What I learnt about Sikhism from an 'excommunicated' professor
Throughout their lifetime, the Gurus laid heavy emphasis on scholarly and intellectual pursuits.
Compiled in Sri Guru Granth Sahib are writings not only of the six of the 10 Gurus, but also of thinkers and philosophers from various other traditions.
Guru Gobind Singh had a galaxy of 52 poet-scholars in his court.
Relevance of dialogue
Guru Nanak used dialogue extensively as a means of communication. The Guru travelled almost all parts of the subcontinent and west to Baghdad and Mecca.
He held dialogue with Brahmins, reclusive yogis, siddhas or ascetics who claimed to have achieved enlightenment, and with Islamic pirs. Guru Nanak held dialogue with the powerful and the commoners.
In May 2010, when the United Nations Security Council sat to discuss intercultural dialogue, then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon made a gripping observation.
"Dialogue can defuse tensions and keep situations from escalating," Ban remarked. "[Intercultural dialogue] could promote reconciliation in the aftermath of conflict and could also introduce moderate voices into polarised debates," he said, adding: "At a time when prejudice and hatred are all too common, when extremists seek new recruits through incitement and identity-based appeal, when politicians use divisiveness as a strategy to win elections — dialogue can be an antidote."
This is precisely what Guru Nanak did - and accomplished - and that too in a pre-democracy age fiercely divided by religion, caste and class hierarchies.
As torchbearers of this majestic legacy, the Sikhs are expected to carry forward the practice of dialogue. But the current religious leadership typifies a dichotomy.
The dichotomy of Shiromani Akali Dal
Punjab's Shiromani Akali Dal is originally a product of a Sikh movement that demanded and won from the ruling British authorities in India control over gurdwaras through a 1925 legislation.
The same party, in 1996, announced itself as a Punjabi party in what was a stunning departure from its Sikh-only foundations.
This secular-religious duplicity has since weighed heavily on Badals' SAD, mainly for its alliance with the BJP that remains committed to Hindutva and for its stranglehold of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
Akal Takht and Akalis
Although an elected body, the SGPC has faced serious accusations of bias. It stands accused of suppressing dissent from independent Sikh voices. In other words, critics overwhelmingly feel the party entertains no dialogue for reforms.
Badals' denials aside, two major measures by the Akal Takht, the highest seat of Sikh temporal authority, have shaken many in the community across the world over the past eight years. Remember, the jathedar or the head of the Akal Takht is an appointee of the Akali-controlled SGPC.
In December 2009, the Takht "excommunicated" professor Darshan Singh, himself a former jathedar, and one of the finest researchers of the Sikh scriptures and history.
In 2015, the Takht pardoned Sirsa's dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim - now in jail over rape conviction - for blasphemy he had allegedly committed by dressing up like Guru Gobind Singh.
The 2015 pardon, which was later revoked after a large number of Sikhs protested, dented the credibility of the institution severely.
Critics again accused the Badals of attempts to appease Ram Rahim's massive low-caste following for vote politics through the Takht's handpicked jathedar.
Meeting the erudite professor
Professor Darshan Singh, the chief of the Akal Takht from 1986 to 1990, was excommunicated by a successor leading a group of five clerics eight years ago.
The professor, now an American citizen based in Canada, has been a vocal opponent of the Dasam Granth, a collection of writings attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. He disputes its authorship, saying the compositions are grossly inconsistent with the philosophy of Guru Granth Sahib.
The Akal Takht pronounced professor Singh guilty of denigrating Guru Gobind Singh during a religious programme at a gurdwara in New York, a charge the scholar-singer vehemently rebutted as manipulated.
He, however, maintains portions of the Dasam Granth degrade women and promote promiscuity and idolatry.
In their ex-communication order, the jathedars commanded he be given no cooperation for any event in gurdwaras and religious congregations till he seeks forgiveness and is pardoned.
But that hasn't stopped the elderly professor from speaking and singing. Nor has it discouraged many of his ardent admirers from inviting him to gurdwara congregations from North America to Europe to India and elsewhere. Professor Singh's whirlwind participation belies his falling age.
