TejS

A reminder to focus on the present: “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” “Dead yesterdays and unborn tomorrows, why fret about it, if today be sweet.” ― Omar Khayyám

Who else agrees that the Gurmukhi encoded script is in desperate need of work? By work I mean proper encoding of the script for web use. Working on various fonts and having a standard font system et al. I see Arabic/Devanagari done so well, but of course their populations exceed ours. However, even Hebrew has been done so well. I thank the Sikhs and Unicode who have initially encoded the Gurmukhi script, but I personally think we need to develop it further with different styles and expressing it through various forms if we want to keep it alive. I guess tackling this issue will involve some cleaning up of the alphabets themselves (why have the alphabets become so rounded?) - we can do this by taking some inspiration from Sharada/Lahnda (parent systems from which Gurmukhi has evolved from) and also Devanagari. Also the sehari/behari placement needs designation as well, its all over the place from all the fonts I've seen. We would also need to designate a font for several writing styles e.g., cursive, standard header, body text, calligraphic - because we clearly have no output for Gurmukhi at the present moment in the mentioned styles. If there are any computer programmers and designers among us, I'm willing to join in and help develop new fonts/styles for the Gurmukhi script.

The analogy is so true! Great introspection man.

They're good on the surface level, but I don't see much love deep down for each other. Both groups although interact are very segregated from each other. I assume we are diverging exponentially. Both don't really know much about each other's customs and therefore I can only see this cleaving further.

Because Sikhs are for the most part an ethno-religious group. So most Punjabi speakers are Sikhs and therefore people generalize that Punjabi is the language of the Sikhs. The Punjabi Muslims on the other side of the border mostly speak Urdu. Punjabi Hindus in India mostly speak Hindi. Punjabi Christians speak Punjabi but are an extreme minority that has zero interaction with the mainstream world, and therefore do not have an effect on the perception.

Thank you for correcting my unpardonable error. I suppose it was a brain fart.

Well Sikhs have been celebrating Diwali long before the events pertaining to Bandi Chhorr Divas occurred. Guru Amar Das Ji, who instructed that we celebrate Diwali, not for the return of Ram, however for the remembrance that good prevails over evil, and that we should always "enlight" ourselves over ignorance. We should also celebrate Bandi Chhor Divas as well, as it is again the victory of good over evil, however it is also the celebration of our Guru (Guru Hargobind Singh Ji) returning from captivity. So there you have it.

Me too.

I think @Ranjeet01 has given the best answer. Other than that, he is the individual responsible for Ontario recognizing April as Sikh Heritage Month, something the Hindus still haven't been able to get a bill passed for (though they are trying lol). He is also lobbying for Canada to recognize what happened to us in 1984 as a genocide (which the Indian gov't loves to call riots instead). And just recently he defended Parmar (Air India 182), but he has a point, Parmar was never convicted, he was just accused without substantial proof. So all these things lead him to being painted as a Khalistani, which I see nothing wrong with myself either. But of course, Canadian Hindus don't like him for this, and some of our own don't either. Really what the Indian gov't and the Canadians that have Indian backgrounds want him to do is flaunt around his Indian heritage, but he rightfully doesn't. Instead he criticizes India, and that irks the Canadian Hindus the most. Anyways, Indians are labeling him all sort of things, yet his family's contribution to India has been greater than most of the individuals that are slandering him, his grandfather was Sewa Singh Thikriwala - a freedom fighter.

Very low, and it's not due to him being Punjabi/Sikh, although he will have a different set of challenges to face with his identity. Most Canadians do not like the stance that NDP takes on issues, they border on socialism. Canadians either swing left, the Liberal Party - the incumbent party, or the right, the Conservative Party. 22/23 PMs of Canada have either been from the Liberal or Conservative party, with the exception coming from the Unionist party (now defunct and merged into the Conservative party lol) back in 1917. So based on this alone, him and his party have zero chance of getting into Parliament. Then we have the ethnicity/religious hurdle, which most white Canadians are actually really accepting of, except for the odd extreme ones. However, it is his own people that are going to ignore him. Many Punjabi Sikhs will not vote him, simply for the reason that he's one of us, and we're all corrupt blah blah blah or that he's Khalistani and they don't agree with that notion. Canadian Hindus will not vote him because he's Khalistani. Muslims will not vote him because he's Sikh and Trudeau's the better option because he opened the gates to Syrian refugees and will continue to do so. Other Indian ethnicities just don't like Punjabis tbh, so really he doesn't have much support other than the Ontario Sikhs who align with him.

