Mock And Win

[Azaad]

The Bharatiya Janta Party has one Varun Gandhi and a score of Tagodias. The Congress has Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Kamalnath and other unknown names to tease and taunt the Sikhs. The Indian state has a bank of hate-Sikhs pseudo-Gods, carefully nurtured and used to whip up emotions of Sikhs. One such person who refuses to go out of media and memory is pseudo-saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim.

As electioneering begins in Punjab, the Dera Sirsa is the hub of behind the veil politics for constituencies in the Malwa belt of Punjab and adjacent Haryana and Rajasthan.

Mumbai based young writer, Charanjit Singh, in this tongue-in-cheek piece presents this monologue which the Sirsa Dera chief is supposedly making to his core group within the confines of his heavily fortified retreat at Sirsa.

In the backwaters of the sleepy town of Sirsa, far away from the Grand Trunk Road, the makeover started. A simple unknown Aam Admee….started being mystically transformed to an ‘Insaan’.

My popularity grew far and wide, my influence gradually transcending political skies. I started enjoying the patronage of not only my ‘Insaaniyat’, but also the quiet backing of the ‘guardians of Junta’.

When the above too became ‘run of the mill’ for my stature, I decided to follow my self-promoting instinct to dress like a hero and emulate an act which itself was etched in history. I somehow believed (and I would be proved right in the aftermath), that the political powers would implicitly support the reverberations of what was in the making.

I knew very well that our Sikh compatriots don’t even allow their martyrs to be edified in any form, let alone their Gurus.

What a great spectacle it would be….when this ‘fragmented’ community would be teased, mocked, and reiterated to, again, that in our ‘free nation’, anyone had the right to make fun of their revered Guru, his tenets….and all they could do…is virtually remain mute. After all they were nothing more than a tiny fragmented minority in the vast sea of a monolithic Brahmin polity of the country called India. And such people should not have dreams and expectations, should they?

As per my plan, it was time to be audacious enough to dress as the Tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh and relive Anandpur Sahib, 13th April, 1699.

You remember that day in history, don’t you?

The only difference though, was that I never asked anyone for a Head to be sacrificed for the cause of secular freedom. I knew well, that though I may have dressed myself as the Guru, I possessed neither the conviction, nor commanded the reverence from my followers to ask of them, the supreme sacrifice … which the Guru had done. My job was simple: Mock and win supporters, not followers.

Nevertheless, the act did its job. It flared them. There were protests all over the country and around the world. They did what they have always been doing and are best at -Brandishing swords, shouting slogans, demanding apologies.

But they forgot one thing, that when someone decides to mock or tease a minority in India, it is deemed to be his fundamental right of expression. We are the world’s largest democracy…after all!

And also that, an enemy’s enemy… is a friend. In doing so I further strengthened my bonds with the government of India and the political bigwigs of the government of Haryana. I received accolades from them, my security cover was increased, I was heard in the court at my own terms and I was provided, as earlier, the full liberty to move around wherever I wanted.

The reaction of the Sikhs –the followers of Guru Gobind Singh was on expected lines. Nothing much happened except that the streets of Amritsar and Ludhiana were peppered with aggressive slogans of ‘Raj Karega Khalsa’. Actually, you know, they have still not fathomed why I did what I did and what is the extent of my support base and how I build it.

The matter died in their collective memory.

Suddenly, the Sikh spirit was at display when a group of young Sikhs confronted me in Mumbai. I and my core team had always that this spirit is now a relic of the past, just a page from the history books.

This was a direct affront! There couldn’t have been a better opportunity.

I decided that it was imperative, once again, not only to remind them of their status, their actual political status but also to reiterate the unconditional support you enjoy when you indulge in anything which reminds the minorities… that they are minorities.

Balkar Singh was shot in broad day light.

This act flared them, once again. And then the usual protests, brandishing swords, sloganeering and mayhem in Mumbai and elsewhere. Do these people really bother to ponder what ‘Raj Karega Khalsa’ actually means?

But I was safe. In the blanketed cordons of Choppers, Jammers and even Z+ security… lovingly, respectfully and reverently escorted to my dera at Sirsa.

There was no need to worry. I was clear then and subsequent events have proved me right. These people have forgotten the Shahidi of that Singh who laid his life to protest the sacrilege committed against the very ethos of his faith. After all, what eminence would poor Balkar Singh’s sacrifice hold, when they have long forgotten the likes of Baba Deep Singh and Bhai Mani Singh? These masses will very soon go back to their comfortable lifestyles.

As it is, these ‘modern’ Sikhs have been too busy in convincing the ‘society they are a part of’, that they are secular, that the movement for Sikh rights in the eighties was nothing more than an act of few hooligans threatening the foundations of Akhand Bharat; and that the true meaning of the litany –‘Raj Karega Khalsa’ lies securely hidden somewhere in the hills of Anandpur Sahib.

My tribe also pities those young Sikhs, who are fighting the battle of faith… deep within the confines of their consciousness. On one side… their faith and its sanctity. On the other, Globalization, media, and peer groups. Not to mention the exuberant hope that youth brings….of befriending the cute girl from college. The price may be a ‘change of look’ though, and turning their back to Bhai Taru Singh.

Let me also take this opportunity to thank these Sikhs for blatantly ignoring their Guru’s visions of a casteless society. While passionately deliberating the Jat and not-so-Jat Sikh conflict, they deprived that strata of public (who are my followers today), a chance to be a part of their social milieu. Their obsession with such trivia is something which takes away their uniqueness and makes them like us.

Today, we command sustenance from both fronts, so no matter which of the pawns move forward to form the ‘Government’, we would always remain the king makers, Sant Daduwal, Bhai Daljit Singh and Khalsa Action Committee notwithstanding. In future too we are ensured of absolution from some of our trivial misadventures like rape, murder, castration and wrongful confinement.

Today these Sikhs are finding themselves confused between the palm, the lotus and their beloved Libra. Aren’t they all acting as our critics, after all? One fine day, they may realize, may be not, actually, that all of the above may be divided politically, but are united in their aim of suppressing Sikhs out of the political arena and paving way for their further spiritual and moral spiral…downwards. Only those who are pliable to us and the State, whatever their form will be seen.

And as king makers, we would continue to challenge the Sikhs at every bend of the road. Because in their defeat would lie our victory, in their frustrations…our content. In the process they may sure fight back. But their retaliations to our mockery would always be termed as ‘acts of insecurity’ by the media and the politicians who would altruistically say… “All said and done, is any religion weak enough to be degenerated… by ‘mere non-conformists’?

In the end, lets us all hope that the supplies of Khalsa, talked about even in their prayers, always remain abundant. Doesn’t the direction of its flow point to the funding of their representative panthic party, the Akalis? Their ‘leaders’ would in turn be coming to us very soon. For aren’t our ‘blessings’ coveted for the coming elections? Do you think that it is only a mere coincidence that the Jathedar of Akal Takht is making conciliatory moves?

Let’s get together and guarantee that political party’s victory, which will ensure us privileges and concessions far better and higher than those we have enjoyed under the existing Congress rule.

The price of offending Sikhs is petty when you compare it with the rewards that follow.

I rest my case: I have had the courage and audacity to mock them… after all,I am Gurmeet Ram Rahim.

[chhokaranwala]

a rambling post so typical of many brothers these days

what happened to the open hearted brave Sikhs of the past ?

are we just lost in self pity ?

what has happened to the ability to look at ourslees critically instead of looking to blame all an sundry for the problems affecting our community - Why is it always somone elses fault ?

the Sirsa clown is a speck of dust and yet some brothers cant seem to identify themelves as Sikhs unless they hae someone to hate