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Roger is a Canadian veteran
of the Vietnam War. His youthful life has been bumpy and irresponsible.
Having inherited the genes of diabetes and heart disease, he has
aged more than the years he has lived. Bouts of alcohol abuse in
his teenage years have cost him his limbs and he goes for dialysis
three times a week for his failing kidneys.
But Roger made a U-turn in life ten years ago. Now, he has a clean
mind and soul. He has helped many teens with problems that often
plague western youth, he has organized a food bank, he contributes
to many charities from his meager pension and is a pillar of hope
to the community.
As his physician, it is with pride that I have seen Roger transform.
His visits to the office are lengthy for he has a lot to tell me.
Roger was born Catholic but now reads Buddhist and Islamic scriptures
and asked me about my own Sikh faith. He is troubled with the English
translations of the books I gave him. Though they are written in
English, Roger tells me that he cannot understand the flow or the
grammar of the text.
In March of last year I gave him a CD of Khalsa Kaur Khalsa's rendition
of Anand Sahib in English. When I saw Roger in May, he knew
all of the Anand Sahib and the Kirtan Sohala and could
recite them from memory.
According to Roger, Anand is the universal song of joy for
the disabled. Inspired, he organized an evening group of amputees
who meet twice a week to read and recite the Anand. He even
put the Anand Sahib to a melody of a western tune that he
plays on a country guitar.
Roger and his friends feel liberated with the hope that Anand
Sahib gives them. The physical handicaps that had jailed me,
Roger said, were all illusions. His failing eyes can see, his chopped
legs can run and his ears can hear the message of love. He says
his journey of the spirit needs limbs no more. Anand has
made them complete. The spirit of the mind needs no wheel chairs,
or special ramps, they are free... free….free.
I told Roger that the Sikh Gurus always had a special affinity
for the sick and the disabled. When the Gurus mentioned disabilities
they talked of the disability of mind and spirit rather than physical
handicaps of the body.
The blind are those who see no universality of the spirit; the
lame are those who have no fortitude to do good things for others.
Chronic diseases are described as hopelessness of the spirit and
mind, rather than asthma, hypertension, or diabetes.
This Sikh spirit of practical compassion was lived by Sikhs like
Bhagat Puran Singh, Bhai Sahib Vir Singh and others. Bhagat Puran
Singh's life work is a testimony of Sikh dedication to the care
of the disabled. Puran Singh has written many works on Sikh theology
and thought, but his work with the unfortunates makes him stand
out.
Bhagat Puran Singh never labeled people as kaana (blind)
or loola (legless or footless). To him the disabilities were
not apparent, the disabled were just Ram Singhs, Kanhaiya Lals and
Shanti Devis. They were different from the rest of us due to the
injustices of the society that isolated them from opportunities
and hope.
Bhagat Puran Singh found solace and hope in the Sikh faith that
paralleled his idea of compassion to the disabled. He said that
good deeds to the disabled were not to be offered as a charity but
as a requirement, for, without man helping man, spirituality is
an empty word.
Some have obvious physical disabilities, others, perhaps, are much
worse off. We have spiritual disease that is eating away at us inside,
yet we look healthy. Our eyes are sick they see no good in others.
Our legs carry our body weight, but refuse to move us to charity.
Our mouths articulate empty words and our ears hear no messages
of love. Some of us who maintain façades of complete persons
are, in fact, just cheap pretenders - the real disabled and sick,
very sick.
The Sikh Guru Ram Das championed working with the worst physical
and social disease of those times. To him a person with leprosy
was a leprosy patient, not a leper. He built a hospital of compassion
for them at Taran Taran, with a pool of water around the facility.
The pool represented the cleansing power of the word of God; the
building was to house all, the well to give help, and the sick to
be healed.
Yet Guru Ram Das declared those 'wretched deformed lepers' who
had no love of God in their heart. (Page 528 Line 8, Guru Granth
Sahib). The Guru Granth, our only book of conduct, repeats itself
again and again, in the same vein, defining the disabled as only
those that lack spiritual perspective. (Page 24 Line 14, Page 280
Line 14, Page 328 Line 12 and Page 1245 Line 7.)
