Country Advice India India – IND36088 – Dera Sacha Sauda – Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh – Sikhs – Shiromani Akali Dal – Sikh–DSS clashes – Amritsar – Police – State protection 15 February 2010 1 [Deleted.] 2 Please provide information about Khalsa College. Is it known for political activity? Are the Shiromani Akali Dal active at the College? Khalsa College is a tertiary education institution based in Amritsar, offering a range of bachelor degree and masters programs. The campus also houses a number of primary and secondary schools. The following information was sourced from the College‟s website: About College: Khalsa College, the premier-most institute of higher learning, was established by the leaders of the Singh Sabha Movement in 1892. They were inspired by the lofty ideals of the great Gurus. They planned it to be a growing institution which would strive forever to achieve high degree of excellence of mind and body for the welfare of the youth. The architectural grandeur of its buildings and layout of its campus clearly demonstrate the “will” of the founders. Mission: Established with a specific purpose to rejuvenate Sikh Culture and Language and open up new vistas of scientific and technological education, Khalsa College has justified the faith and trust of its founding fathers by synchronizing tradition with modernity. The mission of the institute is : To provide opportunities for educational, vocational, professional, social, linguistic and cultural development to the people of all abilities and backgrounds so that they can discover their potential and fulfill their aspirations. To promote morality and sobriety of life, to promulgate and to preach teachings of Ten Gurus as contained in Sri Guru Granth Sahib; to imbibe students of the Sikh faith with idealism and moral disciplines taught by the Gurus and fit them for a way of life that will bring credit to the community and the country; to develop the faculty of meditation and of religious education and to produce worthy citizens of India. To develop multidimensional personality of the student by providing an opportunity to participate in religious, cultural, co curricular, theatrical, literary and sports activities. To value originality and vision, encourage initiative and promote creativity. 1 To instil a sense of pride and achievement of personal accomplishment. To promote creativity and value originality.1 It is unclear if Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is active at the College; no information was found on student political activity at the College. However, student political agitation is common across India and it would not be abnormal for political parties to have student representation at tertiary institutions. The ruling SAD-Badal faction also has a student wing known as the Student‟s Organisation of India, which is active in Punjab.2 3 Please provide information about Dera Sachha Sauda. The Dera Sachha Sauda (DSS) sect was borne from Sikhism. Although Sikhism rejects the caste system in principle, over time Sikhism developed its own caste system, leading many of its original followers to form off-shoot sects that attempted to reinvigorate the fundamental tenets of the religion. Put by Alig and Anwar: Sikhism‟s promise to give equal rights to all, without discrimination of caste or creed, led many Hindus, particularly Dalits, to join the new faith as a way to better their lives. But shaking off caste discrimination proved not so easy, and as the years passed, Sikhism too reverted to caste hierarchies. As realisation of this dawned on followers, the need was increasingly felt to initiate reform within Sikhism. The emergence of various reform movements began, with each group choosing to base itself in a different centre or camp, known as a dera. 3 The DSS sect finds it origins in this history. Founded in 1948, the DSS defines itself as a spiritual movement with a strong social-work focus. DSS does not purport to represent Sikhism; however, the sect‟s reverence of a leader hailed as a guru has brought it into conflict with orthodox Sikhs. DSS is popular among the lower impoverished Dalit caste who, in Punjab, predominantly reside in the Mulwa belt – an important political constituency for SAD-Badal. Estimates of DSS membership numbers vary. Various articles quote the DSS claiming to have up to 30 million followers; however, The Economist’s estimate of 400 000 members is probably more realistic.4 The principal difference between DSS and Sikhism is DSS‟ reverence of a living master – Guru Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh. Put by Baixas and Simon – two authors for the South Asia Multidisciplinary Journal – „this living master is an aberration in itself to the Sikh orthodoxy since in Sikhism the Guru Granth Sahib is the only holder of the diving knowledge‟. Importantly, it was an event in May 2007 that led Sikhs to clash with DSS. Baixas and Simon provide a comprehensive and critical