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The Sikh Rehat Marayada - How Did It Come About, And Is It's Role Today Relevant?
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<blockquote data-quote="JourneyOflife" data-source="post: 201198" data-attributes="member: 20695"><p>Thank you <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> I’d like to add a few more things to this discussion which I feel are important:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think in cases like this, we only have ourselves to blame. There’s nothing the Rehat could’ve said which would have eliminated them altogether.</p><p></p><p>There’s nothing particularly wonderful about the deras and fake babas/sants. It doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out that they are going against Sikhi- not just the SRM, but the SGGS ji too. I don’t think they have anything amazing to offer their followers either. And with the rise in news stories about pakhandi babas in Punjab, you’d think the majority of the population would steer clear of them at all costs. So why isn’t this the case?</p><p></p><p>The answer is actually casteism. The reason these deras are able to attract followers isn’t because their philosophy/teachings are amazing. There’s nothing any of them can offer (for a fee, of course) that Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji doesn’t already give out to the entire world for free. But the reason business is booming for them is because Sikhs are still paralyzed by the poison of caste.</p><p></p><p>At one point in our history, low-castes would literally FLOCK to Sikhi en masse to escape the discrimination they faced due to caste in their old religions, whether Hinduism or Islam. A lot of people don’t know this, but Jats were originally a low-caste in Punjab. They are a low-caste according to the Hindu Varna. Which always makes me laugh now that they run around shouting about ‘Jat Pride’ and ‘balle balle I’m a Jat Bruuuuah’ when for most of their history, they were looked down upon by the Hindu Brahmans, who considered them to be inferior.</p><p></p><p>The reason Jats have power in Punjab today is because in the 18th century, they were the main people who converted into Sikhi. As a result, the Sikh Misls (independent units of the larger unified confederacy) of that time were dominated by Jats. Sikh military power soon became Jat military power. The Guru’s Sikhi empowered the low-caste Jats to go from being spat upon by the Brahmans to the rulers of all of Punjab and beyond. That’s why today, caste in Punjab is somewhat different to caste under the Hindu Varna. Whereas Jats were originally low-castes in the Hindu system, they are high-caste’ in the Punjabi system, due to past military success, empowered by Sikhi.</p><p></p><p>There have been a few exceptions, though. The most prominent one is the example of the Nihangs, who unlike other groups, have not historically been dominated by Jats and Khatris, but by what are today called in Punjab “chooras”. People began to call them ‘Mazhabi’ out of respect after they converted to Sikhi, since “choora” is considered derogatory.</p><p></p><p>I feel they’re a great example to bring up because it really highlights the differences between Sikhi then vs Sikhi now. Mazhabis were really as low as you could get as far as caste-distinctions went. But they became the fiercest warriors in the entire Sikh Khalsa. People started calling them ‘Nihangs’- Persian for ‘Crocodile’- due to their ferocious fighting style. The British were afraid of them and called them ‘fanatics’, and slowly tried to dissolve their traditions. They were so powerful that even Maharaja Ranjit Singh had to obey them. One of the greatest Sikh warriors in history- Akali Phula Singh – was the leader of the Nihangs during Ranjit Singh’s Empire. They were the ‘suicide squads’ of the Sikh army, because they always fought to the death and refused to run away. They were ruthless, and despite coming from the lowest-castes in the land (they were mostly chooras/Mazhabis and Dalits), commanded respect wherever they went.</p><p></p><p>Such a shame that today, they are actually some of the most discriminated against groups in all of Punjab. Sikhi today is controlled mainly by Jats who look down on the low-castes who make up groups like the Nihangs.</p><p></p><p>This is probably one of the main reasons that deras have been on the rise in Punjab recently. In previous times, even though mainstream Sikhi (like the misls) may have been controlled by the Jats, there were always safe havens for the low-castes, like the Nihang groups, to join. It’s almost like there’s a vacuum within Sikhi now. Now that the Nihangs are pretty much irrelevant in Punjab and Sikhi, there’s no place for lower castes to turn to in order to escape the discrimination they face by Jats and Khatris in other parts of Sikhi.