West London Durga Pooja

[satty2007]

WJKK WJKF

Basically I was reading the metro newspaper from yesterday and I was flicking through and in it I found an add inviting people do durga pooja in the hall at ramgariha sikh temple, slough. I 'm not the one to judge but if having shraab in these gurdwara halls wasn't bad enough now this has started to happen.

http://www.westlondondurgapujo.co.uk/main.htm

[Singh559]

Meat being served in a Gurudwara hall....

[dalsingh101]

Has anyone tried to politely speak to the committee?

[Singh559]

Has anyone tried to politely speak to the committee?

That would be nice..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NiWwbX_1F4&

[Southall Youth]

These committee members are hopeless all the same prejudice and castist, this one in particular Ramgharia Sabha Slough REJECTS non 'Tharkhans' to become members of this Gurdwara - god knows why they still define it as a Gurdwara - when implementing Caste System when it comes to membership.

Boycott them as they call it it will shut down itself too many people have tried in the past to liase with this Gurdwara to no result ,as long as they dont stop the anti Sikh stuff like above we should keep well away,unless we all get together to stop them - which i doubt

[Cisco_Singh]

WJKK WJKF

Basically I was reading the metro newspaper from yesterday and I was flicking through and in it I found an add inviting people do durga pooja in the hall at ramgariha sikh temple, slough. I 'm not the one to judge but if having shraab in these gurdwara halls wasn't bad enough now this has started to happen.

http://www.westlondo....co.uk/main.htm

You'll probably find that the Gurdwara commitee has hired out the function hall to the hindu community for this Durga Puja event...I highly doubt it's a Gurdwara commitee organised event.I also highly doubt that it will involve any meat or alcohol...hindus being predominately vegetarian.

You'll also find Ramgarhia Hall Leicester has also hired out there function hall for Navaratri functions...again nothing to do with the Gurdwara or comitess, it's a function for wich they have hired the hall out.

The real question should be...should Gurdwaras hire out their dunction halls to non-Sikh communities..for any non-panthic, or non Sikh community functions ??

[khalistan_zindabaad]

Fateh,

Ramgharia Gurdwara in Gillingham - franklin also promotes similar events, recently they did an event in the upstairs divaan hall - hired to hindu community - remembering krishan jees avtar purbh - and moortee pooja was also done. . . currently they are advertising matas navrateh etc at the gurdwara sahib

[dalsingh101]

The real question should be...should Gurdwaras hire out their dunction halls to non-Sikh communities..for any non-panthic, or non Sikh community functions ??

I agree. There are two ways of looking at this.

1) It can help foster inter-community relationships and tolerance

0r

2) It is undermining the Sikh faith

Which one is it?

By the way, that doesn't look like meat to me?

The only way I can see resolution is some clear cut edict from Akal Takhat about what function halls can and can't be used for, especially in terms of other communities. The arguments in this matter will probably flow along the aforementioned liberal view of allowing inter-community relations to positively flourish or a more protectionist approach towards boundaries of the Sikh faith.

What surprised me was that the Hindus didn't find a mandir to do the function? Surely there are ones they could have easily used in West London? Maybe it was a matter of any venue would do and the Ramagarhia one was easily, openly available?

If I understand this properly, it seems like a Hindu event for Hindus that was held in a function hall? Or is it actually held in the main Gurdwara where Shri Guru Granth Sahib ji is prakash?

[Paneer Monster]

just to add...

ramgharia gurdwaras (and houses) proudly display huge pictures of baba vishwarkarma (the baba with the swan, tools, drills etc)- which has nothing to do with the sikh faith. they also place these pictures next to images that depict the personalities of our guru sahibs. I have also heard ramgharias mention baba vishwarkarma in aardas, the same aardas that is so sacred to sikhs.

its a common practice for ramgharia's to restrict seva of panj pyare to only turkhans. - this is foul beyond words.

in general, most turkhans are strictly forbidden from marrying chamars, jatts and people of any other casts... yet often they are allowed to marry hindu punjabis.

as a community they need to make a decision, they are either sikhs or hindus.

i can go on about their practices, but i reallly do not want to. ramgharia gurdwara's are in desperate need reforming....

ramgharia gurdwarae need to be educated on what sikhi is, and what sikhi is not!....

[dalsingh101]

Most 'Sikhs' seem to have a strong preference to marry within their jaat. Ramgarhias are not unique in this respect. Plus from what I see all the time these days, marrying outside of the quom is becoming more and more common.

There is a Ramgarhia Gurdwara not too far from me that occasionally I have gone to. I haven't seen any of the stuff Paneer monster talks of there.

I saw this with a lot of claims about some Bhatra Gurdwaras doing x, y and z. Much of which just turned out to be straight chuggliaan.

This dynamic of broadsides between castes is pretty much ingrained into the community right now and we need to openly face up to it.

Another thing I've come to realise is that, like it or lump it, Sikhs have divided themselves along caste lines and these 'subgroupings' seem to have different relationships with different communities. So, for example, some groups seem to have very hostile dynamics towards Hindus and Hinduism in general whilst some have a less hostile attitude towards them.

I'm just wondering if we are EVER going to get a single panthic outlook/agreement towards certain issues/other communities?

What is sad is how we just can't seem to get out of this habit of very quickly becoming our own enemies over multiple issues that continually pop up. I mean once this thing is sorted (presuming that it is!), it wont be long before another thing happens elsewhere and we go through the same motions again. Surely there must be a way to try and deal with all these similar type problems at the root? By this I mean casteism in general and they way different subgroups seem to be going on divergent paths along belief and political lines?

It just seems we are perpetually stuck dealing with the same old problems again and again which is alarming because it suggests we are in a rut of sorts.