Why are all the gurus of the Sikh community male upper castes?
This article is from a series of Questions asked on the internet and answered by Shekhar Bodhakar
I am not answering this question as a Sikh but as a
rationalist with an inquiring and inquisitive mind. Many Sikhs may not agree with
me but I urge you to consider the possibility of negative Brahmanic influences
in Sikh institutions and eliminate them for the sake of a better future for the
next generation of Sikhs.
These are two very good questions in one but why have
you, as a questioner, chosen to remain anonymous?
FIRST QUESTION :
WHY ARE ALL THE GURUS OF THE SIKH COMMUNITY MALE? (I
assume you are referring to the ten commonly accepted gurus in the Sikh
religion)
We see in all popular world cultures that the founders/gurus/philosophers
of major social, political and religious movements have always been mainly
males, especially in the Indian subcontinent.
Why single out just the Sikhs?
The Sikhs haven't specifically CHOSEN males as gurus. The
gurus are gurus because of what they taught about how to best develop yourself
as human beings. I believe, if there had been female teachers who taught in
line with the same philosophy as other Sikh gurus, then surely they would have
been considered as gurus too.
Unfortunately we do not know of any females who did that
(There were certainly notable Sikh women who upheld the Sikh faith to highest
of standards, especially after the creation of the Khalsa Panth). Do
you know of any woman from the time of Guru Nanak Dev ji to Guru
Gobind Singh ji, who the Sikhs COULD HAVE included in the list of major Sikh
gurus but didn't?
Is this the fault of Sikhs or the dominating Brahmanic
culture in which women, being physically the weaker sex, were suppressed?
Times were such that women were protected and mainly did
what was expected of them.
I.e serve
the husband, raise children, not going out unaccompanied etc.
How could these women have become leaders of social,
political or religious movements in which, the likelihood of covering great distances
alone like Guru Nanak, would have been almost impossible?
This changed to a great extent after the formation of
Khalsa when women were actively encouraged and trained in the Sikh way of life
including warfare tactics, giving them the surname KAUR, meaning princess.
SECOND QUESTION:
WHY ARE ALL THE GURUS OF THE SIKH COMMUNITY UPPER CASTE?
(Again, I assume you are referring to the ten commonly accepted gurus of the
Sikh faith).
As far as I know, there are thoughts of 36 major guides
in the Shri Gurus Granth Sahib (SGGS). Ten of them are commonly referred to as
Gurus. The rest, referred to as saints or Bhagats. Collectively, the teachings
of all the three dozen guides are considered as ONE AND SAME philosophy
incorporated in the SGGS. Thus making the SGGS the ONE GURU to which all Sikhs
bow.
A guru by definition is a teacher, a master or a guide,
whether he/she is a school teacher or any other guide of any discipline. In
this respect all three dozen guides in the SGGS are Gurus.
Nowhere in the SGGS does it say there are only ten Gurus.
Why be selective of the 36 guides? Why consider only ten as Gurus? Why not one,
either the first or last? Why not both? Why not all 36? Why not just Baba Farid
(one of 36), the oldest? Who nominated them as gurus and most important, Why
just ten? I have already given the answer to this. There weren't just ten
gurus. There were thirty six.
It is my belief that to weaken the Sikhs, there was an
infiltration of the Sikh religious institutions by the Manuvadi Brahmins. Brahminism
had subtly sneaked in with fake Sikhs and sometime after the creation of the
Panth, the Sikh religious institution were fully controlled by the high castes.
They deceptively propagated only the higher caste guides
as gurus and the others as Saints or Bhagats. They almost destroyed the
essence of Sikhism by promoting a strong sense of caste identity that the
Granth Sahib is strictly against. The result of which we see
today in the form of building caste based Gurudwaras, ending in the formation
of the Ravidassia religion being created in the twenty-first century. It all
began because the so-called "low caste" Sikhs at one stage were
prohibited from entering the supposedly 'high caste" Gurudwaras. Who
brainwashed the Sikh leaders into believing that was the right thing to do? It
wasn't the SGGS.
Let's be clear. Not contradicting the SGGS, there are
either thirty six Gurus (originally from those castes considered untouchables
to high caste khatris) OR just one, the SGGS. Both options mean the same thing.
1. What can be done
to eradicate the caste system in Sikhism?
3. What is the Indian caste system and how does it work?
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