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Summary of Question:	Response To 'Re:Khalsa'
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Saturday, 6/15/2002 11:23 AM MDT

Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa - Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh

I was surfing through the Sikhnet website when I found this Sikh Youth-Questions and Answers section. At first as I was looking at some of the questions and responses, I was thrilled to see the excellent effort the forum moderators were putting in to answer everyone's question. When I clicked to see this recent message posted about the 'Khalsa' question, I was absolutely appaled. I am a born and raised Canadian Sikh and my family is has deep roots in Sikhism as my parents have been very involved religiously ever since they came to Canada. I have nothing against any other Sikh, but I have a problem with the person who wrote all that stuff about the so called 'white sikhs'.

First of all, there should be no such term whatsoever. I cannot believe how much hatred there is amongst Sikhs. A person is not a true Sikh if they blast others and try to push them away. A true Sikh speaks kindly and gently towards everyone. I am not yet a true GurSikh myself, but I hope to be someday soon. But when I see this type of hatred, it hurts so much. I have so much respect for the American Sikhs as they are all better, true Sikhs than I am. Being an Amritdhari Sikh myself and being raised in a family with Amritdhari parents, I cannot believe how someone could say such things against another Sikh. The individual asked 'Where is the unity???' and I say look at yourself for a moment. What are you doing? Creating unity or causing more and more problems. It's one thing for the American Sikhs to do the unbelievable and come from a society full of freedom where they've probably had no racial, cultural, or religious trouble at all and become great Gursikhs and then to have a normal Sikh cut them down in this way. It is absolutely tragic. I see no future for us if this situation remains.

I understand where people are coming from when they want a Sikh homeland. But the world has changed. Everyone should be able to live anywhere, freely, without any kind of trouble. And that's the total beauty of it. I am 17 years old, and my whole life I have lived in a small southern town of about 10,000 where my family and I are the only Sikhs. I have worn a Dastaar since kindergarten. Yes I've had a lot of questions over the years, but I have generally just been accepted as one of the guys at school and with the Guru's grace, I have been able to successfully keep my own identity and stay upon the Guru's path. In my town, we're all one big group. In high school, there was no difference if you were Christian, Chinese, Sikh, or Muslim or anything. We all got along perfectly and there has never been any argument over race or religion. And I thank God for allowing me to experience that. My friends and I talk about this sometimes and we say how there is no longer a need for countries in the world to have nationalistic views based specifically on religion. There is nothing wrong with using Hindu words or anything. The people who are responsible for the carnage of 84 were not 'real' Hindus were they. Just the same as the people responsible for Sept 11th were not 'true' Muslims. Religion is something that should be allowed to be practiced by anyone, anywhere.

In my opinion, this is the way I see "Raj Karega Khalsa" because if Khalsa means pure, you can be pure if you're from any religion and belong to any country. My point is that we shouldn't be pushing others away. We shouldn't be using such harsh words. I feel so bad for the moderator to which that last "RE: Khalsa" message was for. It's not that American Sikhs don't come to our Gurdwaras. THat's not even true. I know they do. And they're not stopping us from coming to the beautiful Gurdwaras they have built. If you look at things positively, look at how much parchar and how much Sikhs in North America have benefitted from the American Sikhs. I realize the pain everyone has from 1984. But that doesn't mean we can start hating others and just go gung ho crazy to make our own homeland. Our homeland is the world. The world is humanity's homeland. I don't want to sound like a preacher. I'm only 17! And plus, this is so much longer than I thought it would be, but I was really hurt by the comments and I wanted to express my viewpoint.

Does anyone know of the sacrifices the American Sikhs have made and make everyday? All the work they do with so many organizations and the representation Sikhs have in the UN. THere are countless things that we owe to them. After Sept 11th, all the guidelines and help things on Sikhnet, no one else could have done a better job. Instead of critisizing each other, let's look at the positives and learn from them instead of dwelling so much on the negatives.

Even though my parents were born in India, my homeland is Canada, and I will never ever move to another country because I love Canada and what it represents to me. It seems as if in Canada we have less cultural and racial problems than in the US. I pray to God and Guru that these dilemmas get solved through people's own personal thoughts and that we no longer fight against each other.

And lastly, I applaud the moderators here for being so gracious in their answers.

Thank you for your time,

Harnarayan Singh