dalsingh101

Admin, care to explain your reluctance to make this a sticky??? Pray do tell..........

Let's bump this one up again........

^^^^^ Plus Pakistanis often have street presence in their stronghold areas - many whites actually fear them.

Admin, you can keep trying to ignore me about making this a sticky......I wont go away....I'm stubborn like that! :angry2:

I'm still absolutely confounded by the reasons why our peeps go all out to sweep this issue under the rug.

cough ^^^^^^ ahem ahem

Very interesting topic! I think at the very outset we need to acknowledge that super rigorous, critical analysis is a relatively new thing with religions, but the concept of scrutinising and judging 'narratives' that come down to us is not a new thing. A good early example would be the way Muslim scholars evaluated Hadiths for reliability in the past. Having recently had the wonderful experience of hearing, homegrown, indigenous Sikh katha first hand via katha Giani Thakur Singh, I noticed that they refer to Sikh historical texts like Suraj Prakash, Nanak Prakash quite a lot, even these texts are relatively recent creations, though one can't ignore the possibility of some of the contents having antecedents from the Guru's time. Your question of katha being 'historically authentic' is one I used to wonder about. The conclusion I've reached thus far goes along the lines of: Today we live in so-called 'post-enlightenment' era, characterised by a purported high value on 'empirical data' and 'critical analysis' and rational, logic based on this. In fact if you think about it, that's why you are asking the question you are. These 'modern' ideas came to Sikhs in a big way via colonialisation, but that isn't to say that there was never any concern for accuracy in the past. My point is that up until very recently, human societies conveyed messages of importance amongst their members through narratives, or stories. These can take many forms but the prevalence of mythological accounts in EVERY single community up until recent times tells us this was the norm. You can take a blinkered look at say 'but they are based on falsehood and flights of imagination', but that would be very imprudent. When we break all of these narratives down, they communicate matters of importance to the society they speak to. And THAT is their value and importance, regardless of literal, historical 'truth'. Katha is about extending understanding, and a kathakaar needs to grasp the mindsets of his audience and impart knowledge to them in an easily processable way. When we see it like that, it doesn't matter if a given context is genuinely historical, what matters is if the correct message is imparted, so I'm sure kathakaars may have used their imaginations to help smooth out the process of embedding Sikh values in people's minds. As a practical example I've personally experienced consider Giani Thakur Singh's use of the idea that pauris of Japji Sahib are based on questions asked by nath jogis (a short of extention of the narrative around the Siddh Gohst bani). Now personally, I have no way of knowing if this is literally true, but the fact is that using this mechanism can help elucidate aspects of Japji Sahib (or other bani) brilliantly by bringing out the question and answer style in the bani. This isn't falsehood, but simply conveying moral, ethical values and theological matters in a way that has been done since time immemorial. So the focus moves to the important information underlying the katha rather than literalistic interpretations. And it doesn't matter if people want to literally believe anyway because one way or the other, what really matters is imbibing the moral, spiritual, essence in any case.

This thread has been very rewarding for those of us trying to understand caste amongst Sikhs, what I'm getting so far is that it has: 1) a strong political component in Panjab related to politics, especially with vote mobilisation 2) works along dimensions of attempts of majority domination over minority groups in some diaspora locations (leading to attempts at independence from majority domination which translates to caste aligned Gurdwaras, overt and discreet, at ground level) 3) works on a family/individual level as a mechanism to enhance ones sense of importance over other Sikh Panjabis PS - RebelSingh, brother I'd be quite interested to hear about what you make of the rebuttal to Saka/Scythian theory that was posted earlier?? Please do share your opinion.

Admin can you make this a sticky for the UK sangat, who is plagued by this issue (despite being in denial about it). ????

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/06/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

My heart goes out to the sangat of Winconsin. My thoughts are also with the wider US sangat. Stay strong brothers and sisters.

