Jan-March 2006 - Institute of Sikh Studies

RAJ KAREGA KHALSA ?55religion and Sikh life. The daily recitation of Raj Karega Khalsa ringshollow in the absence of any systematic, institutional and organizationalefforts at Sikh empowerment.How should the Sikhs bring about a complete rejuvenation andrenaissance of individual Sikh psyche as well as a social and religiousreformation and empowerment of the Sikhs in the real sense. Presidingover the concluding session of the International Sikh Conclave, DrSukhmandar Singh, Professor of civil engineering at Berkeley, SantaClara Campus, USA and a visiting professor at Cambridge UniveristyUK, suggested the emulation of a Jewish paradigm for the revival andempowerment of the Sikhs as a Corporate Community. The Jews, likethe Sikhs, have been hounded out, persecuted and almost led to anedge of total extermination by the forces inimical to their religion anddriven out of Europe through centuries of repression and tyranny.They, like the Sikhs, have passed through all the phases of persecution,organised state repression and violence of Hitler’s concentration campsand gas chambers, genocide, destruction of their homes and hearthsand migration to America and a tiny-land-locked desert patch of land ofinsecure homeland of Israel, surrounded by a host of hostile Arab countries.But instead of falling into the pit of pathetic helplessness against theirimpending extinction, the intellectual and the religious among themassembled together for a brainstorming stock-taking of their plight andfor finding out a strategy to rejuvenate and empower their brutally batteredcommunity to make their presence known in the new world. The onetool, that they all agreed upon for Jewish empowerment, was the tool ofeducation. For this, they decided to create a Jewish Education Fund (JEF)for educating each Jewish child and lend special financial assistance tothose who were meritorious and brilliant among the younger Jewishgeneration. The fund was created and the programme for Jewishempowerment through education started in right earnest.The results are there for all of us to see. The Jews, not onlycontrol the biggest economy and all other wings of the Americansociety but have won the highest number of Nobel prizes in severaldisciplines announced so far. They have, through their command overeducation, science and technology, made the parched desert land ofIsrael into fine economically sustainable dairy forms and agriculturalforms called ‘Kibutz’. They have created the resources and technologyto live with dignity despite a massive Arab hostility.