A very proud moment for not only Canadian Sikhs like myself, however for all Sikhs as well. I do think that he is rushing his political journey though, and it may backfire on him. The NDP has never gotten to the federal level, it has never won a single federal victory, and with Jagmeet, a visible minority, being the leader, this may only get harder. I personally think he shouldn't be running for PM, instead he should have ran for NDP Leader of Ontario, and subsequently for the Premiership of Ontario, where there is a lot of apne who support him. He could've been the first Sikh premier of Ontario, which would have been far more likely to happen than PM of Canada, and then after having gained more political clout as a Premier, he could have ran for the leadership of the NDP party later, and subsquently for PM as well. But then again, what do I know, I haven't even gotten my first job yet . With that said, kudos to him for being not only the first Sikh, but also minority party leader in Canada. He's always been an inspiration of mine growing up, and this victory inspires me even more. And I'll definitely support him on his journey to the federal elections. And to those questioning why he isn't married, well I mean c'mon, he's been working his rear off to get into the position he is in today, I highly doubt he has time for love and dating. Also, jumping on to conclusions about his sexuality is just stupid.

Apart from the ignorant British attacking a Sikh wearing a turban (which I hear is very rare, I'm Canadian/American btw), I doubt that the British people will target Sikhs. Instead, what they will do is far worse, they will use our history with the Muslims to incite us, especially our youth, and basically use us as fodder as they did in their Raj, though this time, it'll be purely against the Muslims.

I've never heard a 7th grader refer to themselves as "daas".

I agree with the notion that we must first succeed as a community ourselves, before going out and fixing the issues of others, and of course, charity begins at home. However, what Ravi Singh is doing isn't bad at all. I think we as a community have developed a very bad habit of criticizing each other for any achievements whatsoever. I agree that Ravi Singh should be doing more for Sikh issues, but he's also not doing anything bad either, he's instead following Sikhi by helping people irrespective of their faith, creed, ethnicity (so basically recognizing the human race as one). I think we need to overlook some of his faults (which I agree he does have, but who doesn't) and instead see how we can get not only him more exposure, but our community good exposure as well. Name one Sikh that has won a Nobel Prize, none. It wouldn't hurt to have one, and so if there's a likely candidate such as Ravi Singh, why not back him up? @jkvlondon Of course the reward of seva is unmatched by anything, however a Sikh getting a Nobel Prize is a great achievement for our community, collectively. So I don't see what's wrong in helping Ravi Singh achieve that goal, which is ultimately a communal goal.

Yes, I was aware of this. But how can we as a community raise this idea up to the people, the few elites as you say, that can make this happen? Surely, there's something we can do to get Ravi Singh more exposure.

Ravi Singh, of Khalsa Aid, is someone who I immensely look up to, and I'm sure many others do as well. He is the embodiment of a true Gurmukh who does not preach Sikhi, but practices it. He is a human being that sees no religion/caste/creed and through Khalsa Aid has done great humanitarian work. My question to our community on here is this, how can Ravi Singh be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? I know this man deserves it, but how can we as a community get him that nomination? Any ideas, any suggestions? Jason Kenney, Canada's previous Minister of National Defence, a position currently occupied by Harjit Sajjan, has voiced similar sentiment as well:

That was classic!