I recently watched this fascinating Sikh Channel interview with G S Mann on the Dasam Granth It ended on a REALLY interesting note, where Mann quoted the minutes of a meeting of Christian missionaries that took place shortly after the 2nd Anglo-Sikh war, where the missionaries spoke of a desire to separate Sikhs (and by corollary Sikhi) from "the evil of Guru Gobind Singh" in favour of what, I imagine, they (mistakenly) perceived as the more pacifist teachings of Baba Nanak. This might help explain why the Dasam Granth seems to have slowly come to occupy a background position in the mainstream panth afterwards? Good work by Mann on highlighting McLeod's mistaken dating of the Prem Sumarag Granth.

It's a very important study. Core text on many university courses, so I'm not surprised. And no problem, I've always got time for intelligent, curious brothers and sisters. Yes!! There is a whole movement out there trying to discredit his work - and you're right to pick up on the fact that they are usually people with vested interests in the white cultural domination scenario Said talks about. Interestingly, Harjot Oberoi, the controversial author of 'The construction of religious boundaries' also seems to try and play the 'anti-Said' game.....hhhmmmm But that's another topic. Once you grasp Said's Orientalism it properly puts W. H. McLeod's work in perspective. McLeod was a modern day Orientalist of the most obstinate kind.

Another important thing I'd like to add is that big chunks of the youth are alienated from the Gurdwara and do not visit. Sometimes this is due to previous negative experiences, sometimes it's just the way they have been brought up with their own parents rarely (if ever attending). The point I'm trying to make is that we need to seriously consider reaching those brothers/sisters in the above type scenarios and that involves activity outside of a Gurdwara. Plus given the 'politics' of some Gurdwara these days, many youth will flee in disgust if they witness the Panjabi yobbishness that can take place. Internet based solutions are a good idea, but how would such a site look? Remember we'd be catering for a totally different type to that which would normally visit Sikh sites.

I haven't read that other work by Said you mentioned, but will probably get on to it in due time. I have to say, Said's book was one of the most academic I have read and it took stamina too complete. Mostly this was because he surveys Orientalist literature (on Arabs mainly) and references a lot of historical works/authors I was unfamiliar with and I didn't have an Internet connection at the time to 'wikipedia' them. Said talks about people like Renan, William Jones (who I did know), someone called Rene and Chateaubriand amongst others (mostly linguists). Personally I would make this work mandatory reading for any conscious Sikh, but some brothers/sisters may find it hard to get from cover to cover - however, I don't think you'd have that issue. Read it, persevere and by all means discuss! I had planned to create a thread where i would post interesting quotes from the work on the Sikhawareness.com forum but never got round to it. Maybe you could kick off something like that on this forum if you do go through the work? Not only Sikhs, I think they were especially bowled over by Sanskrit and ancient Hindu texts given their antiquity and sophistication. Prior to this they had imagined that only the 'classic Greeks' were capable of such things and this turned that (white supremacist) notion on its head. As I've alluded to before, this led to the emergence of the 'Aryan invasion' theories where they slyly and deftly turn Indic achievements into white European ones. William Jones posited a common ancestor for Latin, Greek and Sanskrit - remember we have the phrase 'Indo-European' or 'Indo-Germanic' a categorisation to which Panjabi and English belong. With Sikhs the English seem to have imagined Sikhi along the lines of their own protestant gibberish, and although on one level I understand their idea of Sikhi being a reform of Hinduism, along the lines between protestant and Catholic, their theory has so many potholes that I believe Sikhs should avoid getting sucked into it. I think it really knocked Sikh studies out of kilter and today a few of us wonder about just how protestant influenced we had/have become through the Singh Sabha movement, which is a contentious subject and worthy of its own research. If anything I see as many parallels between the Catholic worldview and Sikhi, by this I mean things like central beliefs in saints, valuing relics, historical sites, religious art. A central religious location (Harmandir Sahib-Amritsar/Vatican). Personally i believe wasps saw Sikhs in power and with a strange mixture of awe and characteristic jealously projected their own sh1t on these wild, free, independent Sikhs and their self made kingdom (and then proceeded to destroy it.....). The point to note is the 'racialisation' of castes/tribes by Europeans and how some of our own peasantry seem too dumb to realise the reasons and motives behind this and proceed to 'talk in their masters voice' even today, curiously seeing themselves as more akin to the former colonialists than other Panjabi or Sikh brothers and sisters from different jaats. Anyone else with a bit more guile might have seen through the ruse and been a bit more skeptical of the white theories. You want the best book of early perceptions of Sikhs by whiteys get Singh and Madra's 'Sicques, tigers and thieves'. I'll close with another golden quote from Said's introduction to Orientalism:

Maybe we should admit that in general Sikhs are NOT a particularly religious community then? From my experiences I'd say the majority of apnay are more concerned about their status and wealth than religious matters. Plus more often than not, those that do connect to the faith, seem to do so more on a political basis than spiritual. If this IS the general trend (and maybe I'm wrong in this, please share your thoughts if you think so), then it explains why hardly any parents take teaching Sikhi to their kids with any seriousness/depth and what commonly goes on in a Gurdwara, where people are fulfilling their 'need to belong to a group' needs more than anything else? Sikh Panjabi Parents will typically obsess about their kids getting degrees and thus filling their head with all kinds of academic stuff to improve their marriage/job prospects but, in relative terms, seem to be pretty apathetic when it comes to encouraging, supporting , facilitating the development of knowledge of their spiritual/Sikh dimensions. One a material level this is understandable because they are probably trying to be pragmatic and seeing it as 'this worldly knowledge has immediate and tangible benefits in terms of status, jobs etc whereas this other 'religious' stuff doesn't bring immediate benefits like this.' On the other hand, I also feel that the dynamics between apnay are frequently dysfunctional to the extreme and often characterised by jealousy, judgmentalism, bitter competitiveness and even outright hatred (say between certain castes or political affiliates) rather than positive emotion. We rarely have a certain type of warmness between ourselves that I feel some other religious congregations do, like sullay or certain denominations of Christians. So we need change there too - brothers need to show love to each other without acting like homosexuals or disdainful, haughty judges towards those less disciplined than themselves. I guess what I'm trying to get at is, if we want to teach the youth we have to do it well, in an environment that suits them too, especially targeting those who aren't going to get the right sort of guidance at home for whatever reasons. Just sharing some thoughts, please don't take it like I think I am flawless in all this, I have as much to be criticised about, as any one/thing i criticise - for the record.

The English language thing is a two way street. Firstly, we should admit that the traditional way we teach Panjabi often sucks. As an ex teacher I'll say it outright, our people (in Gurdwaray) don't seem to use creativity and modern techniques to teach, we are slow like that. This is all the more surprising as we DO have a lot of modern approaches and tools available to us today (software/Internet based for instance) that wasn't around when I was coming up. Also, in my experience the quality of teaching was usually quite low. It's like me personally, I only finally completely understood and nailed the differece between certain letters of our alphabet in the last few years often from Youtube videos fron nonSikhs.............. I guess this highlights teh advanatages of having fresh eyes (and fresh enthusiasm) on a subject. All that being said, we should look at it from the other perspective too. Youngers need to put their hands up and admit to their own laziness in this department. When I used to teach hardly any of the 3rd generation Sikh Panjabis could speak Panjabi fluently, in contrast the majority of Pakistanis could speak either Urdu, Panjabi or even Farsi fluently. It was actually nice when some of them would come up in a lesson and bust a conversation in Panjabi with me, their vocabs used to be surprisingly advanced, as opposed to the mumbling, jumbling 'embarrassed' apnay, many of whom seemed outright ashamed to speak their mother tongue. Most young apnay in the UK would rather spend hours on the Internet or Xbox/Playstation than try and up their Panjabi game. There isn't any excuse for this, and you can go to Canada and see how almost all apnay, younguns and all, are fluent out there. Final point is about Gurbani. Sure, English translations can be (and have been for me) an access point to the core of the faith. I read English translations for years before I got off my ar5e and finally nailed the written language (something I imagine I will continued to develop until my dying days, or when my mental faculties fail me). But English can NEVER replace the experience of reciting bani in its original form. We lose something in translation, not least the beautiful rhythms and flows of the naad (sounds) of bani. So whilst more effort definitely needs to be made by our institutes (like Gurdwaras/Panjabi teaching classes), we can't away away from the truth that on an individual level, as Sikhs, we too need to pull our finger out and up our own personal efforts and commitments to learn our language and access our faith in its original form.

