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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Why do People Insist on "Luthan Kitching" (Pulling Someone Else Down by the Legs)

I really wonder what some people get out of bringing other people down. If you want to do something with your life or stay put in life that's your choice, but to point out faults in someone else or some organization doesn't make sense to me when you won't do anything yourself.

Sitting on the sidelines taking pot shots is such a cop-out. I bring this up because of a conversation taking place at The Langar Hall, a site which I find, tends to take pot shots every now and again.

If you want to see the whole thing click here. Below is what I wrote in response to a post,
I don’t have a problem with legitimate criticism of any organization, but it seems to me that claiming women aren’t represented in the Panth as Gurdit claimed, or that Sikh organizations are only successful as a result of the contribution of female members only as Mewa Singh claims, is ridiculous.

Secondly, it seems that you have a problem with SCORE, why not engage them or the Kaur Foundation and find out why they nominated who they did and ask them about SPECIFIC Sikh women who may have been deserving and why they weren’t included?

A lot of times people would rather just sit on the sidelines and throw stones rather than take action. Sikhs should take action and NOT throw stones. That’s my point.

Not once have you or anyone else on this site, ever discussed what they did with regards to engaging an organization like SCORE when making such a post. Why criticize them when you won’t talk to them or at least let the readers know about what you did if anything to engage them?

All this post has done is lead to a couple of people making ridiculously sweeping statements about Sikhs or the Panth and likely misinformed many others about the state of women in Sikh organizations. Maybe where you are located there isn’t much participation of female Sikhs, but where I’m at they play significant roles, from doing Kirtan, sit on and make committee announcements to the Sangat at Gurdwaras, read the Hukamnama, etc…

The ONLY role I haven’t seen performed by a female Sikh is act as head Granthi. I’m not sure however, if any women has stepped forward who wanted to be the Head Granthi though.

If people have issues in particular locales, maybe that’s a function of THEIR community and NOT the Panth. Why don’t you call for people’s experiences where they are instead of generalizing with statements such as, ” Unfortunately, this lack of recognition of women in our community (which occurs on a much broader scale than any one organization) is one major factor fueling atrocities like sex-selective abortion.”

Maybe people are engaging in abortion because they aren’t truly Sikhs in the first place. Maybe there needs to be an education campaign highlighting that Guru Maharaj (Dasam Pitta) issued a Hukamnama saying that anyone killing a girl child should be ostracized by all Sikhs? Maybe people should be educated that committing an abortion is murdering one’s own child regardless of sex and is condemned by Sikh Dharm? Perhaps Sikhs who celebrate non-Sikh cultural events like Lohri should celebrate the birth of boys and girls equally?

It’s not about some empty awards, its about people truly believing in the teachings of the Gurus and understanding that Sikh Dharm preaches the equality of human beings in the eyes Waheguru. God cares about the soul and a person’s actions on Earth, not about gender, as per Sikh beliefs.

Marine Kaur and Singh, why should people who are talented in their field NOT be honoured? Since when was making money against Sikh belief? or Practice? Sikhs who excel in any given field that is in consonance with Sikh Dharm deserve any recognition they get.

If you want to have a big gala to honour people for other activities, why not get together with like minded people and do it? Why complain when someone else got up to do something? Have you took the time to realize that entrepreneurship is valued in our society and so Sikhs who excel in this are being honoured.

I’d like it if Sikhs were honoured based on character and selfless service as well, but not enough to start an organization, but if you start one, I’ll certainly support the idea and effort.

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