Sunday, November 24, 2013

Kitchen that feeds 100,000 daily: A brief note of Langar & its Importance

Kitchen that feeds 100,000 daily
Free kitchen in India run at the Sikhs' holiest shrine
produces 200,000 flat breads and 1.5 tons of lentil soup daily.

by Showkat Shafi: Last updated: 17 Nov 2013 17:53



Two hundred thousand Rotis - Chapattis (Indian flat bread), 1.5 tons of Daal (lentil soup) and free food served to 100,000 people every single day are what makes the free kitchen run at the Golden Temple in the western Indian city of Amritsar stand apart.

By all measures, the kitchen (called Langar in Punjabi ) is one of the largest free kitchens to be run anywhere in the world. The concept of langar was initiated centuries ago by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion. Sunday, November 17, 2013 was his 545th birth anniversary.

At the Langar, no one goes hungry - and everybody gets a hot meal regardless of caste, creed and religion. All Sikh Gurudwaras (places of worship) have Langar, but the one at Golden Temple - Sikhs' holiest shrine - has little parallel.

“Anyone can eat for free here and on an average we serve food to 100,000 people. On weekends and special occasions double the numbers of people visit the langar Hall. The langar never stops and on an average 7,000 kg of wheat flour, 1,200 kg of rice, 1,300 kg of lentils, 500 kg of ghee (clarified butter) is used in preparing the meal every day,” says Harpreet Singh, manager of this huge kitchen.

“The free kitchen uses firewood, LPG gas and electronic bread makers for the cooking and we use around 100 LPG cylinders and 5,000 kilograms of firewood every day,” he adds.

The kitchen is run by 450 staff, helped by hundreds of other volunteers. Sanjay Arora, 46, from New Delhi, comes to volunteer at the langar two days every month. “This is KAR-SEVA (do-service) for me. I feel happy after doing this service. It’s is not just free food, here you forget all the differences that separates humans from each other,” he says.

Volunteers also wash the 300,000 plates, spoons and bowls used in feeding the people. The food is vegetarian and the expenses are managed through donations from all over the world. The yearly budget of the langar runs into hundreds of millions. One has to see it to believe.




Women play an important role in the preparation of meals. Volunteers make stacks of Rotis that will be served at the free kitchen.

The "langar" or free kitchen at Golden Temple in the Indian city of Amritsar is perhaps the world’s largest free eatery.
The Langar or free kitchen was started by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak


Around one hundred thousand (100,000) people visit the langar every day and the number increases on weekends and special days.


People from all over the world who have FAITH in “SIKHISM”  aspire to visit Golden temple at least once in their life time.


Everybody is welcome at the langar, no one is turned away.
It works on the principle of equality amongst people of the world regardless of their religion, caste, colour, creed, age, gender or social status.

People sit on the floor together as equals and eat the same simple food at the eating hall of the Golden Temple langar.


Langar teaches the etiquette of sitting and eating in a community situation.


People from any community and faith can serve as volunteers.


The lines of status, caste and class vanish at the langar. Everybody, rich or poor, is treated as equals.


The meal served is hot but simple: comprising roti (flat Indian bread), lentil soup and sweat rice.


The utensils are washed in three rounds to ensure that the plates are perfectly clean to be again used.


Running the kitchen also means washing and cleaning thousands of plates, bowls and spoons. 


Some 450 staff and hundreds of volunteers help to run the kitchen.


Five thousand kilograms of fire wood is used every day for preparing the meals at this langar, that runs 24 x 7


A Sikh volunteer prepares the dal (lentil soup) that will be served for the meals at the langar.


More than 200,000 Rotis are prepared every day at the langar which is served to the people.


Wheat flour being put in a contraption that acts like a dough maker. The dough will be used for making Rotis (Indian flat bread).


Rotis (Indian flatbread) are cooked over electric machine .


