Anyone who has been to Vienna will tell you that it’s avery beautiful place with very friendly and law abiding people. Vienna or Wien, as explained to me by my husband, has an ethereal beauty about itself which boasts of a rich heritage and history. The city is home of several international agencies like UN and OPEC alongwith more than 2 million people from across the world. It’s a place where you go on your honeymoon or on a holiday.

But then, incidents like the one which happened recently wherein the gurudwara of Dera Sacha Akhand Ballan in Vienna was attacked makes you realize once again that this is a real world wherein everybody is not so peace loving. There are people who will kill and maim without giving a damn about innocents and their lives. To them their own reason, however stupid and lousy it might be, is good enough to commit such crimes. These idiots do not realize that this act of theirs reflects not only on their faith but on the entire Indian community. I’m sure from now onwards Austria and other European countries will be more strict in allowing Indians into their country, especially Sikhs. With one stupid act these guys may have delivered a body blow to the reputation of Indians as being peace loving people and who can be allowed to come in. It doesn’t really matter whether any European was killed or not. The very fact that such an incident happened in their country is good enough for them to become careful in letting people in. Like I said, they are very peace loving people where such things just don’t happen. And they will do their best so that such things don’t happen again because it damages their own reputation as being a peaceful country.

The attackers have indeed brought shame on entire Indian community

But this is not just about Vienna. This is also about the Sikh faith and it’s various manifestations which have led to this incident. It is a well known fact that this Dera along with many others have come up because of discrimination within the Sikh faith where Jat Sikhs enjoy the highest status. Because of this they were able to keep all the important positions within the gurudwara and the society with themselves which meant more money and powers for Jat Sikhs while the lower castes continued to languish at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Disillusioned with the attitude of Jats the others started their own small sects within the Sikh faith where they preached their own version of Guru Nanak Dev’s teachings. Pertinent to mention here that this is not a recent phenomenon. Dera Sacha Akhand Ballan in particular is 90 years old. And so with passage of time many of these Deras grew into being de-facto faiths within the Sikh faith. So much so that they attracted Hindus, Muslims and Christians as well. Some of them became so large that they had lakhs of of followers like Dera Sacha Akhand Ballan, Dera Sacha Sauda, followers of Sant Bhaniarewala and Sant Ashutosh. Quite naturally, when so many Deras grew into prominence they weaned away a lot of lower caste Sikhs which implied less influence and money(In terms of offerings) for the mainstream Sikh Panth. And this is something which was just not acceptable to many people in their ranks. This attack was a result of the same resentment.

Significantly, this was not the first time these Deras and their followers have been attacked. You guys will recall the attack on followers of Dera Sacha Sauda a few months ago which threatened to engulf nearly whole of Punjab and parts of Haryana. Also, quite recently before this attack in Vienna there was another unsuccessful attack on the Sant Niranjan Das of Dera Sacha Akhand Ballan while he was in Spain. There have been many more in recent and not so recent history.

Why doesn't Akal Takht speak up?

According to today’s newspapers, an organization by the name of Khalistan Zindabad Force has claimed responsibility for this attack. Another extremist organization Babbar Khalsa International has condemned this act. Both these groups were quite active in Punjab during the eighties when militancy was at it’s peak in the state. What it goes to prove is that the extremist organizations also have a stake in all this. And quite likely it’s the money part. The ones who are getting their share have no problems whereas the ones who are not have a major problem. As far as they are concerned tenets of Sikhism be damned.

There is another very important issue here about these recentful attacks. According to Sikhism no one, not even the Akal Takht which is the supreme holy body of Sikhs can declare any Sikh or group heretical or blasphemous. So those who are perpetrating this crime are going against their very own religion. But that’s just the philosophical part of this whole thing which in any case no one is interested in. All they are interested in is money and power that goes with these various gurudwaras and sects. Although some noises have been made by main stream Sikhs condemning this attack but I sincerely doubt their sincerity because the religious divide runs rather deep within the faith. And that’s exactly the reason why we haven’t heard anything from the Akal Takht. If there is one body which ought to have condemned this attack it’s Akal Takht. But it has not. Unfortunately, their silence does speak a lot. Doesn’t it? I know a whole lot of Sikhs will not like this but unfortunately this is the truth.

Any violent objections to what I say? Let me know through your comments if there is anyone who feels differently.

Related Post
No related posts

 If you like this post subscribe to my RSS feed. See how?

Register for Newsletter | Email this post | Download this post

Posted on May 27th, 2009 India calling • Tags: Akal Takht, dera, Dera Sacha Akhand, Dera Sacha Sauda, sikh, Vienna, violence. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback