BACK
Eurocentrism Vs Khalsacentrism
Dr S.S. Sodhi
The purpose of this article is to introduce to Sikh researchers the concepts of Eurocentrism and compare it with Khalsacentrism.
Eurocentrism first raised its ugly head in Sikh research, when E. Trumpp was invited by the India Office authorities in 1869, to produce a translation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. This ignorant and arrogant, “historian in a hurry” is a good example of Eurocentric research. On many pages of his translation of the Adi Granth (1877, 1970), Dr E. Trumpp was as insulting as any European could ever be to the Sikh heritage and Sikh scripture. Here are some examples:
1. The Sikh Granth is a very big volume, and couched at the same time in dark and perplexing language, in order to cover these ‘defects. It is for us Occidentals a most painful and almost stupefying task, to read only a single raga.
2. Sikhism is a waning religion,that will soon belong to history.
3. Guru Nanak’s words as preserved in the Sikh Granth were so often dark and unintelligible to me.
4. Guru Nanak’s travel to Mecca is an invention from the beginning to the end.
5. The way in which Nanak used the disciples who attached themselves to his person, was not very conducive to impart to them any considerable knowledge. They were little more than his menial servants. The mass of Nanak’s disciples were ignorant Jats, who on an average could neither read nor write.
6. What Nanak looked chiefly for in his successor, were not scientific accomplishments, or a cultivated mind, but blind obedience to the commands of the Guru. The stories, which are told in Janamsakhis of the total “sacrificism intellects” of Lahana are, therefore, very significant.
7. Angad was altogether unlettered and could himself neither read nor write. The tradition, which makes him inventor of the Gurmukhi letters is without any foundation.
8. The few verses of Angad, which are contained in the Granth, are but a poor repetition of the words of Nanak and shallow in the extreme.
9. Guru Amar Das performed all sorts of menial services to Angad, as Angad had done to Nanak.
10. Guru Amar Das was unlettered like his master Angad.
11. Sikh Gurus strictly observed the caste system of India.
12. Guru Ram Das was without any scientific education. His Compositions were not original show miracles or embraceMusalman faith.
13. Guru Arjun was the first Guru who meddled in politics.
14. Guru Arjun collected verses of the preceding Gurus, to which he added his own very numerous but carelessly written verses.
15. To these verses he added the verses of the bhagats to prove that the tenets of the Sikh Gurus were already entertained and proclaimed by the earlier popular saints.
16. Guru Arjun called this miscellaneous collection Granth (i.e., the book). It was given the authority of Vedas and Puranas, which the unlettered people had never been able to read, whereas the Granth was composed in their mother tongue and intelligible to the vulgar.
17. Guru Arjun was the first Sikh Guru who laid aside the garb of a fakir, and kept an establishment like a grandee; he engaged also in trades in a grand style.
18. Guru Hargobind was addicted to hunting, and entered the services of the Emperor Jahangir. After Jahangir’s death, he entered the services of Shah Jahan. When Shah Jahan sent troops against him, he fled to Kartarpur and later to Kiratpur.
19. Guru Hargobind had no time nor taste for meditation and composition of religious poetry.
20.Har Rai seemed to have neither inclination nor calling for poetry.
21 Guru Tegh Bahadur, like a mad man, was given to deep silence.
22. Guru Tegh Bahadur, while feeling unsafe in Punjab, moved to Patna under the garb of a Hindu pilgrim.
23. Guru Tegh Bahadur, who was not a learned man nor conversant with disputations, was thrown into prison because he refused to show miracles or embrace Musalman faith.
24. Guru Tegh Bahadur ordered his Sikhs to cut off his head because he could not tolerate the pain inflicted on him in Delhi.
25. Moral views of Sikhs of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s time were confusing. Guru Tegh Bahadur was outlawed by Delhi government and captured as a criminal at Agra.
26. Guru Gobind Singh was surrounded on all sides by dangers, so he retreated to the mountains (Paonta Sahib). There he kept himself concealed.
27. Guru Gobind Singh never studied Sanskrit but tried to imitate it in his compositions, which on the whole are very difficult and intricate.
28. Guru Gobind Singh’s mind was deeply tinged with superstitious notions of Hindus. So he wanted to secure the aid of goddess Durga, who was the special object of his worship.
29. Guru Gobind Singh made a human head sacrifice to Naina-devi who then blessed him.
30. “As Guru Gobind Singh offended the high caste people by abolishing caste system, they left him. Hence Khalsa consisted of lower caste people such as Jats.