</p><p></p><p>And that, unfortunately, is why so many of them go running to deras and pakhandi babas- to escape caste discrimination. We only have ourselves to blame for the rise of deras and fake sants. Until Sikhs get their act together and realize that both the SGGS ji and the SRM are anti-caste, and until the discrimination of people from low-caste backgrounds continues in Punjab, these deras are only going to get bigger and more powerful.</p><p></p><p>Without groups like the Nihangs, the lower castes just don’t have anywhere to go except the deras to escape the discrimination. And what a massive shame too, when throughout our history, Sikhi AS A WHOLE was where Hindus and Muslims would run to in order to escape the discrimination they faced in their old faiths.</p><p></p><p>The Rehat cannot do anything about this. This problem will never go away until Sikhs begin to throw caste pride into the rubbish bin, which is where it belongs.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Historically, this has not been the case. The Rehats were actually never intended to define, clear-cut, who is a ‘Sikh’ and who wasn’t a Sikh. The reason for this is because there was always a distinction between being a Sikh of the Guru, and being a member of the Guru’s Khalsa. The easiest way I can explain it is like this: not every Sikh is a Khalsa, but every Khalsa is a Sikh. The Rehats were used to distinguish between ‘regular Sikhs’ (Sahajdhari) and ‘Khalsa Sikhs’ (Amritdhari), not between Sikhs and non-Sikhs.</p><p></p><p>The reason for this is because ‘Sikh’ has always been a very open and lax term. Throughout our history, we also have had people who identified both as ‘Sikh’ and ‘Muslim’ at the same time, and people who identified as both ‘Sikh’ and ‘Hindu’ at the same time. This is reflected in the history and even in some Shabads within SGGS ji itself. As long as you considered the Guru to be your spiritual teacher you were a Sikh, but to take the Guru as your eternal spiritual guide didn’t necessarily restrict you from partaking in the traditions and life-events of other religious communities.</p><p></p><p>After 10 generations, Guru Gobind Singh ji’s Khalsa became the entity within Sikhi which was COMPLETELY, 100% dedicated to Sikhi, and nothing else. To be a Khalsa means you give up identification with your past faiths and follow the Sikh spiritual path to the fullest. Unlike ‘Sikh’ which is a relatively loose term,‘Khalsa’ is much more defined, and because to be a Khalsa is to break free of your ties to your old faith, the Rehats were used as a code of conduct for every Khalsa to follow in order to create that distinction. So for the Khalsa members the practices in the Rehat must be followed in order to uphold that distinction and sense of uniqueness</p><p></p><p>I think this would be a really interesting point of discussion. There’s already a great post I know of which captures my thoughts on this perfectly and explains it in good detail. I could copy-and-paste it here if you guys like and we could continue a discussion on this (it isn't that long). I think it is near impossible to understand why the practices in the Rehat are so important without understanding the difference between ‘Sikh’ (Sahajdhari) and ‘Khalsa’ (Amritdhari).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, I understand completely what you mean. I’ll happily admit that up until a few months ago, I was about as anti-SRM as you could get. I actually hated it, and thought it had damaged Sikhi beyong repair.</p><p></p><p>The reason? Because I always heard people saying stuff to me like “just follow the Rehat and its all good”, or when a new-comer to Sikhi had questions to ask, people would just tell him/her to read the SRM.</p><p></p><p>I felt this was ridiculous, that people were trying to replace SGGS ji with the SRM. When a person comes to Sikhi, why tell them to look at the SRM, when they should be forming a relation with the Guru- Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji? Why were people telling each other to “just follow the Rehat” when Sikhi is about the priceless wisdom in Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji?</p><p></p><p>It wasn’t until I actually began to study the history that my opinion completely changed. There’s nothing wrong with the SRM, the problem is actually those people who try to turn it into a spiritual document when its not. The SRM was never intended to be a spiritual document; it was always supposed to be political. It wasn’t the Rehat’s fault people had began to turn it into a replacement to the SGGS ji. Nowhere does the Rehat say that it is a supposed to be a substitute for SGGS ji, and studying the history, it becomes very clear that was never the intention of the Singh Sabha movement either.