Sehajdhari Sikhs, SGPC elections and criticisms.

In today's blog, it would be about the Sikh element of the blog.


Every Sikh should aspire to be an Amritdhari Khalsa. That is something that I agree with. Before I die, I would like to take Amrit. That being said, I have not Amrit Shak yet.

By some definition or another, I am not an Amrit Dhari Khalsa. An Amrit Dhari Khalsa is someone that has taken the Amrit and has become Khalsa. They have kept their 5 ks amongst other things.


Now for some reasons or another, there are many people including myself, have not taken Amrit yet. People like us are called Sehajdhari Sikhs, people who have yet to take Amrit, but may want to do so one day and would also want to be identified as a Sikh of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

That by itself I feel is already a mistake. The full form of the word Sikh is GurSikh, the Guru (teacher)'s student, the Guru's Seeker. Who in the world is one to say, this person is a Sikh or that person is not a Sikh other than the Guru? Only a teacher should dictate who his/her students are. Why should other students dictate if this person is a Sikh or not one?


Going back to the topic, currently Sikhs have a "supreme court" or our "legislative arm of Sikhism" at the Akal Takht. There is a committee that decides on the biggest matter of Sikhism. This body has elections every now and them.

Recently, the have announced that only Amrit Dhari Sikhs should be allowed to vote; after years and years of allowing Sehajdhari Sikhs to vote. This, as one can expect, has angered many Sehajdhari Sikhs.

On this ground, I dn not agree. Here is my reason why : Because I feel that a person that is following the crux of the religion should be the one that is allowed to hold the highest "office" in Sikhism. Just like only a Singaporean citizen can vote for a Singaporean MP, only an Amrit Dhari should vote on matters that concerns the Khalsa Panth.

I also fear that there would be an over-riding effect if Sehajdhari Sikhs come in and start having their own way when it comes to things like keeping of hair, allowing consumption of liquor and tobbaco and so on and so forth.

That being said, there are many issues that are not being ironed out but the Akal Takht. For example, we still are not sure if Raags are important in Sikhi. We still do not know if a Sikh should be a vegetarian or should be able to eat meat that is not Kosher, Halal or made for other religious reasons.

There are also other social evils that are being done by Gurudwara boards all around the world. There are still people that go around calling themselves Jatt or Chamar and believe in this ridiculous caste system. Caste system is not allowed by any measure in Sikhism. We still have the problem of the dowry, which leads to female infanticide. This should not be allowed at all, but are still carried out infront of Gurudwaras today. Fetuses are being aborted just because they would become girls if they are born.

Worst is that we are also closing an eye to even the biggest matters in Sikhism. When Sikhs get kidnapped in Pakistan and were told to convert or die, the Akal Takht did nothing. It just sat there and did nothing. Organisations like United Sikhs had to intervene. What more do we want? We do not need the SGPC coming out to tell Bollywood directors on how long Akshay Kumar's beard should be. Nor do we need them kicking people out of the Sikh religion for saying what the person think. We need them to wake the hell up or Sikhi would be going down the drain...

Please accept my apologies if my views offend you. Please air yours if you have to, but be civil about it. Thank you...

Why are problems not solved there and then?

A few days ago, Singapore got robbed in the World Cup Qualifiers against China. 2 soft penalties were given and one clear penalty was not given to Singapore. There will be the same calls again for reforms to the sport and calls for video referral that has been applied to sports like field hockey and American football.

But as the readers can guess, nothing is going to be done at the end of the day. This has been going on for so long that it is really making me wonder if there is anybody out there that is really willing to solve the problem? Or are the press just going about sensationalizing everything so that they report it again and again and again?

This issue is not only about the football field. It is about so many things in life where we are just accepting problems as it is and not doing anything about it. The environment is one of them. We know that global warming is real. We can feel it in Singapore. We can see Orchard Road getting flooded. But what do we do? Nothing. The whole world does nothing.


Of course there are issues that we cannot control. E.g. If the government raises transport fares again, what can we do? Go and riot like England? We cannot do anything but "suck thumb". But not everything is like that.


But the fact is that we are not doing anything about things that we can control. We are "just closing our eyes" on things that do not seem to affect us or do not affect us too much. We have the attitude of if can tahan, tahan lah. Why are we not wanting to change things that are not right?


Is there anyone out there that can answer my question? Is this something ingrained in our DNA as human beings? Or is it that we just do not care anymore?