31. According to Guru Gobind Singh, Guru Granth Sahib in its present form produced a spirit of meekness and humbleness. So the Guru set to work and composed a big, heavy Granth. He completed it in 1696 A.D. and called it Granth of the Tenth Reign.
32. Guru Gobind Singh exaggerated the importance of his fights with Hill Rajas in Vichittar Natak.
33. When Guru Gobind Singh’s children were put under the foundation of a wall, the weeping of these children was heard for many days.
34. Guru Gobind Singh was again defeated at Muktsar by Imperial forces.
35. After leaving Damdama, Guru Gobind Singh went to Sirhind, where his sons had been buried alive. From Sirhind the Guru went back to Anandpur and settled there again, unmolested.
36.Guru Gobind Singhjoined Imperial army of Emperor Bahadur Shah.
37. Guru Gobind Singh went to Deccan, because he was appointed the commander of five thousand horses.
38. Even though the Guru’s wounds were stitched, and healed, but it seemed that the Guru was bent on dying. After appointing Guru Granth Sahib the Guru, he became senseless.
39. Guru Gobind Singh died broken hearted, weary of life far from the scenes of his exploits.
For more detailed arrogance of E. Trumpp readers are advised to read Preface, Introductory essays of his translation of Adi Granth (1877 & 1970). pp. I – XCVI
After heaping Eurocentric insults on the Sikh Gurus and Sikh scripture, E. Trumpp, in Chapter III of his book, says the following insulting things about Sikh religion.
1. Nanak himself was not a speculative philosopher, who built up concise system on scientific principles. He had not received a regular school-training, and uttered, therefore, his thoughts in a loose way, which are now scattered through the Granth, and must first be patiently searched out and collected into a whole, before we can form an idea of his tenets.
2. Nanak himself was by no means an independent thinker, neither had he any idea of starting a new religious sect. He followed all essential points, the common Hindu philosophy of those days, especially the system laid down in Bhagavad Gita. He also followed Kabir who was already a popular man in India.
3. Kabir’s writings which were composed in the Vulgar tongue, were accessible to the unlearned masses.
4. The tenth Guru, Gobinq Singh, relapsed in many points again into Hinduism. He was a special votary of Durga.
5. Nanak remained a thorough Hindu according to all his views. We should be wrong in assuming that Nanak forbade theworship of other gods on the ground of the unity of the Supreme. He took, over the whole Pantheon, with all the mythological background, and subordinated it to the supreme Brahm.
6. Guru Granth denies the libemm arbitrium in man (Free will).
7. Buddhism like Sikhism is nothing but unrestricted pessimism unable to hold out any solace except that of annihilation.
8. Guru gives salvation to the elect using principle of “Decretum aetemum.” Those elects are chosen according to the pleasure of the Hari. It is Hari’s sport.
9. Sikhism is not moralizing Deism.
10. Earlier Gurus deified man into supreme himself.
11. Guru Gobind Singh took rude and ignorant Jats, kept them subservient by kindling in them the hatred against Muslims.
12. The sayings of Bhatts were composed for the occasion of abject flatteries, without any intrinsic value, and were added to Guru Granth by Guru Arjun himself.
13. The verses of the different Gurus have been distributed into 31 ragas, apparently without any leading principle, as hardly any verse is internally connected with another.
14. By thus jumbling together whatever came to hand without any judicious selection, the Granth has become an extremely incoherent and wearisome book, the few thoughts and ideas, that it contains, being repeated in endless variation, which are for the greatest part nothing but a jingling of words.
15. As Guru Arjun and Guru Nanak did not understand Sanskrit, they were incapable of writing shlokas.
16. Though the Granth, as regards its content, is perhaps the most shallow and empty book that exists in proportion to its size, it is on the other hand, in linguistic point of view, of the greatest interest to us, as it is a real treasury of the “old Hindu” dialects.
17. Nanak and his successors employed in their writings purposely, the Hindui idiom, following the examples of Kabir and other bhagats.
