Stepping Into the Future...

At this critical juncture, we need to reflect on the Khalsa Panth’s political programme and strategy and reexamine the internal dynamics of the Panth.

On June 6, 2020, the Samvad initiative released a draft document capturing the discussions of panth dardi from around the world regarding current panthic halaat and the way forward. This document is a set of suggested guiding principles and was not intended to be definitive or conclusive document but several years later it continues to provide crucial insights and guidance for panthic naujawan interested in understanding the political conditions we exist in, and how we move forward in a way rooted in gurmat.

We are sharing an excerpt from that documents with our readers today. The full document can be downloaded at this link.

Guru Nanak Sahib took human consciousness to its pinnacle so that it can directly experience the limitlessness of the Infinite. It is through this transformation from Sikh-consciousness to Guru-consciousness that the sublime form of the Khalsa came forth into this world. During the period of Sikh misls and Sarkar Khalsa, the world witnessed the reflections of the divine Khalsa spirit in the social and political structures of the times.

Following the weakening of the Khalsa Panth’s prampara (tradition) in the final decades of Sarkar Khalsa however, history is witness to the betrayal and devastating losses that followed in its wake. With the waning of the Khalsa Panth’s jathebandi (organization), the temporal sovereignty of the Sarkar Khalsa was also lost. 

It was at this point that Sikhs first came face-to-face with Western secularism¹ (manmat²) and a new, rapidly changing world.

In the past century, the idea of the nation-state has gradually emerged to replace the monarchy as the predominant political structure around the world. Subsequently, the nation-state’s corresponding electoral system has come to be accepted as the approved method of selecting leadership—all under the appearance of “the current system of democracy.” 

After the decline of the Firanghi empire in 479 Nanakshahi (1947 CE), the transformation of power in the region saw the Khalsa Panth’s historical territory divided into two and the reins of power over the Firangi-created artificial entity “India” handed over to the Bippar Sanskari³ Congress party. The new imperial rulers of “India” selected the least developed model of the electoral system (“first past the post”) from amongst a host of options to impose a majoritarian system through “representative democracy.” 

As the instruments of the establishment began its nation-building project with full intensity, unique cultural groups and identities were subsumed into the so-called “Indian nation” built upon a brahminical mold. As a result of the new elite’s imperial psyche and expansive Western political structures at its service, the imposition of Indian nationalism and capitalism sharpened the attack against the Khalsa Panth’s distinctive existence in the new so-called “republic.” 

Despite these adversities, Sikhs continued to resist and to uphold their commitment to sovereignty (sutantar vicharna). The various phases of this struggle include the struggle for a linguistic region within the structure of “India” (Punjabi Suba movement), the struggle for autonomy (Anandpur Sahib Resolution), the struggle for confederation (Amritsar Declaration), and ultimately—the struggle for an independent state (Khalistan Declaration). 

Unfortunately, over the past two decades, a significant section of the Sikh Sangat has let down its legacy of struggle and has reverted to the self-defeating political strategy of finding relief within the “Indian” electoral system and its authoritarian structure. As a result, the activities of many Sikh dharmik (religious) and political groups are only drifting further and further away from Gurmat and Sikh prampara. 

At this critical juncture, we need to reexamine the Khalsa Panth’s political policy and strategy and reflect on our internal dynamics of the Panth. It is imperative that we also begin to understand the processes and phenomena taking place throughout the world based in a Gurmat perspective. In order to understand our current situation, and to imbue ourselves in the Khalsa’s divine character and its blessings, we must turn to a process requiring deep thought and self-reflection.

We place these suggestions before the Khalsa Panth in the above light, so that we can analyze the current situation of the Panth, identify the roots of the disease, and formulate possible solutions—all in the hopes of marking the signposts of our future advancement.

The full document can be downloaded at this link.

1. While the vanity of the West traces itself back to ancient Greece, it was the process of colonialism that expanded a disciplining mode of knowledge-production based on the primacy of positivism and the finality of human intellect and agency. Through this myth from ancient Greece to “modern” Europe, this project continued to expand and sought to define all elements of life as it simultaneously sought to conquer the material world in its entirety. With the Protestant Reformation, this duplicitous project emerged into a new phase—premised on the superiority of materialism and the “secularization” of the world.

During the time of the so-called Renaissance in Europe, two competing perspectives jostled for dominance in interpreting the world: the theology of the Church and scientific positivism. As positivism came to replace Christian theology as the dominant paradigm of knowledge-production and interpretation, this project embarked on a process of “secularization.” At the core of this process is the replacement of divine agency as the foundation of understanding the world (i.e. knowledge-production), with the human intellect built around the Ego. With the replacement of “God” by the “Ego” as the ultimate authority of life, this cognitive mechanism asserted itself as an abstract universal—disembodied from its concrete origins and historical context. Built upon the prototype of the White European Male, this abstract universalism projects itself as the apex of human life while all others (racialized/colonized peoples) must assimilate to the West’s “civilization” in order to develop beyond their “local parochialisms” and “backwardness.”

The most important limitation of this “secularism” is not only that it prioritizes empiricism and the material realm as the ultimate source of Truth, but that it actively prohibits the divine (and non-Western perspectives) from all forms of public (social, political, and economic) life and knowledge-production. While the development of secularism is one of the defining elements of the “West,” this intermingles with its other foundational elements—Eurocentrism and White supremacy. This is why the West is incapable of developing a genuinely universal ethics or working for sarbat da bhala. Without spiritual balance and the guidance of divinity—science, reason, and industrialization function only as tools of Capital (profit) rather than the wellbeing of all. Accordingly, social relations, governance structures and other institutions derived by the West remain institutions of domination rather than seva.

As Khalsa Jee Ke Bol Baalay revolves around a divine vision manifested in the material realm, the Khalsa’s understanding of the world is built around a unique epistemology ignored and erased by Western secularism.

2. This Western worldview is manmat by its very definition. The valorization of the Ego (illusion of the self as ”I”), at the heart of this epistemology, along with political structures built around the paramountcy of individual liberty thus reek of egocentrism and manmat that the gurmukh overcomes.

3. “Bippar Sanskar are the destructive processes which break entire societies from the mystic relationship between their being and their divine origins by subordinating them to the giaan-haumai (epistemic ego-centrism) of materialism. Wrenching the human connection from divinity and replacing this with bland worldly desires, emotional instability, and a desire to dominate all of creation, these efforts for self-gratification are turned into the enslaved person’s new God. As it rapidly transforms the sublime consciousness of the mystic towards giaan-haumai, this process turns human existence and activity towards a revised form of idolatry. Human communities based on the beauty of deep gratitude are shattered and replaced with the psyche of endless consumption and the establishment of new idols. Integrity is hung to dry in a vacuum of vulgar emptiness while collective values are drowned in the deceit of obscenity. 

Bippar Sanskar can take a great number of form: Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu et cetera, but the central prototype throughout all of these derivatives are in their brahminical influence. The social systems developed around Brahminism are the original mold of Bippar Sanskar and are perpetually reproducedby these conditions.” —from Prof. Harinder Singh Mehboob’s Sehaje Rachio Khalsa, page 610.