Identity crisis haunts Delhi Sikhs

New Delhi: Sikh students singing Vande Mataram is quite a familiar sight in Sikh educational institutions in Delhi. They sing it as proud Indians and definitely not as Hindus.

That's the message the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee wants to send out through its circular to the Sikh students in Delhi, asking them follow the five Ks of the religion.

This means no short hair, no clean-shaven faces and compulsory turbans along with the kripan, kangha and kacha. Students who don't follow the orders will be expelled, the circular says. The Gurdwara Management Committee runs around 60 educational institutions in Delhi.

"We are facing a threat from the RSS, which says we are Hindus," Paranjit Singh Sarna, president of DSGMC, claims. "These measures have been taken so that the youth is not confused about who they are."

The RSS, for a long time, have been insisting that Sikhism is not a separate religion, but a part of Hinduism. It's something that has angered the sardars like Amanpreet no end. A businessman by profession, he now takes time out to visit the gurdwara with his family every day.

The effort, he says, is to make sure that his eight-year-old son is proud of his Sikh identity. Like most Sikhs in Delhi, he also agrees with the DGMC's move.

Sikhism is the youngest religion in the world. Its greatest fear seems to be not to get dissolved into Hinduism.

But in a community famous for adapting to the world, what is the best way to preserve the Sikh identity: Should it be through the outward manifestation of the five Ks, or simply by living according to the teachings of the Granth? That's a question that still provokes intense debate within the community.

"Everyone has a right to live the way he or she wants to. But if you are a Sikh, you follow the five Ks. If you don't, then you are not a Sikh and you don't deserve to be in an organisation that runs on gurdwara money. If my son wants to cut his hair, I will tell him to leave his religion and my home," Amanpreet Singh declares.

There are also those within the community who disagree with the measure. Fourteen-year-old Nanak cut his hair five years ago, but he says his hair doesn't define his religion.

"My religion is mine, it's not other's. Well, I do my part. I go to the gurdwara and probably I know more about Sikhism than a person who has kept his hair," Nanak claims.

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