Many Volunteers can also prepare these rotis ( Indian Flat Bread ) with their hands.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Bhagat Namdev JI (1270 A.D - 1350 A.D)


Bhagat Namdev
Guru Granth Sahib recognizes many saints of the Bhakti movement of medieval India. KabirFarid, Namdev are the saints belonging to this movement which swept across the North India from 1100 A.D. till 1600 A.D. When Fifth Guru Guru Arjan dev ji compiled Guru Granth Sahib, he decided to give some recognition to the saints of Bhakti movement, that is the reason that Guru Granth Sahib contains verses of such saints. In some cases Guru Granth Sahib is the only voice remained for such saints over the years.
According to the generally accepted version of the current traditions, Namdev was born in AD 1270 to Damasheti, a low-caste tailor, and his wife, Gonabai, in the village of Naras-Vamani, in Satara district of Maharashtra. Janabai, the family's maidservant and a bhakta and poetess in her own right, records the tradition that Namdev was born to Gonabai as a result of her worship of Vitthala in Pandharpur. Namdev was married before he was eleven years of age to Rajabal, daughter of Govinda sheti Sadavarte. He had four sons and one daughter, Under the influence of saint Jnanadeva, Namdev was converted to the path of bhakti. Vitthala of Pandharpur was now the object of his devotion and he spent much of his time in worship and kirtan, chanting mostly verses of his own composition. In the company of Jnanadeva and other saints, he roamed about the country and later came to the Punjab where he is said to have lived for more than twenty years at Ghuman, in Gurdaspur district, where a temple in the form of samadh still preserves his memory. This temple was constructed by Sardar Jassa Singh Ramgarhia and the tank by its side was got repaired by Rani Sada Kaur , mother-in-law ofMaharaja Ranjit Singh . In his early fifties, Namdev settled down at Pandharpur where he gathered around himself a group of devotees. His abhangas or devotional lyrics became very popular, and people thronged to listen to his kirtan. Namdev's songs have been collected in Namdevachi Gatha which also includes the long autobiographical poem Tirathavah. His Hindi verse and his extended visit to the Punjab carried his fame far beyond the borders of Maharashtra. Sixty-one of his hymns in fact came to be included in Sikh Scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib. These hymns or sabdas share the common characteristic of lauding the One Supreme God distinct from his earlier verse which carries traces of idolatry and saguna bhakti. In the course of his spiritual quest, Namdev had, from being a worshipper of the Divine in the concrete form, become a devotee of the attributeless ( nirguna) Absolute.
Bhagat Namdev before Elephant
The legend about Bhagat Namdev is that at Gurdaspur Bhagat Namdev was asked by a king to show miracles which he refused as it meant intefering in God's way. Bhagat Namdev was thrown before a drunken elephant to be crushed to death. God saved His own saint. Namdev spent the last days of his life in village Guman.
Bhagat Nam Dev is a pioneer of the Radical bhakti School. Though he appeared a century earlier than Kabir, his religious and social views are very much like those of Kabir. He unambiguously repudiates all the four fundamentals of Vaisnavism. Though in his devotional approach, he is clearly a monotheist, he makes many pantheistic statements too, e.g., every thing is God; there is nothing but God; consider the world and God to be one; the foam and the water are not different. Chaturvedi writes: "Sant Nam Dev seemed to believe both in transcendence and immanence, in pantheism and nondualism. His devotion was purely of the non-attributional absolute. He also considers God to be immanent, everywhere, in all hearts, and the Creator of everything. Like Kabir and the Sufis, Namdev is very other worldly. He says, "The strength of contempt of the world should be in the body an unchanging companion. One should lay aside differences between oneself and others, and feel no anxiety for things of the world."Ranade also writes: "He (Nam Dev) tells us that it is impossible that the pursuit of God can be coupled with a life of Samsara. If it had been possible for a man to find God while he was pursuing Samsara, then Sanaka and others would not have grown mad after God. If it had been possible for him to see God while carrying on the duties of a householder, the great Suka would not have gone to the forest to seek God. Had it been possible for people to find God in their homes, they would not have left them to fond out. Nam Dev has left all these things, and is approaching God in utter submission (Abhg. 83).
NamDev's cosmogenic views are also orthodox. He says that God created maya and "maya is the name of the power that placeth man in the womb."Indirectly, he is neither happy with the world, nor with the human birth. Him, shop, shopkeeper, men and everything are unreal excepting God. In this background he seeks release from the world and suggests renunciation: " Namdev gave up trade, and devoted himself exclusively to the worship of God.
The world being a play of maya and not being a worthwhile of spiritual endeavours, Namdev's goal is to have union with God through devotion and singing. His praises. He says, "I perform worship, sing God's praises and meditate on Him for eight pahar in a day i.e, round the clock. At the same time, he suggests good conduct and purity of life. For, God created all men alike. Though he holds every person responsible lor his acts, he clearly does not believe in a world rigidly governed by karma. Because he says: If everything were determined by karma, who created karma originally?
NamDev not only claims union with God, but, like Kabir, also states that more than once God miraculously intervened on his behalf to reveal Himself to him, or help him. Without doubt, Nam Dev's approach remains otherworldly both before and after his achievement. At one time, he even gave up work so as to remain absorbed in his worship and meditations. He never initiated any religious institution or movement. His was a solitary search for God, without creating any social or religious organisation.
We find that in his repudiation of Vaisnava doctrines, in his metaphysical ideas, methodology and goal, and more particularly in his otherworldly approach to the world and society, Namdev's views are quite identical with those of Kabir.

