The Sikh Times - Biographies - Joginder Singh Vedanti: The Man and the Office

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Joginder Singh Vedanti: The Man and the Office

By I.J. (INDER JIT) SINGH
I.J. (Inder Jit) Singh is professor & co-ordinator of anatomy at New York University. Among other publications, he is the author of two books of essays: Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias and The Sikh Way: A Pilgrim's Progress and is on the editorial advisory board of The Sikh Review, Calcutta.

Sikhe.com, May 9, 2003

I.J. Singh

"The question was what to do with the visiting Jathedar [high priest] of the Akal Takht."
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"Some Sikhs remembered that when Jathedar Ajnoha, who held the same office, visited New York a reception for him was mounted in Waldorf Astoria, arguably one of the most prestigious hotels in an incomparable city. It is a different matter that the function erupted in fisticuffs. I don't quite remember how it all concluded because I walked out. Perhaps about ten years ago, Manjit Singh, who was then the acting Jathedar of the Akal Takht, came calling and the Sikhs of New York honored him at a lavish spread at the Hilton."
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"Now the current title-holder, Jathedar Joginder Singh, was visiting. Sikhs were falling all over themselves honoring him - to see him and to be seen by him. But now some uncomfortable questions had also surfaced."
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"Jathedar Joginder Singh seems like a very nice, genial, scholarly man. Every one tells me that he is much more approachable than most of his predecessors. They also tell me that he is well intentioned who wants to do the right things, but that he is hemmed in by the political realities in India. All this may very well be true; certainly I am as ignorant of Punjab politics as can be. But he seems to come with considerable unwelcome baggage."
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"I notice that his name (and therefore his office) has been associated with the summoning of Gurbakhsh Singh Kala Afghana and the banning of his books. Now book banning like book burning is a practice that, to my mind, is completely antithetical to Sikh philosophy. The way to deal with bad ideas is by focusing the light of better and opposing ideas on them in the free marketplace of ideas, not by book banning and then punishing the messenger. Destroying the messenger makes us no better than the Mullahs of Iran and how they tried to silence Salman Rushdie. It also reminds me of the old Roman Catholic clergy and how it dealt with dissenters since before Galileo to nearly the end of the twentieth century when it finally stopped publishing lists of books that its followers were refrained from reading. This is not the company we need to cultivate."
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"It is also on the watch of the jathedar that Sikh women have raised the flag of rebellion because they are not being permitted to serve - clean or sing the liturgy - inside the Harmandir (Golden temple) that is the premier gurdwara [Sikh place of worship] of Sikhs. It is not enough to sing paeans to gender equality every morning as we do - 'So kyon manda akhiye jit jamen rajaan.' There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to such a discriminatory policy, but the jathedar sits like an ostrich with its head buried in sand studying the issue."
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"Sikh women the world over are asking that our practices be reexamined. Why is it that the woman walks behind a man during the Sikh marriage ceremony? Why is it that the bride's father ceremoniously hands her over to the groom? In the ritual of the Sikh anand karaj (wedding ceremony) did we merely adapt the ceremony from the majority Hindu community; Hindus walk several times around a fire, so we perambulate the Guru Granth [the Sikh scripture]. These are issues that will not go away, yet the office of the Akal Takht sits with nary a peep."
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"Our gurdwaras all over the world, including our historical gurdwaras in India, are built so as to be inaccessible to the handicapped. Admittedly many were built decades, even centuries ago. But the world has moved since. Now laws demand that public buildings be within reach of the handicapped. I am reminded of the fact that Darshan Singh, himself a renowned ragee [hymn singer] and a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht was recently refused permission to perform by a Canadian gurdwara because he could no longer sit cross legged - he had both knees replaced. We need to modify our gurdwara facility to accommodate people who cannot sit on the floor, cannot walk in unassisted, need a wheelchair and a ramp. Yet, the Akal Takht issues no directives and makes no effort to initiate and impel changes."
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"The question of the authenticity of major portions of the writings of Guru Gobind Singh continues to divide the Sikhs worldwide; the Akal Takht refuses to act decisively, or even to direct an exploratory, investigative, scholarly process to deal with the matter. The issue of a Sikh (Nanakshahi) calendar hangs fire for years, and the Akal Takht looks for compromises that resolve little. Dare I say, like Nero it fiddles while Rome burns?"