It must be pointed out that E. Trumpp has been source of hidden inspiration to many “Occidental” historians such as Dr Mc-Lead, Oberoi, Pashaura Singh, J.S. Grewal, and S.S. Hans. But the leader of the pack is Dr McLeod, the rest of them are his role-dancing followers. Here are some examples of what McLeod has to say about Sikhism and Sikh Gurus while using his Western reality and his right to use Social Science methods developed in Europe to understand an Eastern religion, Also his determined effort to convert somebody’s subjective faith to bring to it objectivity, is arrogantly evident. These examples are from his books such as “Evolution of The Sikh Community” (1975), “The Sikh History, Religion, and Society” (1989), “Who is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity” (1989), the readers will notice that the Trumppian themes run in McLeod’s writings,
1. Guru Nanak was the founder of Sikh religion in the organizational sense, and not in the religious sense.
2. Nath tradition was worked by Kabir; Guru Nanak provided the extension.
3. Guru Nanak in a way is a Sant Nanak.
4. Guru Nanak never went abroad.
5. Guru Gobind Singh lost all his battles.
6. Regression from Sikhism to Hindu religion took place at the time of Guru Amar Das.
7. Jat influence got guruship to Guru Arjun Dev.
8. Guru Arjun corrected the bani written by Guru Nanak (Pashaura Singh, 1991).
9. Compilation of the Adi Granth’was a process, it was not Dhur Ki Bani (Pashaura Singh, 1991).
10. Bhagat Bani was included in Sri Guru Granth Sahib to please the minorities (Pashaura Singh, 1991).
11. Guru Arjun was murdered and not martyred in 1606 A.D, (Pashaura Singh, 1991).
12. Guru Granth is an anthology which is very amorphous (H. Oberoi, 1994).
Dr James R. Lewis, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, while writing for “Advanced Studies in Sikhism” (1989), has exposed the behaviour of Eurocentric historians in his famous article “Misrepresentation of Sikh Tradition in World Religious Text Books” (1989).
Dr Lewis feels that as India was under a colonial rule, the Eurocentric Historians such as W.L. McGregor (1846), H.H. Wilson (1848) and E. Trumpp were reinforcing and legitimizing British imperialism by downgrading the religion of the Sikhs (it must be noted that J.D. Cunningham and Evans Bell did support Sikh aspirations in this period, for which they were punished).
Mystified by the colonial and imperialistic scholars, some Sikh historians such as J.S. Grewal, S.S. Hans, Pashaura Singh, and Harjot Oberoi, have also committed errors of fact and interpretation in Sikh history. Many Western scholars have joined this pack.
For example, following misstatements were made by Eurocentric Sikh scholars in the recent past about Sikh history. They have been collected from various books used in the Departments of Religious Studies in North America.
1. Sikhism is the outcome of the impact of Islam on Hinduism (Ellwood, “Many People Many Faiths”, 1987).
2. Guru Gobind Singh was killed in a battle (Robert Ellwood, 1987).
3. The Tenth Master slew a chicken rather than a goat on the occasion of the formation of the Khalsa (Robert Ellwood, “Many People Many Faiths”, 1987, pp. 101-102).
4. Guru Gobind Singh introduced into Sikhism the worship of the terrible Hindu Goddess of Death, Durga. (Lewis M. Hopfe “Religions of the World”,1987).
5. Guru Nanak was the disciple of Kabir (Ward J. Fellows “Religions East and West”, 1979).
6. Guru Nanak accepted gods of Hindu pantheon (K.W. Morgan “The Religion of the Hindus”, 1953, p. 41).
7. Guru Granth Sahib is not comprehensible to most Sikhs, despite the fact, they hold it sacred (David G. Bradley “A Guide to World Religions” 1963, p. 128).
8. The Sikhs, in their fight for survival against Islam, became instead a symbol of religious intransigence and hatred (Hyla S. Converse “The Religious World”, 1988, p. 98).
9. Sikhism is more of a reformed Hindu religion (Wing-tsit cham, et. al, “The Great Asian Religions. An Anthology”, 1969,p. 5).
10. There is little doubt that in Sikhism, Muslim Sources predominate (John Hutchison “Path of Faith”, 1969, p. 200).
11. Guru Nanak leaned rather more to Islam than to Hinduism (Ninian Smart: “The Religious Experience of Mankind” 1976 p. 150).
12. Sikhism is an equal admixture of Islam and Hinduism (D.L. Carnody: “The Story of World Religion”, 1988, p. 253).
13. Sikh religion is not in any absolute sense new (J.B. Noss & David Noss: “Man’s Religion”, 1984, p. 221).
14. Sikhism was grafted (syncretized) on foreign elements (Paul B. Courtright and Harbans Singh: “Punjab Past and Present”, 1976, p.417).