BIBLIOGRAPHY / REFERENCES

  1. Copyright © Daljeet Singh and Kharak Singh "Sikhism, its philosophy and History"
  2. Copyright © Daljeet Singh "The Radical Bhagats"

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Operation WoodRose


Operation Woodrose was a military operation carried out by the Indira Gandhi-led Indian Government in the months after Operation Blue Star to "prevent the outbreak of widespread public protest" in the state of Punjab. The government arrested all prominent members of the largest Sikh political party, the Akali Dal, and banned the All India Sikh Students Federation, a large students' union. In addition, the Indian Army conducted operations in the countryside during which thousands of Sikhs, overwhelmingly young men, were detained for interrogation and subsequently tortured.After the operation, the central government was criticized for using "draconian legislation" to repress a minority community. The operation consisted of the rounding up of thousands of suspected Sikh militants, including several presumably innocent civilians, aimed at eradicating the presence of violent separatist groups in the state. According to estimates published by Inderjit Singh Jaijee, approximately 8000 individuals were reported as missing as a result of Army operations during this period. According to Dr.Sangat Singh, Joint Intelligence Committee, about 100000 youth had been taken into custody within first four to six weeks of the operation and he adds that many of them were not heard of again. He further adds about 20000 youth crossing over to Pakistan.

To allow for the legality of the operation, the states of Punjab and Chandigarh had been declared
 by the Indian government as 'disturbed areas' by the enactment of the Punjab Chandigarh Disturbed Area Act 1983, while the Army was given unprecedented powers to detain and arrest civilians by the enactment of the Armed Forces (Punjab and Chandigarh) Act 1983. The act empowered any commissioned, warrant or non-commissioned officer of the Army if "of opinion that it is necessary so to do for the maintenance of public order, after giving such due warning as he may consider necessary, fire upon or otherwise use forces, even to the causing of death". The act also allowed such an officer to "arrest, without warrant, any person who has committed a cognizable offence or against whom a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed or is about to commit a cognizable offence".
Fast Track courts were set up under the Terrorist Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act 1984 to try and sentence suspected terrorists rapidly.
Punjab Chief of Police, K.P.S. Gill described the actions as "suffering from all the classical defects of army intervention in civil strife" and stated that the Indian Army had acted "blindly".
The army operations were overseen by General Jamwal, who was assigned the responsibility to seal the international border with Pakistan, in an attempt to control smuggling of arms and personnel, and by Gl R.S. Dayal, who was instructed to oversee the apprehension of militants in state of Punjab.