@Siddhartha I would like to say this, our religion, our Granth, our Gurudwaras do not incite or preach hatred against any other group of people or religion. So your Sikh friend(s) that are getting playful with Hindu jokes are not representative of the religion. However, their actions and sentiments towards Hindus, which though condemnable, have occurred for several reasons if I may say so. In fact, taking a recent look at Sikh-Hindu relations, one would conclude that their actions/sentiments are natural responses to what's taking place. See, Sikh-Hindu differences have always been present from the start (think Gangu), but have never been as extreme as they have been in the past 33 years. I don't think I need to state the obvious, but 1984 was a deciding factor for the Sikh-Hindu relationship, one that has gotten bitter and sour. And to be honest, it was not the people, but the work of governments that divided religious groups for the vote bank, but the damage has already been done. And Sikh jokes, Sikhs not getting constitution rights, the Sikh identity being ridiculed and misconstrued, the rise of the Hindutva supporting BJP, the rise of RSS and its clashes with Sikhs are not making any things better, and are instead dividing the relationship our two communities share even further. So, what do you expect from your Sikh friends? To go along happily seeing the ridicule their community faces, or to act out, albeit foolishly, against the community doing the ridicule. Come on now, be realistic. If the Hindus want to have a cordial relationship with Sikhs, why don't they then amend their mistakes. Perhaps the Indian youth (including the majority of Hindus) can join up together to ban Sikh jokes that are subversively cancerous to my community's image, maligning us as idiots. But no, instead I see even the most liberal, educated Hindu youth take pleasure in these jokes, and they expect my Indian Sikh cousins to laugh along. Oh come on, how low can you people get! Take a look at Vir Sanghvi, an Oxford-educated gentleman, who believes that Sikh jokes are part of the "good-natured Indian tradition", well what a "great" tradition the Indian people have, ridiculing a minority to whom many Indian Hindus owe their very existence to. Perhaps you could get us our identity in the Indian constitution, as we are Sikhs, an independent group of people with independent beliefs not affiliated to Hinduism. But no, even the most "informed" Indian I've met is likely to say that Sikhs are nothing more than the military hand of Hinduism, and have been created to protect it. Well, thank you for completely tossing out the foundations of our religion, and resorting us to nothing but a military faction of Hindus. Perhaps, you can collectively get us justice for 1984 by punishing the perpetrators walking in broad day light. But no, not only do the governments protect them, many Hindutva supporting people of India justify the deaths of Sikhs in 1984, and believe that we deserved it. What's funny is that with a significant percentage of Indian Hindus holding the opinions of above, how do you not expect us to not only break away from you, but also to despise you. We are Sikhs, but we are also humans with flaws, and so we have every right to hate what's been done to us, and to hate who did it, and of course these lessons will be passed down to our children, so they that don't end up facing what we did in the past. I hope you will realize that the hate you experienced isn't senseless, it's the result of years of differences, deceits and a genocide that have led to this feeling. So perhaps take a broader look at why your Sikh friends are treating you the way they are. And I honestly believe that these relations that have been damaged by governments, can be mended by people, but in the current situation, the Indian Hindu majority doesn't seem to want that, and instead are looking towards a far more dividing goal: a Hindu India.

I often think about this too. I agree that most of Gurbani is not in Punjabi and even the few parts that are in Punjabi, are in a very archaic form that is not clearly understood by the modern-day speaker. I still however think that Punjabi Sikhs (not all Sikhs) should be imparting Punjabi to their oncoming generations. Punjabi is the language of our ancestors and is a part of our identity. I've often noticed that the kids that do speak Punjabi are the ones that are more likely to be proud of who they are, and not feel insecure about their identity. The ones that are disconnected from Punjabi are the ones that have outlandish and shaky ideas regarding not only themselves but Sikhi as well, especially my Hindi speaking "Sikh" cousins, forgive me for judging them. So, if you want your oncoming generations to know who they are, where they come from, imparting Punjabi is a great initiative. But all Sikhs need to be imparting something far more important, and that is Gurmukhi. Not the language, but the script. I think that if we can get Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, English written in the Gurmukhi script, then that is the ultimate way Sikhi can flourish. Most Sikh youth today cannot read Gurmukhi, and thus are experiencing a disconnect from Sikhi. I myself have only recently learnt Gurmukhi and it makes a huge difference once reading the GGS straight up, rather than having to read English translations.

