Sikh Nationalism is Sikh version of Hindutva.. lashing against the secular/religious imposition..
<b>
Rethinking Religion 2008: Platform Summary (Part 2 of 2)</b>
Prof. Jasdev S. Rai
Transcript:
..
..there is an Indian academia, an Indian elite who's very much part of this discourse, but there is the Indian masses who's really not given a toss about this, in reality. This is why departments or religion don't work here.
If you qualify in a department of religion in, say, Britain, as a Christian, you could probably get a job as a priest if there's nothing else. If you qualify in a department of religion in India, nobody's going to give you a job in a mandir or a gurudwara.
..
<b>The Sikhs have a very institutionalized system in the Gurudwaras, yet nobody qualified from any of the departments has ever been able to even get near to those institutions, because there isn't a receptions within the masses for the descriptions that they are talking about.</b>
..
I feel that I've come to a discussion which is limited by its own discourse. and wouldn't it be easier for them to say let's see what they're saying, how do they perceive us, how do they perceive your limitations, the ones that you want to expand.
..
<b>The tensions between, for instance, the Sikhs and the Indian state has never been about territory; it's about the secularity of the Indian Nation, that the Sikhs find very difficult to accept, find very uncomfortable.</b>
And yet if you ask the Sikhs if they want a religious state, they would say no; they haven't quite articulated what they have been looking for, but whenever the secularity of the nation tends to hit them hard, they fight back. and there's a cycle here, about every 20 years, there's a tension, there's violence in the Punjab, because the secularity doesn't hit them.
Thirdly, someone talked yesterday about, I think --what's in a word if the concepts are going to be the same-- why call it a Dharma, instead of, religion. The point is that, we are in this century and most of the last century in the nation state reality of politics. <b>It doesn't serve the Indian state or the Indian administration to have a whole new paradigm which is going to occupy the public space. .. It has to be marginalized within the personal domain, otherwise, it challenges, as we the Sikhs continue to challenge in the Punjab.
</b>
I mean that is the tension in us and the Indian state which hasn't arisen in the rest of India in that forcefully.
So Imagine if that occurs in a wider aspect, will the Indian state allow you to have a description which is wider than the concept of religion; maybe you might choose to the word -Dharma- so what? You might be able to study it a bit more flexibly. Are you conceptually going to change the whole state system in India.
An lastly, if you do, let's say you manage to shift it without the alternative concept of what the state form this, the politics form this emerges, are you not going to walk into the trap of Hindutva, this is what they're looking for. They're challenging the secular state and to anchor the whole thrust on something...... <b>the Hindu Mahasabha has been here for hundred years.. so they've never really walked, got into this discourse about Hinduism being a religion; they've always seen it as something more than a religion.</b>
But as someone pointed out this morning, that, or yesterday, that they haven't really been great intellectual, there's Arun Shourie and people like that, but they haven't quite intellectualized or articulated what they are, what the alternative is, and you might walk into, give it on a plate them.
so and, those are sort of ..
and lastly coming back to the Sikhs, i thinks there is, there's a telling thing that .. one of the sad things that what Indian academics is,.. they can be very good experts on some obscure philosopher in Europe, .. you can talk to them and they can tell you everything about some obscure philosopher in Europe, but they can't tell you about things in India
<b>In the sixteenth century, the Tenth Guru said ..- Teesar Panth - the Third Panth, He wasn't talking about some mixture between Islam and Hinduism, as Buddhism was there, Jainism was there, Islam was there, and He'd already met Christianity; He'd already recognized there were two very alternative systems. There was a third system that he had created.</b>
So solutions, .. that maybe just the Sikhs, but there's the Kabirs, there's so much stuff here within India maybe you should start looking within your own history, your own civilization, maybe you should start spending more time within India you might discover what the answers..
<b>
Rethinking Religion 2008: Platform Summary (Part 2 of 2)</b>
Prof. Jasdev S. Rai
Transcript:
..
..there is an Indian academia, an Indian elite who's very much part of this discourse, but there is the Indian masses who's really not given a toss about this, in reality. This is why departments or religion don't work here.
If you qualify in a department of religion in, say, Britain, as a Christian, you could probably get a job as a priest if there's nothing else. If you qualify in a department of religion in India, nobody's going to give you a job in a mandir or a gurudwara.
..
<b>The Sikhs have a very institutionalized system in the Gurudwaras, yet nobody qualified from any of the departments has ever been able to even get near to those institutions, because there isn't a receptions within the masses for the descriptions that they are talking about.</b>
..
I feel that I've come to a discussion which is limited by its own discourse. and wouldn't it be easier for them to say let's see what they're saying, how do they perceive us, how do they perceive your limitations, the ones that you want to expand.
..
<b>The tensions between, for instance, the Sikhs and the Indian state has never been about territory; it's about the secularity of the Indian Nation, that the Sikhs find very difficult to accept, find very uncomfortable.</b>
And yet if you ask the Sikhs if they want a religious state, they would say no; they haven't quite articulated what they have been looking for, but whenever the secularity of the nation tends to hit them hard, they fight back. and there's a cycle here, about every 20 years, there's a tension, there's violence in the Punjab, because the secularity doesn't hit them.
Thirdly, someone talked yesterday about, I think --what's in a word if the concepts are going to be the same-- why call it a Dharma, instead of, religion. The point is that, we are in this century and most of the last century in the nation state reality of politics. <b>It doesn't serve the Indian state or the Indian administration to have a whole new paradigm which is going to occupy the public space. .. It has to be marginalized within the personal domain, otherwise, it challenges, as we the Sikhs continue to challenge in the Punjab.
</b>
I mean that is the tension in us and the Indian state which hasn't arisen in the rest of India in that forcefully.
So Imagine if that occurs in a wider aspect, will the Indian state allow you to have a description which is wider than the concept of religion; maybe you might choose to the word -Dharma- so what? You might be able to study it a bit more flexibly. Are you conceptually going to change the whole state system in India.
An lastly, if you do, let's say you manage to shift it without the alternative concept of what the state form this, the politics form this emerges, are you not going to walk into the trap of Hindutva, this is what they're looking for. They're challenging the secular state and to anchor the whole thrust on something...... <b>the Hindu Mahasabha has been here for hundred years.. so they've never really walked, got into this discourse about Hinduism being a religion; they've always seen it as something more than a religion.</b>
But as someone pointed out this morning, that, or yesterday, that they haven't really been great intellectual, there's Arun Shourie and people like that, but they haven't quite intellectualized or articulated what they are, what the alternative is, and you might walk into, give it on a plate them.
so and, those are sort of ..
and lastly coming back to the Sikhs, i thinks there is, there's a telling thing that .. one of the sad things that what Indian academics is,.. they can be very good experts on some obscure philosopher in Europe, .. you can talk to them and they can tell you everything about some obscure philosopher in Europe, but they can't tell you about things in India
<b>In the sixteenth century, the Tenth Guru said ..- Teesar Panth - the Third Panth, He wasn't talking about some mixture between Islam and Hinduism, as Buddhism was there, Jainism was there, Islam was there, and He'd already met Christianity; He'd already recognized there were two very alternative systems. There was a third system that he had created.</b>
So solutions, .. that maybe just the Sikhs, but there's the Kabirs, there's so much stuff here within India maybe you should start looking within your own history, your own civilization, maybe you should start spending more time within India you might discover what the answers..