S. Darshan Singh Pheruman

Darshan Singh Pheruman was a political leader and a martyr. He was was born at the village of Pheruman in present-day Amritsar district, on 1 August 1885. His father's name was Chanda Singh and his mother's Raj Kaur. After passing his high school examination, he joined in 1912 the Indian army as a sepoy. Two years later, he resigned from the army and set up as a contractor at Hissar. He was doing well as a contractor, when a taunt from his mother, who was deeply religious, led him to give up his business and plunge into the Akali movement for the reform of Gurdwara management.
In 1921, he was arrested in the morcha launched by Sikhs for recovering from the British deputy commissioner of Amritsar keys of the Golden Temple treasury he had seized, and was imprisoned for one year. In December 1924, he led the 14th Shahidi jatha to Jaito, and was jailed for ten months. He also took part in the non-cooperation movement launched by the Indian National Congress, serving a 14-month term in jail. In 1926, he visited Malaya where he was detained by the British on the basis of his political record in India. While in jail, he went on a fast in protest against the orders forbidding the wearing of kachha or drawers, one of the five symbols of Khalsa discipline. He continued the fast for 21 days, ending it only when he had won his point.
Returning home, Darshan Singh joined the Civil Disobedience movement and courted imprisonment thrice. He took part in the Quit India campaign during the Second World War. For a number of years, he was a member of the Shiromani Gurdwara parbandhak Committee and its general secretary for two terms. He was elected a member of the Rajya Sabha as a nominee of the Indian National Congress and retained his seat up to 1964. In 1959, he severed his connection with the Congress and joined the Swatantra Party of which he was one of the founders.
In August 1969, Darshan Singh resolved to lay down his life to atone for what he termed as resilement on the part of some of the Sikh leaders from the solemn pledges they had taken at Sri Akal Takht and to have their default in not being able to secure the inclusion of Chandigarh and some other areas in the newly-demarcated Punjab redeemed. So determined, he went on a fast unto death inside the central Jail at Amritsar on 15 August. He stuck to his vow and stubbornly refused to have any nourishment until his demand for the amalgamation with the Punjab of the Punjabi-speaking areas kept out of the new Punjab was conceded. On 27th October 1969 which was his 74th day of his fasting, he died. For the supreme sacrifice he thus made to rewrite the sanctity of a Sikh's plighted word, his name is honoured among the martyrs of the Sikh faith.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The First Sikh Scots Guard


The Daily Mail have an article entitled "The Sikh soldier who will be the first to guard Buckingham Palace without a bearskin as he'll be wearing a turban instead".

It's about Jatenderpal Singh Bhullar, a remarkable young man who swapped bricklaying for a career in the British Army.

It's indeed a fantastic success story, one we've followed all the way and featured in our recent film "Slough to Soldier" (below).



When we got to know Jatenderpal for the filming - he told us he wanted to be in the Paras.

He wanted to push himself - and venture into a career path that not many Indians had gone down let alone a Sikh with a full beard!

We urged him on, why shouldn't someone set a goal for themselves and work hard to achieve it?!

It's an inspiration, one which I was certainly touched by and his ambition and drive for success is certainly something which more young people need to have.  

Jatenderpal didn't get into the Paras though because of his run time which was a few seconds below the requirement, but he did into the Scots Guards.  In doing so he became the first Sikh with uncut hair/beard to get into Guards regiment!

I spoke to him after he passed out to congratulate him on this remarkable achievement, and urged him to carry on doing what he was doing because he was not only breaking new ground but representing his faith and community.  

He sent me a picture of himself in his Scots uniform, and it made me proud to think a Sikh such as he had broken new ground - and would go on to do well in that regiment.

I knew he'd make a great soldier and felt pleased about his progress from when we first met and filmed him.

So it's unfortunate to hear he might have some difficulty in his ambition.