account of the conflict‟s origins: On 11th May 2007, the Dera Sacha Sauda, a sect whose headquarters are located in Sirsa district, Haryana, performed a ceremony called Jaam-e-Insa. This ceremony was held at its main branch in Punjab situated at Salabatpura village in Bathinda district, the heartland of the Malwa region. Two days later, on 13th May, several major English and 1 Khalsa College 2009, College Profile and Mission Statement, Khalsa College website http://www.khalsacollegeamritsar.org/index.htm – Accessed 12 February 2010 – Attachment 2 2 „Sukhbir for marshaling positive energy of youth to decimate Congress from electoral scene of Punjab‟ 2009, Punjab News – NRI News, 18 February http://www.nriinternet.com/INDIA/States/Punjab/2009/Feb/18.htm – Accessed 12 February 2010 – Attachment 3 3 Alig, A. & Anwar, A. 2007, „Embers of a Sikh fire‟, Himal South Asian, vol.20, no.10/11, October http://www.himalmag.com/read.php?id=2437 – Accessed 9 October 2007 – Attachment 4 4 „Heresy and History – India‟s Sikhs‟ 2007, The Economist, 5 July – Accessed 10 February 2010 – Attachment 5 2 Punjabi newspapers published pictures of the Baba performing the ceremony along with a short description of the rituals practiced there. Baba Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh, largely inspired by the way Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth Sikh Guru) created the Khalsa, asked seven of his followers to drink an elixir called Jaam and to renounce their caste name for the term insa (short for insaniyat or humanity). This initiation ceremony was a symbolic rebirth by which the disciple could enter a community where the caste hierarchy does not exist anymore. In the picture published by the press, Baba Gurmeet Singh was dressed in a pink (the colour of DSS) dress, which looked very similar to the one in which Guru Gobind Singh is usually depicted in the calendar art and shown distributing Jaam to followers. The DSS had been established in 1948. At the beginning it was a branch of the Dera Radhasoami (Beas), one of the most popular sects among several castes in Punjab, which spread a system of rituals and beliefs very close to Sikhism. Several sects similar to DSS are very active in Punjab. Babas, gurus, saints and deras have always occupied an important place in the religious landscape of Punjab. If the Sikh community is commonly perceived, despites all its internal controversies (McLeod 1989), as a religious congregation in itself, which share a common belief in a set of myths, rituals, symbols as well as in the Guru Granth Sahib, it has not always been the case. In its early days, the SikhPanth (literally the „Way‟ and symbolically designating the enlarged Sikh community) appeared as a multitude of distinct sects led by various gurus (Oberoi 1994: 139-207). Fluidity and plurality were thus inherent to Sikhism. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, a process of institutionalization, which implied both the construction of highly delimited boundaries between religious communities (Jones 1973: 457-475) and the homogenization of the Sikh identity, took place within Sikhism. Although the Singh Sabha movement successfully promoted the Tat Khalsa (pure khalsa) identity as the unique and ultimate Sikh identity, especially among the Jats (Oberoi 1994: 207-381), popular religion managed to survive and deras are still flourishing nowadays. The main difference between Sikhism and the ritualistic system of beliefs promoted by these deras lies in the faith of their followers in a living master. This living master is an aberration in itself to the Sikh orthodoxy since in Sikhism the Guru Granth Sahib is the only holder of the divine knowledge. Nevertheless, the presence of these deras is tolerated by the orthodox Sikhs as soon as they show respect to the Guru Granth Sahib and to the main symbols of Sikhism and before 2007 no clashes occurred between the DSS and the orthodox Sikhs. A day after the publication of the news, on 14th May, hundreds of Sikhs armed with kirpan (sword) took to the streets, hurling infuriated slogans against Baba GRRS. According to them by acting like Guru Gobind Singh, the Baba was identifying himself with the tenth Guru of Sikhism and, as such, was denigrating the superiority of the latter. The epicentre of this protest was the Malwa, especially Bathinda city, where the premis (literally „lovers‟, term used inside DSS to refer to its followers) are particularly numerous. Some demonstrations also took place, though to a lesser extent, in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and abroad among the Sikh Diaspora. At the time of these protests, journalists and scholars provided three distinct kinds of explanations. According to some observers, the use of 3 Sikh religious imagery by heterodox sects more or less distant from Sikhism is enough to stir up the Sikh community‟s primordial passions and have frequently propelled violent protests in the past (The Hindu 2007).