and transgressions that most of us need the guidelines and parameters that religion gives and the good role models that are there in all faiths.

As a human being, I am challenged almost every day by the five evils identified in our Guru Granth Sahib: lust; anger; greed; materialism, and pride.

When I first heard, for example, of the attacks in Paris and the killing of 130 innocent people at various venues there by ISIL-connected persons, I happened to have been re-reading William Dalrymple's book on the Great Mutiny of 1857, ‘The Last Mughal‘. I have a particular interest in how a grievance against the British begun by Hindu sepoys was turning into a jihad by their Muslim counterparts in Delhi, although not without Hindu resistance.

Prior to Eid, the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan, Muslim butchers in Delhi were alleged to have slaughtered cows for the Eid meals. Hindu sepoys, in turn, slit the throats of five Muslim butchers. This is the passage in Dalrymple's book that I was focused on when hearing the news of the Paris atrocities. My anger at the Paris massacre was so great at that moment that I thought that France and the West should respond in an immediate and equally cruel fashion.

I think columns here on sikhchic.com should be totally honest. My thinking was that we should make an indelible impression on these terrorists comparable to the reaction of the Hindu sepoys to the purported actions of the Muslims in Delhi during the Mutiny. Why not execute, I thought, 130 of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

But this is not Sikhi! Far from it.

However, in my defense, I remind readers of the fact that Sikhs, Gurkhas, and others helped the British punish the rebel sepoys at the end of the Great Mutiny in the cruelest of ways, retaliating in particular for the torture and murder of innocent British women and children by both Hindu and Muslim sepoys.

Of course, there are a few people capable of being very moral and doing consistently good, charitable things without organized religion, but I think most of us need the inspiration of holy books, religious leaders, as well as social and spiritual interaction with a congregation of like-minded believers.

When I think of the evil phenomena within particular religions, my mind is overwhelmed with contemporary and historical examples. There is the Shia-Sunni conflict in Islam, past and present, between people claiming to believe in the very same prophet and the very same holy book, The Qur'an. There is the Protestant-Catholic conflict, past and present, between people claiming to believe in the divinity of the very same Christ and belief in basically the same Bible.

Then there is the perennial conflict between the umpteen sects of Judaism. And the tyranny of the so-called Hindu ’upper-classes’ against its so-called ’lower’ ones.

When I think of the imperfect nature of all human beings, I think of the heinous evil within great religious traditions. Three particular instances immediately come to mind and I mention them in their chronological order.

First, there is the betrayal of Jesus by his once-beloved disciple, Judas. Second, in Islam, we have the Battle of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hussein and his family and followers. Third, in our own Sikh faith, we have Prithi Chand, the elder brother of Arjan. His actions were, by any standard, deplorable.

Does the presence of such evil within these three great faith traditions invalidate them, or simply remind of us of what it means to be human?

Let me end this column with a comparison of two of my heroes, that is, two of my most inspirational role models.

Bhai Kanhaiyya from my own Sikh tradition and Abbas, the half-brother of Imam Hussein in the Muslim tradition. Both these fine men are described as carrying goat-skin water pouches. Bhai Kanhaiya gave water to both friends and enemies. At an earlier time, at Karbala, Abbas tried to bring water to the thirsty children in Hussein's entourage in the midst of a battle against a much larger army. He died trying to bring the water to the children.

When I think about my involvement in battles in Vietnam, I was not a Sikh at that time, but I continue to ponder whether I could have given water and comfort to fallen enemy soldiers were I in a position to do so after a heated battle with them. I do not think I could have done what Bhai Kanhaiyya did.

I am a Sikh, but I am a work in progress – trying to be more Kanhaiyya-like.


December 1, 2015
 

Conversation about this article

1: Taran Singh (London, United Kingdom), December 02, 2015, 4:48 AM.

Interesting! But I have a question. Bhai Kanhayyia was just being himself. Means that he had strength and the character bestowed by the Akal Purakh. In that way he was unique, just as we all are. My question is, why would you want to be like him? Surely you cannot replicate his persona. I think we should all be true to ourselves and just look at our individual strengths. Just like no one can replicate Bhai Jagtar Singh Hawara or Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala.

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Janam Da Firangee,
Sikhi Main Mangee "









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