It is in this matter that my heart aches when I see, in spite of
all these examples in our history and spiritual text, our present
callous attitude towards the physically disabled.
The current Sikh Maryada (the Code of Sikh Conduct) is a document
that reflects no compassion for the disabled and sick. It denies
the physically disabled the rights to perform the duties of high
importance. A faith that prides its stand on the rights of others
is now perpetrating injustice on its own.
In my recent discussions with many Canadian and American patients
and friends, I am constantly reminded that though compassion for
the unfortunate may have religious precedence in Sikh history, the
facts are somewhat different. Before dying fifteen years ago, my
father expressed a wish to visit Gurdwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi.
Although a note from the SGPC states that wheel chairs are allowed
in some parts of the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, my father could not
visit the inside of Gurudwara Bangla Sahib as wheel chairs are not
allowed and he could not be carried inside since the pain of malignancy
had spread into his bones.
I thought then of my own country (Canada) and how blessed we are,
we have rules, the sick have rights and dignity. These acts came
from common sense rather than from loud proclamations of spirituality.
Shopping malls and buses were denied rights to operate if they ignored
basic facilities to the disabled. Churches made special entrances
and pews for easy entrance and exit.
Sikh Gurudwaras on the other hand, are physically inaccessible
to those that come there in pain. The steps of the Gurudwaras are
designed for the young and spry that can skate the slippery, mostly
wet, marble.
Unfortunately, indifference to the disabled is institutionalized
by a prescribed code of conduct. From what seems to be evident,
the Sikh Maryada not only promotes, but also requires this attitude.
I quote from an email from the SGPC:
Mohan Virick ji,
Waheguru ji Ka Khalsa
Waheguru ji Ki Fateh
Thank you for your email.
According to the code of Sikh Conduct and conventions (Section six)
Page 34. The five beloved ones administer ambrosial baptism should
not include a disabled person such as a person who blind, lame,
one with broken or disabled limb or one suffering from some chronic
diseases. We should obey the Sikh code of Conduct.
Regards.
In charge,
Internet Office,
SGPC, Amritsar.
(Reproduced unedited)
This note has many disturbing flaws besides its language skills.
If this practice is indeed enshrined in law, our progressive faith
contravenes the very universal United Nations Charter of Human Rights
and Freedoms.
Is Roger really wrong? Is the Anand Sahib only a work of poetry
and not a living document of hope?
What about the many Hazur Sahib Granthis whom I saw as patients
in Canada? They had hypertension, diabetes and other chronic diseases.
Have they then, violated Section 6 of Sikh law by administering
amrit illegally? Or are hypertension, hyperlipedimia, obesity and
diabetes exempt and not chronic diseases? What then is the list
of chronic diseases that debar a Sikh from the ambrosial duties?
Is there such a list, and where is it kept? Am I a co-conspirator
as a physician, for staying silent about their chronic diseases
while they administered amrit? Do those baptized by the disabled
Jathedars need baptism again?
The Guru has said that we all are small lamps of a greater light.
It is unkind to enshrine in law practices that divide men on physical
disabilities, forgetting that all life comes from a common source
and it is only actions that make us better. Those that have health
and limbs today may not have them tomorrow.
I am, therefore, asking you, all women and men of sense and goodwill
to stand up and voice your disapproval against Section 6 of the
Sikh Rehat Maryada. You may have accepted the spirit of this law
in your own lifetime but your children, born in the age of global
communication and knowledge, will never do so. After all, to think
of it, this is really not a matter of theology or religious doctrine.
This is a basic premise in all civilized societies that no one is
denied any rights based on physical disabilities. Do not have yours
brought up in disgust for those that are less fortunate.
The note states 'We should obey the Sikh code of Conduct'.
I beg you, for decency sake, not to obey this one.
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