Well a lot of Jats I have personally met seem to be backwards in my experience, so I guess it is only natural and right that they get official recognition as a 'backwards caste' in this capacity? Kapow!! Take that pendu mofos! hee hee hee

Maybe you should really be asking what the hell is wrong with Sikh adults, who repeatedly demonstrate startling levels of stupidity (unlike any other community I've seen), when it comes to perpetuating their spiritual heritage to their children or wider community?

Use your brain and think about the potential effects of people like yourself who seem to be 'normalising' casteism amongst apnay. Try opening your mouth and supporting emerging positive trends instead of the old 'well you know, that's just how it goes' blarney. </div> Many people would totally disagree with you here. Hats off to Jatts who aren't stupid enough to post their jaat on a Gurdwara, but that being said, if you think that their aren't plenty of Gurdwaras out there in the UK which are generally understood to be and perceived as 'Jat Gurdwaras' by the local Sikh community (including both Jatts and those from other backgrounds) then you are living in cloud cuckoo land and - this says a lot about your perceptiveness (or lack of). No one is saying things don't happen. Being born in the UK isn't any sort of protection from backwardness, you could be born/raised anywhere and still have backward pendu nonsense rammed in your brain by your family from a young age and perpetuate that nonsense. You're misapprehending what I'm saying. I NOT saying casteism doesn't exist those who have taken Amrit, I'd agree with you and say that it does. In fact some of the most backwards caste adhering people I have met have come from Amritdhari backgrounds, so we are actually in agreement here. Where we seem to differ though is that you seem to be shrugging casteism off as a 'minor', whereas it disgusts me.

Sorry to hear of your situation bhen ji. This abuse of vulnerable children, is it physical, sexual, emotional? One thing I have noticed about some Panjabis is that they can be quite hard and uncompromising with demands on youngsters, whether this spills out to abuse or not is debatable. I think it is important that you confide in a person(s) who you can trust in the first instance. Make sure they are not the types to hide things and sweep them under the rug though.

I hear you! Then, somethings demand a fight whether we like it or not, personally I think that is one of the key reasons dasmesh pita placed such a strong stress on being shasterdhari - or ready for conflict. Thought I'd post this I came across, gives another good example of the pure rubbishness of western racial theories and their influence on stupid people of the subcontinent ......there are straight parallels between the ignoramus Hindu who has bought into the Aryan theory in the piece and some of our own misled brothers who lap up the Scythian theory. http://sikhchic.com/current_events/swastika_heart_of_darkness

Personally I think the language thing is important. Learning everyday Panjabi helps a Sikh to access the religious scripture in the long term. As an uncle of a mixed race Sikh, I'd say you'd be doing the child a BIG favour if you nail this one young! My brother was indifferent to his heritage but his son, grew up with less apathy and now takes lessons in Panjabi with me when he can, though he struggles with the retroflex letters like the R's and teh nasal letters (which admittedly I too struggled with....) So get on the wagon and learn the language with the missus and teach your child. Also accept that for obvious reasons (if you and the missus does right!) your child may quickly become more proficient in the language than you (at least with pronunciation). All the best! Use the books linked in this forums book club and it may help to read this: http://www.sikhawareness.com/index.php/topic/14814-learning-to-read-write-gurmukhipanjabi-tips-on-getting-started/page__fromsearch__1 which I typed up a short while ago for another brother who wanted to up his linguistic skills.

UKLondonSikh Paji, you have to learn to use the quote function in your posts brother!!

Finally got round to watching this video. If any of you haven't seen it - do it as a priority. The most respect to Bhai Mohan Singh for confronting this issue which most of our 'elders' seem to want to pretend doesn't exist or is someone else's problem. God bless you! Notice how he too notices how the establishment/media/politicians in the UK got active on the matter of grooming only after they discovered white girls were being targeted and how certain politicians (like Jack Straw) and high ranking police officials (Paul Condon) outright ignored decade old warnings/pleas from the Sikh community over the issue. Shame on them. It also shows us that in reality we have to deal with these issues ourselves.