</p><p></p><p>So no worries mate, you don’t have to explain anything. I completely understand what you mean about “cheap Chinese made Kirpans” and “enormous underpants” lol, one of the biggest shames in the Panth today is that even though Guru Gobind Singh ji had given his Khalsa the 5 K’s in order to distinguish them from the rest of the world, to act as a uniform to remind the wearer their commitment to Sikhi, today we have a lot of people (but definitely not all) who view the 5 K’s as these holy items which make you better than everybody else, and that just by wearing them you are being a ‘good Sikh’.</p><p></p><p>I feel it is reasons like this we must be even more committed in promoting our history. The answers to questions like “why do we even need the SRM?”, “why did Guru Gobind Singh ji create the Khalsa?” and “why do the Khalsa wear the 5 K’s when the SGGS criticizes the Pundit’s sacred thread” all become clear when we examine the actual history surrounding the cementing of the Sikh identity from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh ji, the relationship between ‘regular Sikhs’ and ‘Khalsa Sikhs’, the use of Rehats in early Khalsa history and the circumstances surrounding the drafting of the modern SRM in the 20th century.</p><p></p><p>But if we ignore our history, it becomes that much easier for people to come in and spread misinformation and propaganda (e.g. “Sikhs are Hindus”) among the Sikh masses. The BJP member was able to become leader of Takht Hazur Sahib beause the Sangat has forgotten Guru Gobind Singh ji’s Hukam for ONLY the Khalsa to control Sikh institutions. They have forgotten why the SRM says the same thing, and that all those rules and regulations it contains aren’t to spoil their fun or restrict them from practicing Sikhi in their own unique way, but to act as check-points and safety nets to make sure anti-Sikh entities can’t just take Amrit and lay claim to power within the Panth. Those rules exist so that if people try to spread Hindu ritualism, propaganda and dogma onto the Sangat, they will have effectively broken the Rehat, and will be liable for punishment. But without the Rehat to hold people to account, we have no way of regulating what goes on in our Gurdwaras or what is taught to our Sangats. There needs to be a standard our leaders must adhere to, and that standard is outlined in the Rehat. Without it, we are digging our own grave, opening the door for Hindutva forces to come in and take control of our organizations, just like we were controlled by Brahmanical/Sanatan powers in the past, pre-Singh Sabha.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Lol don't thank me, you just asked all the right questions in the perfect order, once I started typing I couldn't stop <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick Out Tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Np, I'm glad you liked it. I look forward to having a further discussion with you guys on any points that you find interesting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JourneyOflife, post: 201198, member: 20695"] Thank you ;) I’d like to add a few more things to this discussion which I feel are important: I think in cases like this, we only have ourselves to blame. There’s nothing the Rehat could’ve said which would have eliminated them altogether. There’s nothing particularly wonderful about the deras and fake babas/sants. It doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out that they are going against Sikhi- not just the SRM, but the SGGS ji too. I don’t think they have anything amazing to offer their followers either. And with the rise in news stories about pakhandi babas in Punjab, you’d think the majority of the population would steer clear of them at all costs. So why isn’t this the case? The answer is actually casteism. The reason these deras are able to attract followers isn’t because their philosophy/teachings are amazing. There’s nothing any of them can offer (for a fee, of course) that Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji doesn’t already give out to the entire world for free. But the reason business is booming for them is because Sikhs are still paralyzed by the poison of caste. At one point in our history, low-castes would literally FLOCK to Sikhi en masse to escape the discrimination they faced due to caste in their old religions, whether Hinduism or Islam. A lot of people don’t know this, but Jats were originally a low-caste in Punjab. They are a low-caste according to the Hindu Varna. Which always makes me laugh now that they run around shouting about ‘Jat Pride’ and ‘balle balle I’m a Jat Bruuuuah’ when for most of their history, they were looked down upon by the Hindu Brahmans, who considered them to be inferior. The reason Jats have power in Punjab today is because in the 18th century, they were the main people who converted into Sikhi. As a result, the Sikh Misls (independent units of the larger unified confederacy) of that time were dominated by Jats. Sikh military power soon became Jat military power. The Guru’s Sikhi empowered the low-caste Jats to go from being spat upon by the Brahmans to the rulers