Selected Editorials - The Sikh Bulletin
Selected Editorials - The Sikh Bulletin
Selected Editorials - The Sikh Bulletin
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SIKHS ARE A NATION<br />
Whole World Is Our Stage<br />
[From <strong>The</strong> <strong>Sikh</strong> <strong>Bulletin</strong> April 2002]<br />
God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham was willing. But at the critical moment God<br />
spared the child and accepted the sacrifice of a lamb instead. Not for us these myths. Our history is real.<br />
Two of our Gurus and four Sahibzadas really gave their lives. Thus has the Panth of our Gurus been<br />
nurtured. It is eternal. It is upto us to keep it in ‘charhdikala’. But first we have to bury our differences<br />
and selfishness. So long as we are divided we will have no friends. Once we are united we will have no<br />
enemies. So long as we put self and ‘bhaichara’ ahead of Panthic interst everybody suffers. In Panthic<br />
‘bhala’ is ‘sarbat da bhala’.<br />
As we celebrate 533 rd anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak this Vaisakhi day let us resolve to forge a<br />
<strong>Sikh</strong> Nation without geographical boundaries. <strong>The</strong> following article had appeared in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Sikh</strong> <strong>Bulletin</strong><br />
Vol. 1 No. 1. Thirty issues later it is time to update it and solicit readers’ input.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines nation as:<br />
1. A body of people associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek<br />
or to possess a government peculiarly its own.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> territory or country itself.<br />
3. A member tribe of an Indian Confederation (Canada and USA).<br />
4. An aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate<br />
languages.<br />
All of the above support the <strong>Sikh</strong>s' claim to be considered a nation. In addition we have many other<br />
attributes of a nation that even many member nations of the United Nations do not possess:<br />
1. <strong>Sikh</strong> kingdom during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.<br />
2. Independent <strong>Sikh</strong> states, not part of British India, until they were absorbed into India after partition in<br />
1947.<br />
3. Our own territory, Punjab, severely truncated even though it is.<br />
4. Our own religion, very different from other religions in India,<br />
with its own body of Scriptures.<br />
5. Our own language complete with a script designed<br />
for and used only by the <strong>Sikh</strong>s.<br />
6. Our own marriage ceremony, different from any<br />
other.<br />
7. Our own flag.<br />
8. Our own calendar - Nanakshahi - adopted by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in 1998.<br />
9. Our own Red Cross, ‘ <strong>Sikh</strong> Sewa Dal’<br />
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