15. Sikhs are the most militant of warriors (L.M. Hopfe: “Religions of the World”, 1987, p. 184).
16. Sikhs started believing in combativeness and even militarism (H. Stroup: “The Founders of Living Religion”, 1975, p. 104).
17. Sikhs, like Muslims, started believing that death in battle was a passport to paradise. (R. Cavendish: “The Great Religions”,1980, p. 49).
The present author firmly believes that the “sloppy scholar-ship”of these Eurocentric, Colonial, Racist and Imperial Scholars is due to their hidden desire to show the superiority of Christianity, and justification of colonization. These scholars represent the elite and elect behavior of Calvinistic males.
EUROCENTRISM AND SIKH RESEARCH
After giving the above examples, a brief introduction to ‘Eurocentrism’ is in order at this time. ‘Eurocentric’ Sikh researchers are self-appointed Sikh historians who want to bring “correctness” to Sikh history. Their linear, collective mind treats the Sikhs, Sikh Gurus, and Sikh scripture the same way as Marx treated various European religions. These empiricists and logical-positivists use social science methods developed in Europe to understand and evaluate the mystic writings of the East. They operate using object- subject duality. They are committed to hard-headed no-nonsense interpretation of mystical realities and lives of cosmocentric Sikh Gurus. Their logical-positivism wants to verify the Sikh traditions by recorded documentations. They get their inspirations from such European thinkers as Calvin, Wilden, Habernras, Sartre, Marcuse, Freud, Mane, and Hegel (see Sirdar Kapur Singh’s “Sikhism”, Institute of Sikh Studies,
1993).
The motivations of Eurocentric scholars are repression projection mechanisms. The Eurocentric scholar is uncomfortable with contradiction between the theory and practice in his own religious traditions. By repressing, they project the contradiction to Sikhism. McLeod’s articles in the Sikh Review, January & April 1994, are very good examples of this phenomenon.
This psycho-dynamic interpretation explains why faithless scholars, raduate students in a hurry, the Western and some mystified Eastern role-dancing followers, have given such a differential treatment to Sikhism. The present writer is not aware of any article of Dr McLeod where he has taken Christianity to task for being a very oppressive and colonizing religion.
By this ‘repression’, projection mechanism of motivation, these Eurocentric scholars want to bring structure to Sikhism and make it ‘sociologically respectable’ (Oberoi, 1994). Calvinistic elect and elitist thought has brought the dehumanizing structural “necessity” rational efficiency, concentration on self, selfishness and ability to “denature the supernatural”, in Eurocentric scholarship. Eurocentric scholars want “to see” the invisible in the visible or “essential in the appearing.”
A Eurocentric researcher believes, or is mystified in believing, in the inferiority of Asian religions. The readers are recommended to read W.L. McGregor (1848); H.H. Wilson (1848); E. Trumpp 1877; R.S. Ellwood 1987; Hopfe 1987; Ward J. Fellows 1979; Geoffrey Parrinder 1965; K.W. Morgan 1953; D.G. Bradley 1963; J.B. Noss 1984; and writings of McLeod, J.S. Grewal, S.S. Hans, Gurinder Mann, Pashaura Singh, and H. Oberoi for understanding the “Culture of the Fitters” of Sikh Religion.
It is a known fact that Darwin’s origin of the species (1859) gave freedom to the imperialists, colonizers, and fitters to create the culture of the Fitters. Using their linear and colonized mind, these Eurocentric historians are trying to fit Sikh religion to the “Social Science, European, no-nonsense paradigm.” They also operate on the assumption that the researcher is separate from the object of study, and in fact seeks to gain as much distance as possible from the object of the study.
KHALSACENTRISM AND SIKH RESEARCH
Khalsacentric research believes in essence, wholism, intro-spection and retrospection. It rejects the hypothetical -statistical -interventionist model of research and the use of European social science methods. A Khalsacentric researcher does not approach the subject of study with a prestored paradigm in her/his psyche.
Through retrospection, a Khalsacentric researcher questions to ascertain if the interpretations of his findings are causing psychic or spiritual discomfort to the people who belong to the culture under study.
Khalsacentric researcher looks for the wholistic reality rather than a detached reality. He looks for the essence of the culture rooted in a particularistic view of reality. False propositions of one culture are not applied to study other cultures to produce distorted and hurtful knowledge.