of all of Punjab and beyond. That’s why today, caste in Punjab is somewhat different to caste under the Hindu Varna. Whereas Jats were originally low-castes in the Hindu system, they are high-caste’ in the Punjabi system, due to past military success, empowered by Sikhi. There have been a few exceptions, though. The most prominent one is the example of the Nihangs, who unlike other groups, have not historically been dominated by Jats and Khatris, but by what are today called in Punjab “chooras”. People began to call them ‘Mazhabi’ out of respect after they converted to Sikhi, since “choora” is considered derogatory. I feel they’re a great example to bring up because it really highlights the differences between Sikhi then vs Sikhi now. Mazhabis were really as low as you could get as far as caste-distinctions went. But they became the fiercest warriors in the entire Sikh Khalsa. People started calling them ‘Nihangs’- Persian for ‘Crocodile’- due to their ferocious fighting style. The British were afraid of them and called them ‘fanatics’, and slowly tried to dissolve their traditions. They were so powerful that even Maharaja Ranjit Singh had to obey them. One of the greatest Sikh warriors in history- Akali Phula Singh – was the leader of the Nihangs during Ranjit Singh’s Empire. They were the ‘suicide squads’ of the Sikh army, because they always fought to the death and refused to run away. They were ruthless, and despite coming from the lowest-castes in the land (they were mostly chooras/Mazhabis and Dalits), commanded respect wherever they went. Such a shame that today, they are actually some of the most discriminated against groups in all of Punjab. Sikhi today is controlled mainly by Jats who look down on the low-castes who make up groups like the Nihangs. This is probably one of the main reasons that deras have been on the rise in Punjab recently. In previous times, even though mainstream Sikhi (like the misls) may have been controlled by the Jats, there were always safe havens for the low-castes, like the Nihang groups, to join. It’s almost like there’s a vacuum within Sikhi now. Now that the Nihangs are pretty much irrelevant in Punjab and Sikhi, there’s no place for lower castes to turn to in order to escape the discrimination they face by Jats and Khatris in other parts of Sikhi. And that, unfortunately, is why so many of them go running to deras and pakhandi babas- to escape caste discrimination. We only have ourselves to blame for the rise of deras and fake sants. Until Sikhs get their act together and realize that both the SGGS ji and the SRM are anti-caste, and until the discrimination of people from low-caste backgrounds continues in Punjab, these deras are only going to get bigger and more powerful. Without groups like the Nihangs, the lower castes just don’t have anywhere to go except the deras to escape the discrimination. And what a massive shame too, when throughout our history, Sikhi AS A WHOLE was where Hindus and Muslims would run to in order to escape the discrimination they faced in their old faiths. The Rehat cannot do anything about this. This problem will never go away until Sikhs begin to throw caste pride into the rubbish bin, which is where it belongs. Historically, this has not been the case. The Rehats were actually never intended to define, clear-cut, who is a ‘Sikh’ and who wasn’t a Sikh. The reason for this is because there was always a distinction between being a Sikh of the Guru, and being a member of the Guru’s Khalsa. The easiest way I can explain it is like this: not every Sikh is a Khalsa, but every Khalsa is a Sikh. The Rehats were used to distinguish between ‘regular Sikhs’ (Sahajdhari) and ‘Khalsa Sikhs’ (Amritdhari), not between Sikhs and non-Sikhs. The reason for this is because ‘Sikh’ has always been a very open and lax term. Throughout our history, we also have had people who identified both as ‘Sikh’ and ‘Muslim’ at the same time, and people who identified as both ‘Sikh’ and ‘Hindu’ at the same time. This is reflected in the history and even in some Shabads within SGGS ji itself. As long as you considered the Guru to be your spiritual teacher you were a Sikh, but to take the Guru as your eternal spiritual guide didn’t necessarily restrict you from partaking in the traditions and life-events of other religious communities. After 10 generations, Guru Gobind Singh ji’s Khalsa became the entity within Sikhi which was COMPLETELY, 100% dedicated to Sikhi, and nothing else. To be a Khalsa means you give up identification with your past faiths and follow the Sikh spiritual path to the fullest. Unlike ‘Sikh’ which is a relatively loose term,‘Khalsa’ is much more defined, and because to be a Khalsa is to break free of your ties to your old faith, the Rehats were used as a code of conduct for every Khalsa to follow in order to create that distinction. So for the Khalsa members the practices in the Rehat must be followed in order to uphold