And strangely enough, the scholar-singer gets a large audience wherever he goes despite his ex-communication. In this era of social media, many Sikhs of diverse age groups listen to him with rapt attention when he sings and explains the nuances of gurbani in his characteristic style.
The phenomenon reflects a sea-change in mindsets of a number of Sikhs, if not everyone.
If his talks in packed halls of gurdwaras across continents is an indication, he's certainly not a pariah, at least for his committed audiences.
As a Sikh, I too was expected to keep distance from him. But then I was haunted by troubling questions.
Does excommunication - fair or unfair - consigns all the wisdom and the lifelong intellectual research of the shunned person to the flames? Should it, if it does, within a faith that embraced dialogue with cultures and religions outside?
I am a Sikh by birth and a journalist by profession. Moreover, I have been a student of literature.
Put together, all these aspects require that I must stay inquisitive. I must probe. I must study a variety of critiques.
Three generations of Sikhs have now been raised, listening to the professor's in-depth analyses of gurbani. How can all his study be discarded at the stroke of a pen? I wondered.
So, I met him during his current winter tour of India.
At the home of one of his tabla players in Delhi, the professor walked out of his bedroom.
He looked tired, apparently from a bout of seasonal illness. But his eyes sparkled the moment I asked him my primary question.
Panth: Community or Path?
"What is the present condition and direction of the Panth?" I asked.
The professor looked into my eyes. And in his soft voice, he tested my understanding of the word Panth.
"We should first know what Panth means," he sighed. "The word Panth appears some 60-62 times in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. But nowhere does it mean community or group or congregation," Singh said.
But why then in common Sikh parlance Panth refers to the community? In our prayers, in various slogans and in religious discourses, the word alludes to the brotherhood. If it's not that, what else does that mean?
"In Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Panth refers to the Guru's path, the roadmap," he explained. "The Guru has shown the path to the Sikhs to follow. The one who walks on it is Panthak or the traveller. But Panth originally was never described as a coming-together of people."
Are edicts 'panthak' or political?
Then how this deviation happened? Did this deviation digress many of the faithful from the Guru's path?
Singh then showed a booklet titled "Sikh Rehat Maryada", or the Sikh code of conduct. These codes, published by the SGPC, date back to the 1940s.
On its 51st page, the booklet carried the definition of Panth, with the most revered “Guru” prefixed. So "Guru Panth", in accordance with the SGPC's codebook, refers to an association of practising Sikhs.
"A pinch of poison is sufficient to render a glassful of milk lethal," the professor deplored. "If we understand the difference between the two meanings of Panth, as coded in this booklet and as described in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, we'll then be able to set ourselves out on the right direction."
That's how the erudite professor answered my single question: "What is the present condition and direction of the Panth?"
Essentially, he meant some of our widely accepted 20th-century codes, if not all, have gradually come up as a firewall between the original philosophy as enshrined in Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the Sikhs. And that's how vested interests hegemonised top religious institutions and, through them, the entire community, Singh bemoaned.
No viewpoint is endpoint
Learning is an endless cycle. Accomplished literary researchers develop critical thinking as they synthesise information from various sources.
Their research involves a gigantic effort. And when their reviews land in public domain, more so in religion, they are expected to raise some eyebrows. They did, when Singh passionately disputed the Dasam Granth.
But, at the same time, he also stoked a serious debate, driving a number of Sikhs to study the Dasam Granth afresh.
Singh's viewpoint may not be the endpoint.
He could be rigidly sticking to the letter - and not the spirit - of the term Guru Panth as defined in the Sikh code. It's possible that the authors of the SGPC manual genuinely intended to consolidate Sikhs as a distinct political and religious identity.
But given the credibility questions swirling around the Sikh faith's most senior clerics, it's also possible the professor's critique merits a revisit to the 20th-century codes in order to flatten any barricades they might have created between the Sikhs and their original egalitarian doctrine.
So, let’s not excommunicate debate and dialogue, primarily at the institutional level.