BUT I for one have full faith in Jatenderpal's strive to succeed as a soldier - and will be supporting him in every way possible.  

I hope people from the community-at-large will do the same.

Please comment positively on this post so we can convey our best wishes to the first Sikh Guard - may he inspired many others to follow suit!




*news reference: http://sikhs-at-war.blogspot.in/2012/12/the-first-sikh-scots-guard.html?showComment=1354628463304#c6251288044599779748

Shaheed Bhai Karam Singh And Shaheed Bhai Pratap Singh

On the 8th August, 1922 A.D., the police arrested five Singhs for cutting Acacia wood for langar (community kitchen) from uncultivated land attached to Gurdwara Guru Ka Bagh. Everyone was sentenced to a fine of rupees fifty and imprisonment for six months on charge of stealing wood from the land of the Mahant. Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee started an agitation against this excess of the Government. Mr. B.T., the additional police superintendent started beating with clubs the Singhs taking part in the agitation. On the 13th September, the beating was stopped on motivation from Reverend C.F. Andrews and Singhs were arrested and sent to prisons.

One day a squad of army pensioners led by Subedar Amar Singh Dhaliwal from Kapurthala state courted arrest. Magistrate Aslam Khan sentenced those Singhs to imprisonment of two and a half years and a fine of one hundred rupees each. Those Singhs were boarded on a train from Amritsar to Attak on the night of the 29th October, 1922 A.D. The train stopped at Rawalpindi on the 30th October and moved on after change of staff and taking water for the locomotive.

The Sikh community of Gurdwara Panja Sahib on that route got ready food and drink to serve the Singhs of the squad, took it to the railway station early in the morning of the 31st October and started waiting for the train to arrive.The station master told them, "The train shall not stop at this station. You have made these arrangements for nothing." Bhai Karam Singh replied, "Baba Nanak had stopped a mountain with one hand. Cannot his Sikhs stop a train ?"

At ten o'clock, seeing the train approaching, Bhai Karam Singh lay on the railway line. Next to him Bhai Partap Singh, Sardar Ganga Singh, Sardar Charan Singh, Sardar Nihal Singh, S. Tara Singh, S. Fakir Singh, S. Kalyan Singh and many other Singhs and Kaurs squatted on the track. Seeing the Singhs lying on the track, the driver of the train blew the whistle time and again but the Singhs did not budge as if they had not heard the whistle at all. The engine ground the bones of Bhai Karam Singh and Bhai Partap Singh to pulp and the others suffered injuries. The train stopped.

Bhai Partap Singh said to Sangat (Sikh devotees), "Serve the hungry Singhs in the train first. You can take care of us afterwards." The train halted for one and a half hours. The Sikhs served the Singhs in the train whole-heartedly and then turned to the injured. Bhai Karam Singh, thirty year old son of Bhai Bhagwan Dass Mahant of Kesgarh Sahib died after a few hours. On the next day Bhai Partap Singh, twenty-four years of age, son of S. Sarup Singh goldsmith of Akal Garh, Gujranwala attained martyrdom. Before attaining martyrdom he recited "Kabira sant Muye kiya Roviye jo apne greh jaye rovo saakat bapre jo hato haat bikaye" and instructed his 18 years old wife that never cry over his death otherwise his sacrifice will be wasted.

It is said that she never cried her whole live and bravely recited Gaddi the Chhand written in honour of these Train Martyrs and was also engrossed in "Naam Simran". when the train-driver was asked the reason for stopping the train, he replied, 'When the train hit the Singhs lying on the track, vacuum lever dropped out of my hand and the train stopped. I did not apply the brakes."

KARMI-NAMA & RAJ-NAMA (GURU NANAK TALKING TO QAZI RUKAN DIN AT MECCA)

  The  Karni Namah  and the  Raj Namah  are two significant chapters of the Sau Sakhi, the Sikh book of prophecy. The Raj Namah appears in, ...