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A surprise ‘Vaisakhi’ discovery
Published on: Sunday, April 14, 2024
By: Kan Yaw Chong
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The famous century-old Gurdwara Shahib Temple (background).
Like me, guest Paul Leong, who was greeted with “Sat Sri Akal”, dropped a spark on the soul of the occasion from an outsider’s perspective: “I think it is good to understand other cultures.”
Totally agreed.
Making Sikhs feel understood
From the small Sikh community’s perspective, it sure feels great to be understood with a special media coverage.
Leong and wife’s presence, is a form of moral support, a key meaning of which is to make people feel understood, besides being encouraged.
The problem is people often think understanding someone else is the same as feeling understood when it is not the same thing at all.
Ram’s supportive guests: Paul Leong (centre) and wife (right). “Good to understand other cultures.”
Guests from UMS soaked it in – two Communications students from Selangor and Penang.
The beauty is when one feels understood, everything gets better which is a crucial educational tip to foster a stable, peaceful, sustainable Malaysia and prosperous Malaysia.
It makes one feel accepted, important, valued and validated, it gives one a voice to help one find oneself again and supportive guests in an open house like this can deliver that elevating benefit in a multicultural country.
Vaisakhi & the Sikh religion explained
So what is Vaisakhi?
Darshan Singh, 74, a veteran civil servant who had served under most of the well-known Chief Ministers of Sabah, was only too willing to enlighten me on the gist of the occasion.
Darshan Singh
“The occasion today is Vaisakhi,” he said. “Vaisakhi is a very significant event in the Sikh history.”
“As you know, the Sikh religion started off in Guru Nanak who was born in 1469 in Punjab. Subsequently there were nine successors who promoted the teaching until the time of the last Guru – Guru Gobind Singh,” Darshan related.
Guru Nanak – service & honesty
Apparently, Guru Nanak lived a life of spirituality, service and honesty and the disciples who began to follow his teachings came to be known as Sikhs.
“Guru Gobind Singh gathered all the Sikhs to a place called Anandpur Sahib, in the Punjab region.
Sparing a thought for Cheshire Home resident, Joseph Liew, a former State goalkeeper ex Lasallian.
Drums and accordion tunes to spice up the occasion.
“During the month of Vaisakh, which is actually a Day of Celebrating Harvest festival, he took the opportunity to use this harvest festival season when everybody was free to gather together to explain to them the importance of unity, the importance of freedom and the importance of protecting the Sikh faith.”
Persecution under the Moghuls
“Unfortunately, during the reigns of the Moghuls (Mughals ruled India for 200 years) who were not so kind to the Hindus and Sikh people, they used unfair laws to tax the people to force conversion to their faith.
“So a lot of people were persecuted but the Sikhs stood steadfast to protect freedom of worship, freedom of religion, freedom of expression,” Darshan asserted.
“So from that day, Guru Gobind Singh (warrior, poet, philosopher) gathered all the Sikhs all over India, did that ceremony of Amrit Schantar, he called upon the congregation who were willing to sacrifice their everything for the faith and for the freedom of religion, he baptised five people called the Khalsa – the pure ones, pure in spirit, pure in soul.”
Faith, equality and freedom
From that day, thousands of people took the Amrit baptism, they called it “Khanday di Pahul Amrit” baptism. So these are Sikhs who were baptised called Khalsa and five people who were first baptised were called Punj Piare – the five beloved ones.”
“The Guru himself was baptised by the five Punj Piare so this equates the Guru and the Sikh khalsa as one – meaning to say everybody is equal in the eyes of God, nobody is higher, nobody is lower.
“So this khalsa form a force of the Sikhs – the Saint- Soldiers, saints internally and soldiers externally, their duty is to defend the faith – freedom of religion. So that was the occasion of the Vaisakhi. So we are celebrating that occasion today,” Darshan summarised the origins and meaning of Vaisakhi, which is usually celebrated on April 13-14.
Flag Chanda – Symbol of spiritual nation
An interesting ceremony at the Vaisakhi celebration on 12 April morning was changing the flag called Chanda.
“The Chanda is a flag of the spiritual nation of the Sikhs,” Darshan noted.
Preparing to hoist a new flag called Chanda symbol of a spiritual nation.
Symbol of purity: Using milk to clean the flag pole. Looking on is Datuk Ram Singh (background).
Cleaning up-signifying an act of keeping a clean spirit.
“It symbolises the spiritual nation of the Sikh people, we changed the flag today (April 12) because it has been there for quite some time so we put on a new one.
“You would have seen we cleaned the flag pole with water, soap but normally we use milk which is a symbol of purity – the purest thing you can find to wash it up.”
Origins of the Sabah’s small Sikh community
A curious question in how big is the Sikh population is Sabah and how did they get here?
“There are about 2,000 of us throughout Sabah, most of whom are found in Kota Kinabalu.
“The first Sikhs landed in Labuan actually, sometime in the 1870s 1880s and it was commercial, the name of the person is Towkay Gurbax Singh in Labuan,” he said.
Descendants of direct recruits from Punjab
“Of course, later on the British North Borneo Chartered Company recruited a lot of Sikhs from Punjab into the North Borneo Constabulary Force.
“You see the Sikhs had their kingdom in Punjab but after the kingdom collapsed the British took over, the British conquered the Sikh Kingdom, they lost the war, many of the Sikh forces actually joined the British forces, so they were sent all over to many of the colonies all over the place – Hong Kong, China, Africa, Burma, Malaya but the Chartered Company recruited the Sikhs directly from Punjab to Borneo and it’s not those from Malaya, they did not recruit from Malaya but direct from Punjab,” Darshan pointed out.
“This means the descendants you see in Sabah now are the descendants of these people, they came during the Chartered Company and then through the colony, through the war and then independence, many of them took citizenship here. So this Gurdwara Temple here was built in 1924.”
‘Small celebration with a big heart’ – Datuk Ram Singh
Meanwhile, President of the Kinabalu Singh Sabah Association, Datuk Ram Singh, said: “Vaisakhi is celebrated by a small Sikh community in KK or Tuaran mainly started by our forefathers who came from India more than 100 years ago.”
“This is a small scale celebrations with big hearts amongst us together at our Gurdwara to mingle together with other families (united in service), through our community kitchen, where we prepare vegetarian food and cook to serve our families and all guests, irrespective of their religious beliefs or background,” Ram noted.
Sikh women folk busy preparing food for the community.
“Today (April 1) we freshly cooked vegetarian foods at the Temple kitchen and brought the food to the less fortunate people, like the Cheshire home, Likas.
“Actually this had been done yearly, we are proud to carry on what our forefathers taught us which is to stay close and united within the community and serve others outside our community, so that we learn their values ad culture, which I strongly believe would further the cause of ‘unity in diversity’.”
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