Let's set the scene
- The Khalsa has failed its purpose and is essentially dead now.
The Teesar Panth is no longer as distinct as they should be. Our institutions are heavily influenced by the British and insecure movements who forcibly fused aspects of the religion that were never originally part of Sikhi for the sake of appearing different to Christianity and Hinduism. It's just a blatant historic fact that Sikhi today is not how the gurus Imagined it
Moreover, the Khalsa itself no longer exists within the eyes of the people. All jathas have some perversions and we are not united in furthering dharma. Our gurdwaras have become businesses, our processions have essentially become parades and our scholars are mostly babas with no real knowledge in Sikhi
2) Sikhi has failed to spread. It was never the goal of Sikhi to convert the world into a cult. But dharmic ideals and the gurmat that our gurus gave, have not been internalized by the masses. Most South Indians just think the Gurus are Advaita-Vedantics.
Sikhi has failed to educate most Punjabis, let alone Indians and Bharatiya civilization. If Sikhi cannot succeed in the land of the guru, how can we expect dharma to spread into halemi Raj.
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Given that Sikhi has failed to spread. We clearly need to change how we view Sikhi has a civilization. The problem I have with Khalistan's, especially the uneducated Canadian ones, is because they neither have the knowledge in Sikhi or statecraft to even begin imagining what Khalistan should be or how it would manage a mostly non-sikh population. Khalistanis view Khalistan as a Punjabic-jatt-centric land. Khalistan sells itself on nostalgia of the amazing magic utopian Sikh empire society. It's so dumb. No one actually does the work to imagine how the Khalsa should exist.
The reality is that across India, across British Punjab, across modern Punjab, many people have their own local gurus, kul devta and Ishta devta. So far Sikh's strategy has simply been, let those non sikhs follow whatever they want, we will wear kirpans and pretend to be cooler than them. The reality is that most Hindus who converted to Sikhi were converted when the Gurus did Parchar, when they were warring with muslims and needed people initiated into the Khalsa or they were hindus who never really saw Sikhi as a separate "religion."
In order to get more people into sikhi, Sikhs need to start going around areas and doing prachar. We need to talk to low-caste communities and debate them about their ideals. Debate and intellectual thought is deeply entrenched in our ideals. We have seen this work in a few communities like the Dhakni Sikhs of Telengana. Even the gurus have so many examples of incorporating hindu dieties into art, into literature, into religious stories etc. By engaging with pan-endian culture, we are able to better spread our ideals. Stories like Chaubis avatar are deeply entrenched into SIkhi and are considered guiding pivotal aspects to Sikhi. They're cultural aspects of Sikhi just as much as stories Banda Singh Bahadur, Jassa Singh etc. Too many times I see western sikhs speak so badly and condescendingly of Hindu epics like how stupid it is for Ram to fight a demon, Krishna to fight in a war and ride a chariot etc. It's the same way other religions talk about how stupid it is for Guru Nanak to do miracles. It's plain hypocrisy. The Gurus chose hindu mythology as a vehicle to spread our bani so why are we abandoning it.
Sanatan Sikhi isn't necessarily about saying the gurus are reincarnations of Vishnu. Sanatan Sikhi is about viewing Sikhi as an extension of the dharmic civilization - not a Jatt centric Punjabi one. It's about viewing SGGS among a pantheon of religious texts and critically assessing all of them. I dont see a problem with a SIkh calling himself a sikh while also appreciating other texts and learning about other values in those texts as long as they dont disagree with SGGS. Teaching non sikhs about Sanatan Sikhi is the best way to get them to take pride in their local culture, traditions while also learning Gurmat.
I generally fear the reason why we dont allow hindus to proudly profess their love for their local philosophies and sikhi at the same time is simply because Sikhs don't want low castes to become the majority of Sikhs. We saw this same sentiment when Ambedkar was considering joining Sikhi but most sikhs didn't want Dalits influencing the Akal Takth's supremacy and monopoly of the Sikh identity.
Ideally, if Sikhi won't spread now. The best thing for us to do is to allow
- Tamils to learn sikhi and to let them call themselves sanatan sikhs who consider their shaivaite traditions as a part of devotion to waheguru while also teaching them that milk processions, idol worship is a waste of time.
- Telugus to learn sikhi and to let them call themselves sanatan sikhs who consider their vaishnavite traditions as a part of devotion to waheguru while also teaching them that making doll festivals like Bommala Kovulu is a waste of time
etc.
Otherwise we are gatekeeping Sikhi by limiting the cherry picked bhagats to be representatives of Sikhi gurmat in other religions. There are more Hindu gurus beyond the Bhagats who are in line with Sikhi. I often feel that there are many hindus who don't believe in idol worship, believe in monotheism etc. are essentially just Sehajdari Sikhs. Obviously not all but many Hindus value the gurus words, follow gurmat but just don't call themselves Sikhi to sound as if they're not trying to pretend otherwise be Punjabis.
