A Political Solution is Necessary

My dear friend, Santbir Singh, shared my most recent post on his Facebook. While sharing my post, Santbir Singh suggested that perhaps my focus was too heavy on political solutions (in the form of SGPC and Punjab assembly elections). 

I think when it comes to Sikhi in its totality, he's right. Ultimately, Sikhs have strayed too far from Gurbani, Naam Simran and Rehit. Any Gursikh with a strong jeevan will tell you that the source of our problems lies in the fact that our relationship with Guru Sahib is not nearly as strong as it needs to be for the Panth to be in Chardi Kala. 

However, the problem seems to be that unless we attain control of our own institutions, it will be much harder to shape our destiny in terms of reversing the trend towards Sikhs moving away from Guru Sahib. Sikhs in Punjab are being subjected to cultural imperialism and many other efforts to merge them into the Hindu mainstream. Sovereignty of our institutions is required to reverse this trend. 

Our lack of political control is a symptom of our lack of a relationship with Guru Sahib but it is an incredibly important symptom. It is such an important symptom that it has also become a cause of our current state of affairs. When something is both a symptom and a cause, that means it is contributing to a cycle. In order to break the cycle, we can try many different options but on top of the list must be achieving sovereignty of our institutions before things become too dire. 

Santbir Singh gave the example of Sikhs marching into Darbar Sahib in the early 20th Century and taking over. The parallel he draws is missing some important context. Our Gurdwaras did not come into our control spontaneously. It took time. There was an entire movement that united the Panth. Eventually, it became clear that the Mahants had no moral authority and the government had no choice but to give back control of the Gurdwaras in Sikh hands after a long agitation. This is where the SGPC was created and it has since morphed into somewhat of a monster. I have not seen any viable solution to the Panth's issues that does not involve control of SGPC (followed by the reform of SGPC). If there is a viable solution, by all means, bring it to the table. Let's judge its practicality and likelihood of success. 

Our focus must be on a political solution while also still making our best efforts on Sikhi Parchaar in the meantime until a political solution can be achieved. The movement in the 1980s and 90s lacked a clear political solution to rally around. Among the many lessons to learn from the post-1984 movement, one lesson must be that the Panth needs to rally behind a clear political solution moving forward.

With the rise of the modern nation-state world system, India and its government is not going to disintegrate anytime soon. The Government of Punjab, its police force and bureaucracy will also continue to exist along with the existence of the Indian state. The existence of the government and the current SGPC regime's technical legal claim on controlling Panthic institutions means that any practical victory scenario must include capture of the SGPC and ideally, control of the Punjab government. Or if you think it doesn't require a political solution, please explain how it doesn't and let's begin a dialogue.