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By dallysingh101 · Posted
I think being illiterate played a big part in what you describe above. As more and more apnay become literate, and more and more Sikh texts become accessible, coupled with the fact that being in a diaspora seems to inevitably result in some sections of the diaspora to focus on and try and understand and reflect upon their heritage and preserve it, we will see a renaissance of sorts. This will feed back to the people back home in time. As an example we've been alienated from Dasam Granth for a long while so a rising awareness there alone will change us. Cultural practices like jathera will also diminish over generations due to simply losing the connection to your village and it being irrelevant. Many will lose that casteist sense that restricts marriage between Sikhs of different castes. The dynamics of the community will change - and it doesn't have to be for the worse, it can be for the better. I do honestly believe we have a rich and powerful heritage. Someone on SA articulated it perfectly for me a while back. It's like various metals that have been underground since the beginning of earth, only to lay there untouched/unused, as time progressed man became aware of them and started to use and understand them more and more - from basic tools/weapons, to modern sophisticated industrial uses of today. Sikhi is the same. We haven't caught up with it yet - partly due to our own baggage and backwardness and partly because external forces have been trying to manipulate and exploit it for their own purposes. -
I think it is a lot more complicated rather than all clear, and black and white. Pan Sikhi as we know it today is the result of social media, we all are a lot more similar today than before, social media has promoted a Sikhi where we are clear on what is acceptable and what not. Social media has helped make Sikhi into something more organized among its followers and people in far flung areas can follow the same. As for my Grandfathers, my families main practice is "jatera" and have been doing it for generations, light a jyot in our ancestors tomb every Sunday put food there, when its winter we pul blankets there. They worship there and ask for whatever they want. They buy sweets and put them there, do matha tek and put money there. My mum said in the old days her family used feed Bhramins. My Grandfathers kept their hair but shaved their beards. My mum said in the pind there also used be a "professional mourner" a big woman who you had to go to when someone dies in the pind and she used to teach women how to cry! My mum also said how When someone used to die in your family or lane then you weren't allowed to eat certain things and had to sit on the floor for weeks! These were the practices! So how Sikh were my forefathers? Did they even call themselves Sikhs? i doubt it very much! Before a proper tomb was created they used to have a brick and they used light a diya on the brick. You have to remember in India, ones identity is their gotra and the traditions they follow is the traditions of their gotra. Before partition people of the same clan even used to marry regardless of religion. I was reading this Saini Sikh guys stuff online and he said his grandmother was a Saini muslim and that in his community all this was acceptable in those days! marriage between Kashmiri Pandits and Muslim Bhramins happened as well in Kashmir. And as for Anand Karaj, it only recently has became popular among people who now identify as Sikh than it actually was back in the days, especially in the pinds. This Sikh identity as we see it today is quite recent among most families tbh. It seem some point during our grandparents generation many gotras started leaning towards some Sikh practices and using sikh tick box in census, perhaps for political and social advantages? I think perhaps the religious reform movements played a role in bringing various clans into the fold of Sikhi, if not by practice then at least by the census tick Even today where my family are from most people will not identify as Sikh in pinds, they practice the traditions of their gotra. I remember as a teenager mona telling my cousin sister in India that i am a Sikh and she started laughing and saying where is your hair and then she said our family are not Sikhs. These days mona call themselves Sikhs as well, that never used to be the case, since monas have started calling themselves Sikhs i think more contradictions have entered Sikhi. Most people in Punjab are just various castes and clans, some have adopted some Sikh practices and that is about it! I think this has resulted in a lot of contradictions, people who never were Sikh by practice and still are not Sikh came under the banner of Sikhi. The fact how the tomb in my dads pind was turned a gurdwara just shows how recently Sikh culture has entered many villages. I think whenever Anand Karaj became the norm for various clans and castes is when these people started embracing a few other Sikh traditions but still keeping their ancestral practice. I think when people moved abroad they adopted Sikh practices more and this influenced their families back home a little as well. It also depends on the region of Punjab you came from. Gurdaspur region has always been the heart of Sikhi and things have probably always been more clearer there. I'm only speaking for the region where my ancestors come from. I mean 80 years ago how would people in far flung areas like Hosiarpur, Sialkot, Bhatinda etc know what was going on in Amritsar and all the revolutions? they wouldn't! My mum said no one even used to go Harmandir Sahib or any other historical gurdwara, its only now with cars that people have started going. Western born Punjabis who try to dissect this scramble would never understand it, they try to figure it from a very western rigid perspective. Sikh identity here in the west is a cultural identity so even monas and atheists call themselves Sikh, they then apply this to communities in Punjab but it just doesn't work like that over there. Punjabis in the UK created their own Sikh identity which probably never existed in their pinds back in the 50s and so ! So its a lot more complicated. I read how after the collapse of the Sikh empire, the vast majority people who identify as Sikh on the census today they actually identified as Hindu back then.
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