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"I look at the fact that Sikhs in India are vying to get reclassified as scheduled classes. Such labels are caste based and that would be absolutely contrary to Sikh teaching. What does the Akal Takht have to say about it? Probably nothing at all."
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"Then there are the events of 1984. How many Sikhs were killed in those dark years? How many were jailed for years without trials? There are no numbers and even now 19 years later there are no efforts at accounting or justice."
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"Think for a moment. The holocaust occurred in the 1940's. Sixty years later the fate of the Jewish victims is still being investigated. Guilty Nazis are still being identified. Oral history projects across the world are documenting who did what to whom, so that the world would never forget. The evidence of atrocities against the Sikhs in 1984 is still available but is becoming rapidly tainted and degraded every day. (Do not forget that uncounted Sikhs died in 1984 at the Akal Takht and in the Harmandir.) If the Akal Takht will not take the lead in preserving our collective history, who will?"
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"Our history also lies in the rare and handwritten documents, many of which were destroyed in 1984. Other documents and artifacts over time have become the property of a few families, but they really belong to the nation. How to preserve them and yet make them available to people worldwide and to scholars is a question that we ignore only at our own peril. Who better to lead us in this in the name of all Sikhs than the Jathedar of the Akal Takht?"
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"At a more personal level a book ostensibly edited by the jathedar himself has become a lightening rod for criticism, but there is no systemic effort to evaluate it."
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"While major issues facing Sikhs remain unresolved, the office of the Akal Takht remains embroiled in local election disputes of gurdwaras or the matter of legitimacy of langar if it is served on chairs and tables, rather than on the floor, and that too in gurdwaras thousands of miles away, in local conditions of which the Takht staff remain entirely uninformed."
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"I have not raised any issues of which most Sikhs are unaware. These matter invade our consciousness everyday. Yet at the reception for the jathedar, no one raised any such questions. No one initiated an honest debate. But then I have to add that the format of the meeting did not permit any debate or discussion."
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"It is as if to question the jathedar would be disrespect to the office. I suggest that this attitude emerges from our Indian cultural heritage, where people in authority - parents, teachers, religious icons, even politicians and statesmen must never be questioned. A knee jerk response of respect and affirmation is the only way. I add that this could also stem from our colonial legacy when we had masters, but I suspect that the feudal Indian society with its caste system had perhaps already broken the spirit. The spirit of free inquiry and the emphasis on accountability are inseparable and essential, but they do not seem to be in the Indian cultural ethos."
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"Let's look at the President of the United States. I am aware that the office deserves respect, even if, at times, the office-holder does not. The classic examples are Presidents Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam years, Richard Nixon during his Watergate saga, and the current occupant of the office George W. Bush through much of his tenure so far."
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"Most Americans are able to separate the office from the man. We have enormous respect for the office but this does not automatically translate into similar reverence for whoever happens to sit in that chair. His legitimate orders are obeyed, but analysis and criticism of the man can and does occur; in fact it never ceases."
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"The best example of the separation of the man from the office that I can think of occurred some years ago during the presidency of Richard Nixon. The president was to honor American Nobel Prize winners. One man, Linus Pauling, who had won two - for chemistry and for peace - spent the morning outside the White house protesting the Vietnam War and then he dressed up and entered the White house for the ceremony that honored him and others like him."
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"The first action was his view of the president's policies. Linus Pauling had the citizen's right and the obligation to dissent, and he did so. His second action was respect for the highest office in the land - that of the president."
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"In fact, not much later, Richard Nixon left the presidency in disgrace. In retrospect, it was the man that was degraded, not the office. And that is how it should be."
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"Sometimes the office makes the man, other times the man shapes the office."
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"It is a lesson that we Sikhs need to learn. We need to keep in mind that it is in discussion and debate that we sharpen our focus, define our goals and hone our skills."
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