Khalsacentric researcher seeks total immersion in the culture before rushing to study it. A researcher cannot stay separate from the object of the study. The distance distorts the view. A Khalsacentric researcher “cleanses the doors of his/her perception, through introspection of any pre-existing paradigms.”
Khalsacentric researcher uses retrospection to see if the interpretation is not intentionally made convergent to provide a “good fit to the existing paradigms of knowledge.”
Khalsacentric researcher does not use “Freedom of Expression as a Crutch.” His personality is very important and his knowledge of ethno-methodology of research is very crucial for the research outcome.
It must be pointed out that a Khalsacentric scholar assumes the right and responsibility of describing Sikh realities from a subjective faith point of view of the Khalsa values and ideals. He centers himself and the Sikh community in his research activity.
Khalsacentric researcher recognizes the pivotal role of history, especially the history of Sikhs vs Muslims, Hindus and Christians, and uses ideological, humanistic and emancipatory anti-racist aware-ness to formulate his hypotheses. Colonial, Calvinistic, elitistic; and arrogantly elect behaviour is not accepted in Khalsacentrism. Part of the mandate of Khalsacentric research is to screen out oppressive assumptions.
Khalsacentric researcher stresses the importance of centring Sikh ideals, codes, and symbols in Punjab as a place and the struggle that was put up to oppose the oppressive assumptions.
Khalsacentric researcher self-consciously obliterates the subject/object duality and enthrones Khalsa wholism in his research.
The perceptive which a Khalsacentric researcher brings to the research exercise, depends upon his experiences, both within and outside the Sikh culture. When centring Khalsa values, the researcher must centre his own ideals. It is, therefore, important that Khal-sacentric scholars declare who they are and what has motivated them to study Sikhism (If Sikhs had known what McLeod was going to write in his recent articles in The Sikh Review, January and April 1994, stating his own contradictions about Christianity and his repression –projection of those contradictions to Sikhism, their reaction to his indulging in Sikh research since 1968, would have been different). Same argument could be applied to the recent research produced by Oberoi, Gurinder Mann, and Pashaura Singh. While McLeod was running away from Christianity, using the missionary money of New Zealand; Oberoi, Pashaura, and Gurinder Mann were busy selling the Sikh soul for landing a University position.
Even though Sikhism has become a living, assertive way of life, a Khalsacentric researcher can extract the following specific Sikh values and apply them to “discover himself.” These values are easily traceable in the Sikh scripture and ethos.
1. Khalsacentrism is an assertive way of life which rejects the dichotomy between spiritual and empirical life of a person. It has successfully challenged the initial structure of existing religions through “structured inversion and negation of the negation.
2. In Khalsacentric living, Sikhs reject the unreality of life, withdrawal from life, indulgence in asceticism or sanyasa, var-nas or caste, pollution, ritualism and avtarhood.
3. All ten Sikh Gurus developed a life-affirming system and asked Sikhs to model life as a game of love, and truthful and assertive living.
4. Khalsacentrism believes in universal consciousness and deep mystical saintliness. Sikhs’ concept of God is “the sole One, self-existent, creator-person, without fear: without enmity, timeless, unincarnated, self- created, gracIous, enlightener benevolent, ocean of virtues and ineffable.” The Sikhs are urged to internalize these attributes by repeating them in their prayers.
5. In Khalsacentric living, a householder’s life is a must. Khalsa has no use for recluses, ascetics and other- worldliness.
6. Rejection of celibacy made the status of woman equal to man.
7. Khalsacentrism believes in the importance of work and production. Work should not be divided through castes. A Sikh breaks free of the convoluted cycle of higher vs lower castes.
8. Khalsacentrism recommends work and sharing of incomes. Sikhism, like socialism, deprecates the amassing of wealth. In Sikhism a wealthy man has a social responsibility of sharing.
9. Khalsacentrism fully accepts the concept of social responsibility. An oppressor who dehumanizes and hinders the honest and righteous discharge of a householder’s life, has to be tackled. A Khalsa becomes the protector or rakha, whether they are Brahmins from Kashmir or the powerless women being takento Ghazni for slave trade.
10. A Khalsa undergoes constantly what psychqlogists call positive disintegration and cognitive dissonance, because of his truthful living and believing in the principles of adde so jhadde. His reality is formed through his internalizing of the remarkably powerful Sikh Ardas and gurbani. He becomes a gurmukh by killing his ego, and then is expected to re-enter the fannah phase of his life to fulfil his social responsibilities. Guru Arjun Dev, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh and his children, and many of his followers up to the present time, have followed this path of social responsibility, producing a compulsion of re-entry into the oppressed world and enjoying martyrdom.
