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Authenticity of Kartarpuri Bir - Global Sikh Studies

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111<br />

The situation is similar in Africa except that there the<br />

contradiction has been sharpened largely by the racial factor.<br />

So long as the ruling class was Christian and the suffering<br />

majority in colonies were non-Christian, the Church flourished<br />

without any qualms <strong>of</strong> conscience. But, when the oppressors<br />

aild the oppressed are both Christians the Church could no<br />

longer maintain its complacent neutrality, the contradiction<br />

being too glaring to be ignored. Hence the rise <strong>of</strong> Liberation<br />

Theology in those countries. What this section <strong>of</strong> the Church<br />

has rationally realised in the 20th century, the <strong>Sikh</strong> Gurus<br />

preached and practised 500 years earlier. All we wish to<br />

emphasise is that a religious system where God is Love must<br />

enter every field <strong>of</strong> life where men are oppressed and relieve<br />

their sufferings by all available tools given to man, including<br />

the judicious use <strong>of</strong> force. Otherwise the experience <strong>of</strong> God<br />

is Love, and religion become meaningless and look hypocritical<br />

to the downtrodden and the suffering. Who can assert today<br />

that the divorce <strong>of</strong> religion from politics or the secularisation’<br />

<strong>of</strong> life has been a blessing? “After having been undeservedly<br />

idolized for a quarter <strong>of</strong> a millennium as the good genius <strong>of</strong><br />

mankind be has now suddenly found himself undeservedly<br />

excreated as an evil genius who has released from his bottle a<br />

jinn that may perhaps destroy human life on earth. This arbitrary<br />

change in the technician’s onward fortunes is a several ordeal,<br />

but his loss <strong>of</strong> popularity has not hit him so hard as his loss <strong>of</strong><br />

confidence in himself. Till 1945 he believed without a doubt<br />

that the results <strong>of</strong> his work were wholly benificial. Since 1945<br />

he has begun to wonder whether his pr<strong>of</strong>essional success may<br />

not have been a social and a moral disaster.” 66 According to<br />

the <strong>Sikh</strong> world view the separation <strong>of</strong> religion from politics<br />

has been an unmixed evil involving a schism in the soul <strong>of</strong><br />

man and his alienation from Reality. For it means the loss <strong>of</strong><br />

the only condition in which man can feel at peace with himself<br />

and the world around him. We cannot indeed, be in

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