The danger of ‘Deras’ to mainstream Sikhism

The danger of ‘Deras’ to mainstream Sikhism

BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 04:37 AM IST
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The Sikhs are loath to admit it but they are very much a part of the Hindu milieu: each member of the faith carries with him a caste tag even though the divisions are not as rigid as within Hinduism. At least, there does not exist within the faith a vertical caste hierarchy.

And this despite the faith being conceived by the tenth Sikh Guru as one in which either the equality of all castes was implicit or, on a more elevated plane, the ‘fusion of all castes into one temporal and spiritual body called the Khalsa’ was envisaged.

Without detracting from the intrinsic strength of the Sikh religion, the failure to overcome these divisions explains to an extent the popularity of ‘deras’ in Punjab — thousands of them — which predominantly cater to the Dalit or Mazhabi Sikh. The Dera Sacha Sauda is one such sect with lakhs of followers in the Malwa region of the state.

The seeds of the popularity of the ‘deras’ are embedded in the acute sense of alienation or disenchantment among the rural masses with the keepers of the faith who are unable to provide any solace to the highly neurotic populace. The worrisome incidence of drug addiction is just one strand of this post–modern dysfunctional society.

The ‘deras’ largely fill up this spiritual vacuum. Result: the faithful are moving out of the ambit of mainstream Sikhism into the orbit of these self-proclaimed god men. The fact that there does not exist an institutionalised clergy in Sikhism to neutralise the all-pervasive trend has further abetted this sentiment.

The Dera followers are desperate souls who seek either ‘salvation,’ or a male progeny, or merciful release for their spouses and children from the thrall of drugs and alcohol. No wonder the followers are mostly women, who goad the men later into joining the fold. The ‘deras,’ in turn, have become repositories of blind faith and vendors of superstition, ritualism and ‘miracles,’ which is against the essence of Sikhism.

Most of these ‘deras’ also have their own collection of loosely structured dos and don’ts, which are often in conflict with the tenets of Sikhism. The self-styled gurus have over the years — especially in the post-militancy phase — grabbed huge tracts of land and share an incestuous relationship with the myopic politicians, who cannot look beyond a captive vote bank in the blind Dera followers.

At a deeper level, the Sikhs are losing their distinct identity and ethos. This is worrisome in a religion that began, at least theoretically speaking, as a synthesis of what was the best in Hinduism and Islam.

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