11. In Khalsacentrism, the oppressive status quo has to be challenged. Sikhism teaches politeness to friends and defiance to oppressors.
12. Through social participation and resistance against wrong doings a Khalsa becomes “the instrument of His Attributive Will, and wants to bring Haleemi-Raj or Kingdom of God on Earth for everybody. He wants Sarbat da Bhala.
13. By repeating and internalizing Naam, the Khalsa stops seeing lines of duality in his reality. He becomes cosmocentric, and the pain of the universe becomes his own pain. Haumen (Egoism), the neurosis of the soul, dies through this awakening.
14. In Khalsacentrism, remembering Karta Purakh in the company of Sadh Sangat is the means to evolve. A Khalsa develops a sense of cosmocentric awareness and power of “discrimination.” Naam repetition is a psychological method of removing ‘I-am-- ness,’ the greatest malady of human beings. It also awakens in “Khalsa,” His Will through love, contentment, truth, humanity, other-orientedness, and unconditional positive regard for the oppressed. Naam removes lust, anger, greed, attachment, and vanity. The Khalsa emerges to defend the claims of conscious-ness against oppression. The Khalsa becomes the vanguard of righteousness by defining himself in the image of the Guru.
1 .Idalsacentrism believes in egalitarian society and joins the cosmocentric universal culture, where only “the pure will be allowed to rule.”
16.Through Khalsa, Guru Gobind Singh took Sikhism to the Phoenix Principle” of the Khalsacentric life- affirming system, and brought revolutionary liberation.
The Khalsacentric researcher rejects subject/object separation, encourages collectivism rather than individualism, grounds him- self in complementarily, leaves false consciousness of Eurocentric thinking, looks at struggles as a way of transferring human conscious-ness, makes research centred in its base community (Punjab), and gets grounded in Punjab experience of 500 years, and familiarizes himself in the language, philosophy and myths of the Sikhs through cultural Immersion.
The Khalsacentric researcher must examine himself or herself in the process of examining any subject. The introspection and retrospection are an integral part of Khalsacentric research. Introspection means that the researcher questions herself or himself in regard to the subject under study. In retrospection the researcher questions himself or herself after the project is completed to ascertain if any personal biases have entered, or are hindering the fair interpretation of the results. He attempts to know how the community being studied will feel about his research findings.
The first question that a Khalsacentric researcher asks is “who am I?” In defining himself he defines his place and the perspective he brings to the research exercise. The data collected must include the personal knowledge of the subjective faith of the researcher, his per-sonality, functioning, experiences, motivation (repression, projection, spiritual, mystical) in order to provide some source of validation for the result of his inquiry.
FINAL WORD
The purpose of this article was to show that the theme of Eurocentrism runs through the writings of McLeod, Pashaura Singh, and Oberoi. It is very clear that they got their “research inspirations” from E. Trumpp, who came to India in 1869 to write a book about Sikhs for the benefit of the colonizers. I feel that E. Trumpp colonial mentality and “accidental” reality were picked up consciously or unconsciously by these historians in a hurry - rapidly trained in social science methodology with European traditions. “The other kind of seeing” of Khalsacentric research where the place, time, the nature of the community being studied, the role and the role models played, does not fit into their egocentric - repression - projection paradigms.
When some of these scholars write about Sikh Gurus as “political personalities,” they open windows for others to see the pathology they are suffering from. The mystification of producing and “impressing” people with their writings without introspection and retrospection, has caused the Sikh community a great deal of hurt and stress. Their zeal to bring “sociological respectability” to Sikhism has made them arrogant and dehumanizing.
If they could have read the reactions of First Nations of North America, Women and Blacks about the Eurocentric research done on them by the “well meaning researchers of the 60’s,” they would not have gone the direction they have taken. The cover of academic freedom will not shelter them for a long time. Their instrumental, non-believing personalities that take sadist pleasure in trampling over the subjective faith of a troubled minority, have to be challenged and exposed. May Sat Guru forgive them for the hurt they are causing. Perhaps “they do not know what they are doing,” because of the acute academic neurosis which has made them linear, non-intuitive, convergent, and myopically pathological.
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