By Karminder Singh Dhillon | Opinion |
Studies on hijacking use a term called “The Stockholm Syndrome.” (1) It is defined as a condition in which the victims of the hostage taking develop feelings of trust or affection towards their captors.
The syndrome is the result of psychological affinity that results from long term hostage taking situations. It normally begins with the victims developing sympathies and subsequently identifying and associating with the causes of their captors.
Symptoms of the syndrome include hostages who refuse to escape even when handed with a perfect opportunity to do so. The more extreme symptoms occur when some victims within a group of hostages begin to assist the captors in standing guard over other victims or preventing fellow victims from escape.
THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME DESCENDS UPON SIKHS.
It is argued that the state of the hijacking of Sikhi has descended to the Stockholm Syndrome stage.
Large number of Sikhs have developed trust and affection towards the hijackers of Sikhi, particularly the dera sants, babas, and our nirmla and udasi attuned Clergy. A majority of Sikhs consider the hijackers to be “spiritually elevated” beings who are dedicating their lives for the cause of Sikhi parchar. Many consider them to be beings with “miraculous powers” that have the capacity to “make or break” the spiritual journeys of individual Sikhs.
In short, the hijackers are being viewed as true Sikhs. The nirmlas are being viewed as “spiritual intellectuals” who wrote the “classical literature” and “history” of Sikhs. They did Sikhs and Sikhi a huge favor in so doing. Doing such while the authentic Sikhs were busy fighting for their survival is considered as a benevolent and charitable act. Had these nirmlas not written, Sikhs of today would have no literature at all.
Such is the power of the Stockholm Syndrome that Sikhs have not only lost the ability to see through the distortion, corruption and falsification of their own history, but are now ready to defend the fabrication with their resources and even lives, if necessary.
The sham celibacy of the dera sants is viewed positively as a “major sacrifice” of the sants and babas in their “quest” for the salvation of their follower Sikhs. Sacrificing marriage and families is considered the highest price anyone can pay for the “betterment” of the community. To critique or question such people is considered “being ungrateful” for their services to the community and blasphemous even. Their misdeeds and corrupt ways are simply misdemeanors or human failings that result from their sacrifices; and are hence worthy of being overlooked.
Equally large numbers of Sikhs have developed psychological affinities to the CORE philosophical CORRUPTION that has been wrought on Sikhi by the udasis, nirmlas, and dera sants.
This CORE CORRUPTION of Sikhi is what we can term as the bippar, brahmanistic, ritualistic or vedantic element within our spirituality.
This corrupted CORE is being viewed by the Stockholm Syndrome afflicted Sikh masses as “true Sikhi,” or as the “parent philosophy” of Sikhi or even the “root” of Sikh.
Large number of Sikhs feel comfortable with the idea that Sikhs are part and parcel or a subset of the big and happy family that is the CORE of all Indian spiritualties – namely ritualistic Brahmanism or Bipparwaad.
In short, the prolonged hijacking of their faith has put the Sikh into almost total ease with their hijacked state.
A good many Sikhs are unwilling and refusing to escape the clutches of the distortions of Guru history conducted via Sakhis and corruption of Gurbani achieved through vedantic interpretations. Such is their position even when opportunities exist aplenty to get to the authentic history and equally authentic interpretations of Gurbani.
For a large majority of Sikhs, the appeal of the corrupted lull that dulls the senses is too strong a pull to awaken them from their deep slumber.
A vast majority of Sikhs are not prepared to UNLEARN the corrupted and distorted Sikhi and RELEARN the original and authentic Sikhi.
The position of the Sikh masses today is in the Stockholm Syndrome state. So complete is the process of the hijacking of Sikhi, that the victims have today become the hijackers themselves.
In reality therefore, Sikhs have now TAKEN OVER AS THE HIJACKERS OF THEIR OWN FAITH. Sikh institutions, their clergy, their leaders, their deras, taksals, their gurdwaras, their intellectuals and thinkers now stand as The Ultimate Hijackers of Sikhs – preventing their escape into authentic Sikhi.
Our Gurdwaras and our granthis — with rare exceptions – operate to propagate and deepen the distortion and corruption that the udasis, nirmlas and dera sants toiled upon Sikhi for 250 years.
Our clergy — ragis, kirtanias, parcharaks, dhadees – appear perfectly comfortable peddling the corrupted material that the nirmlas downloaded abundantly upon the Sikh psyche through their 35 or more “classical texts” and the fifth Vedas that is the Freedkoti Teeka.
The deras and taksals are busy producing a large pool of such clergy as well as hordes of follower — shardaloos (blind-faithed followers) who are the self-proclaimed guardians of the corrupted practices called rituals of Sikhi—be it strings of nonstop akhand paths, sampat paths, spiritual water, personal blessings, chanting of mantras or sukhnna sukh deeds (horse trading with the Guru).
The outcome is stark: the concept of Shabd Guru or Gyan Guru has completely obliterated from the psyche of Sikh masses and replaced with an objectified version of Granth Guru — relegated to continuous head bowing; circumambulations; making of offerings of money and items including food and water; elaborate ornamentations; ostentatious displays when transported from one location to another; and any number of rituals such as the conduct of arti-pooja. In short, the SGGS has been consigned to the depths of idol worship.
The highest institutions of Sikhi — the SGPC [Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee] and Akal Takhat stand ever ready to embrace any and all forms of deviancy of Gurmat principles. They stand ever ready to put their stamp of legitimacy on the corruption and distortion — declaring distorted nirmla texts in their hukumnamas as “the inseparable parts of Sikh history.”
