The gambler never wins in the end simply because over the long haul the
odds are set to favor the house. I am not a gambler but I got roped
into a fixed game with odds set against me when I entered a discussion
on the Internet with my eyes wide open. In fact, they must have been
wide shut. The bait was irresistible with lures glistening like
polished diamonds. The angler reeled me in with a few words taken out
of context from my own essays. How could any man resist the temptation?
I had mentioned in one column some years ago that I became an
Amritdhari Sikh. It was a public declaration of a very private
intention and action but it seemed pertinent in context. A bright Sikh
picked it up. He highlighted the lines indicating my personal
transformation to Amritdhari and instantly labeled me a traditionalist.
I wouldn’t have minded the label because there are many traditions of
Sikhism that I revere, even if I fall short in honoring them entirely.
But he went on to claim that the counterpart of a traditionalist is a
modernist.
My first response was somewhat general. I pointed out that our lives
are mostly too complex to be summarized usefully in a one-word
descriptive label. I know that we use such handles for convenience of
communication but I doubt that we enhance our understanding all that
much.
There are many who reject my writings because they label me a
traditionalist. And there are just as many who absolutely detest what I
write because I don’t seem to respect the traditions that they do.
When I wrote on Hew McLeod, his loyal friends were unhappy over what
they labeled as my failure to unconditionally laud him. And I do
appreciate him. But his diehard foes were equally convinced that I had
failed to understand McLeod’s failings. Similarly, an essay on
Khalistan that I wrote at the height of the insurgency angered both
sides.
I must be doing something right.
But my critic came back with something that really got my goat. I can’t
do better than to reproduce pertinent parts of our exchange by e-mails.
Said he: “I beg to say that I stand by the label of traditionalist as
against modernist. Let me first explain in the words of Jaroslav
Pelikan, the sterling professor and immediate past president of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and one of the leading scholars
of religion in the world with more than 30 books to his credit:
“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead
faith of the living… Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever
be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem
is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized
tradition.””
But this was a serious misreading of the noted church historian who was
speaking on the vindication of tradition - not its rejection - when he
delivered the Jefferson Lectures in 1983. He covered four issues:
rediscovery of tradition, recovery of tradition, tradition as history,
and tradition as heritage. Pelikan explored the nexus between history
and tradition to elucidate our break with the past that has resulted in
rejection of tradition.
Pelikan’s words are meant to shock both those who reject and those who
adhere to tradition without proper reflection. Blind acceptance of
tradition for tradition's sake is traditionalism, he warns us; a living
tradition embodies the best of its cultural heritage. Dead
traditionalism holds its culture hostage. His lectures are an excellent
apologia for the role of tradition in society.
My critic continued: “Since you are now a Khalsa, you are pure and
bound to a belief system and cannot go to reality direct, immediate.
The belief system will hinder you; it will never allow you to go beyond
its boundaries. It is a sort of imprisonment. The prison may be
beautiful, very well decorated, comfortable, and convenient but please
remember a prison is a prison. Only a real man, a man of courage, can
face the reality… In the final analysis, traditionalism seems to be too
reactionary and too nostalgic to offer a workable way to move through
and beyond modernity…
“It is just difficult to accept that one can be a good Sikh, especially
Amritdhari Khalsa, and a good modernist. The two terms are mutually
exclusive because their condemnation of each.” (Emphasis added)
So where does the critic place himself? If the two terms are mutually exclusive, he is then either a Sikh or a modernist.
He and many others seem to have reserved the term traditionalist (hence
not modern) for any Sikh who wears a turban and has unshorn hair.
Sikhi and modernity are not incompatible. On the contrary, Sikhi
presents a very modern way of life. It is just that we have never
looked at Sikhi through modern eyes. What the mind does not know the
eye does not see.
To me the antithesis of being modern is to be primitive. However uncivilized I may be, primitive I am not.
Traditionalists, like lawyers who routinely look to precedent, are not
primitive in their approach even if one disagrees with them. Precedent
and tradition provide a sense of continuity that is important to a
society’s sense of self. Don’t underestimate its value because it has
none to you.
I would interpret the word traditionalist to mean one who does not
question and reinterpret the meaning of precedent. If done to laws of a
secular society, it makes for a bad lawyer. If done to religious
teachings, it renders them irrelevant and fossilized. So that’s a label
I don’t want. The one-word label remains inaccurate, arbitrary and,
most importantly, misleading.
But my critic did not stop there. He appeared to cherry pick what he
thinks are Sikh traditions to attack them. First he sets them up as
straw men and then he knocks them down.
To my understanding Sikhism does not allege, as my critic contended,
that “there is no salvation outside of Sikhism” or that “if you have
Amrit baptism you are saved.” Sikhism clearly does not teach a doctrine
of exclusivity or that an Amritdhari is destined for heaven and others
are not.
I can see where historically the Judaic-Christian-Islamic tradition is
coming from on the idea of a chosen people and what they have done with
it. I understand it but I don’t have to own it. It is not mine nor is
it the Sikh position.
If readers on both sides of an issue find differences with me, what
does that make me --¬ a traditionalist, in his meaning of the term, or
a non-traditionalist as many others allege? Sometimes both sides
respond by claiming that “I.J. Singh does not understand Sikhism.”
Perhaps so, but all I can put forth is my own understanding of it.
Each side is looking at me through its own prism. Both are right. Yet, I can refuse to be boxed by a label.
My character flaw is that I refuse to accept that some minds are made
up, conclusions are already etched in stone, and discussions are - like
loaded dice - not open, honest exchanges. But this is a trait that I
refuse to abandon.
This drawn out exchange produced a good kind of tiredness; but the results remained so much sound and fury signifying nothing.
I wondered if we had been talking to each other or at each other.
Nothing had moved. And that seemed like a good time and place to put
down the loaded dice.
Note: The author, Inder Jit Singh, is an anatomy professor
at New York University. He is also on the editorial advisory board of
the Calcutta-based periodical, The Sikh Review, and is the author of
four books: Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias; The Sikh Way: A
Pilgrim's Progress; Being and Becoming a Sikh; and The World According
to Sikhi. He can be reached at: [email protected]