that distinction and sense of uniqueness I think this would be a really interesting point of discussion. There’s already a great post I know of which captures my thoughts on this perfectly and explains it in good detail. I could copy-and-paste it here if you guys like and we could continue a discussion on this (it isn't that long). I think it is near impossible to understand why the practices in the Rehat are so important without understanding the difference between ‘Sikh’ (Sahajdhari) and ‘Khalsa’ (Amritdhari). Yes, I understand completely what you mean. I’ll happily admit that up until a few months ago, I was about as anti-SRM as you could get. I actually hated it, and thought it had damaged Sikhi beyong repair. The reason? Because I always heard people saying stuff to me like “just follow the Rehat and its all good”, or when a new-comer to Sikhi had questions to ask, people would just tell him/her to read the SRM. I felt this was ridiculous, that people were trying to replace SGGS ji with the SRM. When a person comes to Sikhi, why tell them to look at the SRM, when they should be forming a relation with the Guru- Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji? Why were people telling each other to “just follow the Rehat” when Sikhi is about the priceless wisdom in Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji? It wasn’t until I actually began to study the history that my opinion completely changed. There’s nothing wrong with the SRM, the problem is actually those people who try to turn it into a spiritual document when its not. The SRM was never intended to be a spiritual document; it was always supposed to be political. It wasn’t the Rehat’s fault people had began to turn it into a replacement to the SGGS ji. Nowhere does the Rehat say that it is a supposed to be a substitute for SGGS ji, and studying the history, it becomes very clear that was never the intention of the Singh Sabha movement either. So no worries mate, you don’t have to explain anything. I completely understand what you mean about “cheap Chinese made Kirpans” and “enormous underpants” lol, one of the biggest shames in the Panth today is that even though Guru Gobind Singh ji had given his Khalsa the 5 K’s in order to distinguish them from the rest of the world, to act as a uniform to remind the wearer their commitment to Sikhi, today we have a lot of people (but definitely not all) who view the 5 K’s as these holy items which make you better than everybody else, and that just by wearing them you are being a ‘good Sikh’. I feel it is reasons like this we must be even more committed in promoting our history. The answers to questions like “why do we even need the SRM?”, “why did Guru Gobind Singh ji create the Khalsa?” and “why do the Khalsa wear the 5 K’s when the SGGS criticizes the Pundit’s sacred thread” all become clear when we examine the actual history surrounding the cementing of the Sikh identity from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh ji, the relationship between ‘regular Sikhs’ and ‘Khalsa Sikhs’, the use of Rehats in early Khalsa history and the circumstances surrounding the drafting of the modern SRM in the 20th century. But if we ignore our history, it becomes that much easier for people to come in and spread misinformation and propaganda (e.g. “Sikhs are Hindus”) among the Sikh masses. The BJP member was able to become leader of Takht Hazur Sahib beause the Sangat has forgotten Guru Gobind Singh ji’s Hukam for ONLY the Khalsa to control Sikh institutions. They have forgotten why the SRM says the same thing, and that all those rules and regulations it contains aren’t to spoil their fun or restrict them from practicing Sikhi in their own unique way, but to act as check-points and safety nets to make sure anti-Sikh entities can’t just take Amrit and lay claim to power within the Panth. Those rules exist so that if people try to spread Hindu ritualism, propaganda and dogma onto the Sangat, they will have effectively broken the Rehat, and will be liable for punishment. But without the Rehat to hold people to account, we have no way of regulating what goes on in our Gurdwaras or what is taught to our Sangats. There needs to be a standard our leaders must adhere to, and that standard is outlined in the Rehat. Without it, we are digging our own grave, opening the door for Hindutva forces to come in and take control of our organizations, just like we were controlled by Brahmanical/Sanatan powers in the past, pre-Singh Sabha. Lol don't thank me, you just asked all the right questions in the perfect order, once I started typing I couldn't stop :p Np, I'm glad you liked it. I look forward to having a further discussion with you guys on any points that you find interesting. [/QUOTE]
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The Sikh Rehat Marayada - How Did It Come About, And Is It's Role Today Relevant?
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