The SGPC stands as the largest publisher of deviant Sikh history books — including school text books. Akal Takhat and Darbar Sahib clergy have gone so far as to REPUBLISH the nirmla written and previously banned defamatory and derogatory books such as Gurbilas Patshahi 6.
Akin to the armed hijacker every ready to shoot to kill any victim who attempts to escape, the Akal Takhat clergy stand ready to excommunicate just about anyone who toils effectively for the Sikh masses to enable the Victims to escape the clutches of the hijacking of the Sikhi of the Gurus,
An examination of the “hukumnamas” issued by the AT will show that a vast majority of edicts from 1887 (2) are ones that excommunicate Sikhs – in particular those who attempted to expose the reality of the corruption of Sikhi.
THE “SANTS” AS THE ORGANIZED HIJACKERS.
From its humble beginnings as agents of the British colonial masters that were created to corrupt Sikhi and weaken Sikhs, the sant class has come a long way to become the ultimate hijackers of Sikhi as it stands today.
THE SANT SAMAJ is the name of the “organization” that is comprised of dera sants. It functions as a pressure group to collectively use its influence and position to apply dera dictates on the already hijacked Sikh institutions such as SGPC and Akal Takhat – to force them to accede to their demands.
The sant samaj has a hand in getting Sikhs excommunicated — especially those who are bent on exposing the role of the deras in the corruption of Sikhi. The sant samaj has also become vocal and abusive in the condemnation of parcharaks, writers, thinkers and intellectuals who have resolved to promote authentic Gurbani messages to the Sikh messages at large.
It does not bother the “sant class” that the title sant samaj itself is a contradictions of terms. Even if we accept that human beings can elevate themselves to have sufficient spirituality within them to be deserving of being called a “sant”, then their rarity would be a given. Rare objects are too few in number to form an association. But our ‘sants” have sufficient numbers to form a society, pressure group, or “samaj.” The village folk even have a saying Eyt Chukian Sant Nikel Aunda. (Literally: a sant can be found under every pebble.)
Such deep and widespread is the nirmla inculcated Vedic | Brahmanical influence on Sikhi that it is difficult to imagine Sikhi being freed from the shackles of this virus.
While efforts to take Sikhi back to its original and unique self (Tatt Gurmat) are being undertaken by groups (such as missionary college trained parcharaks, writers, thinkers and modern day Singh Sabha movements) who are passionate about ridding Sikhi of the nirmla, udasi and dera influence, there has been an ugly backlash from the taksali and dera groups under the auspices of the sant samaj to promote the nirmla influence even more.
FOOTNOTES
(1) The term got its name from a hostage taking situation in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them. The hostages even began raising money to pay for the defense of their hijackers. The term ‘Stockholm Syndrome” was coined by Nils Bejerot, a Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist after Stockholm police asked him for assistance with analyzing the bizarre behavior of the victims.
Numerous cases of Stockholm Syndrome have been recorded in recent history — including a victim who committed suicide to spare her hijackers the death penalty (Mary McElroy in 2009); a victim who, upon her release, purchased and lived in the house of horror in which she was held captive (Natascha Kampusch, 2008); victims who joined their hijackers in subsequent acts of hijacking and went to jail for the act (Patty Hearst, 1974); and victims who chose to voluntarily return to their hijackers even after being allowed to escape and go back to their families (Colleen Stan, 1977). Note: Names within parentheses in this paragraph are real names of victims.
Stockholm syndrome is ostensibly paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments captives feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear and disdain an onlooker may feel towards the captors.
(2) The first ex-communication of a Sikh happened in 1887. Professor Gurmukh Singh of Singh Sabha Lahore (authentic) was excommunicated on March 18, 1887 by the AT clergy for his opposition to the Fareedkoti Teeka. Khem Singh Bedi of the Snatani (vedic) branch of Singh Sabha Amritsar persuaded the masands and sarabrahs of AT (caretakers hired by the British) to excommunicate Prof. Gurmukh Singh. The Panth never accepted the validity of the ex-communication. Prominent Sikhs such as Bhai Gurdit Singh and Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha, continued to associate with Prof. Gurmukh Singh Ji, refusing to abide by the dictates of the AT to not associate with the Professor. No Sikh was ever excommunicated during the Guru period and beyond till 1887.
(Extracted from Chapter Five: The Hijacked Turn Into Hijackers, from the writer’s book The Hijacking of Sikhi, published in 2020]
Sikh thinker, writer and parcharak Karminder Singh Dhillon, PhD (Boston), is a retired Malaysian civil servant. He is the joint-editor of The Sikh Bulletin and author of The Hijacking of Sikhi. He can be contacted at dhillon99@gmail.com.
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
LINKS TO VIDEOS AND LECTURE NOTES FOR ‘THE HIJACKING OF SIKHI’
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 1 (The Plot): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 2 (Udasis): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 3 (Udasis): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 4 (Nirmlas): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 5 (Nirmlas): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 6 (Nirmlas – Sooraj Parkash): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 7 (Distorting Gurbani: The Nirmalas): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 8 (Dera Sants & Taksali Babas): Video | Notes
Hijacking of Sikhi – Part 9 (The Hijacked Turn into Hijackers / Stockholm Syndrome): Video | Notes
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The Hijacking of Sikhi: After releasing book, Dr Karminder starts 12-part video series (Asia Samachar, 18 July 2021)
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