Can you please explain what you mean by safety measures that the Gurus have put in place to prevent dogma? Because bani being poetic and musical does not prevent dogma. In fact, in Islam, an Abrahamic relgion, the koran is written in poetic verse. In Christianity, also an Abraham religion, gospels are sung to music. So your argument doesn't exactly hold true here.

I think this thread has gone off-topic. To wrap up the previous argument on my part, I'll say this, I believe that Sikhi is a rule of principles that need to be followed, and therefore it is dogmatic. Now if any of you would like to argue this further, you or I can either make a separate thread for this. I'm hoping that members on this forum can further criticize and contribute to my list. And then eventually, we can collectively come up with a way to put this list into motion and not just talk. I would like many of the things on this list to happen soon, and I would definitely like to be a part of it. So, any suggestions, ideas, criticisms are welcomed.

I never said that dogma gives way to freedom, instead I believe dogma and more importantly religion require restraint. Seva is also every Sikh's duty, therefore a principle and dogma of Sikhi. But the Guru's have told us the answers, the truths in a way. They have enabled us to do certain things, and restricted other things through their bani. So I fail to see how is Sikhi not dogmatic. Casteism, idolatry and such are things that have been accepted as false in our religion, and we do not accept as truths. Bani states there is a creator, Waheguru and therefore it is an accepted truth in Sikhi. We as human beings can challenge the existence of a creator, but as Sikhs we cannot, because it has already been accepted by our religion. Also, how does accepting certain truths inhibit us from learning further, learning is not only gaining new knowledge of whether something is a truth or not, but also applying that knowledge in our day-to-day lives. I would say that Sikhi is perhaps the closest to the Abrahamic religions out of the Dharmic religion group, as we have a fixed set of principles that are incontrovertible truths, just like Abrahamic religions.

Brother, I fail to understand the freedom you talk about. Let me take an example of yours, you said that Khalsa Aid was the kind of parchaar that we needed. I researched into them, and I agreed. I agreed because they put "seva" into practice, and not just preached about it. They became examples of Sikhi in practice. However, the concept of seva is a defined principle in Sikhi: ਸੇਵਾ ਕਰਤ ਹੋਇ ਨਿਹਕਾਮੀ ॥ ਤਿਸ ਕਉ ਹੋਤ ਪਰਾਪਤਿ ਸੁਆਮੀ So, in a way, Khalsa Aid is essentially adhering to the dogma of Sikhi established by the Gurus, and thus Khalsa Aid is dogmatic as well. So when you say total freedom unbridled by dogma, what do you really mean? Please, can youelaborate more, because I have failed to understand what freedom you are talking about.

Exactly what I'm saying. Religion, at the end of the day, is dogma, and it needs to be followed, in order to live the life the religion has entailed. If one doesn't like it, then change your religion, simple. I think there are people who don't want to follow religion, and think that reaching God can be done without a set of dogmas, and that is absolutely fine imo, and I am not saying they are worse or better than anyone, but what I'm saying is that if you identify as Sikh, then you will have to follow the dogma. Otherwise, don't identify as Sikh. It's not like the Sanatan Dharma where can you practice anything and everything which sometimes is contradictory in nature and still be considered a part of the community. We have room for interpretation and openness to a certain extent, but we also have certain outlined rules to follow.

But our Gurus did ultimately define Sikhi and layed down a dogma for us in the GGS, one that needs to be followed, right? The principals are part of the Sikh dogma, and the dogma preserves the message. Now I could be looking at this from a very narrow-minded perspective, but I'm sorry brother, I'm unable to understand how upholding the dogmas will compromise the principals, when they're interdependent on each other. And yes you're right that Sikhi is sanji, however if you have some people bringing in their own inference to Sikhi, which clearly goes against its principles, such as casteism, and they identify as Sikhs, then I think we as a community must take action and correct those miscreant ways, otherwise those certain inidividuals aren't following the Sikh way of life, which itself is very clearly defined and fleshed out.