Sikh Political Ideology

A few simple, yet profound questions. What would a "Sikh State" encompass in terms of its social system? What would be the economic system put in place of such a Sikh State? Would it emulate communism, socialism, capitalism or some other system? I simply cannot find any answers to these questions.

There are numerous books on the subject. One can read Gurbani and study Sikh history to understand Sikh concept of society, justice, politics etc. These concepts provide principles not exact methods because methods are always dated and require amendments. Most Sikhs these days are stuck with Western education concepts and fail to understand Sikh ideals. For this very reason, all historians who wrote on Sikh Misls failed to categorize and label the Sikh administration because it was something they had never seen, heard or read about before. I have an article "Guru Nanak's Concept of State" which I will post on sikhfreedom.com in two months or so. Hopefully that will help. There are other articles on justice, economy, society etc. also.

Bijla Singh you are 100% correct look forwad to your article at some point.

One thing if it has to start is where the english got rid of the indian system of education and placed it with their version and is still there today and we as sikhs suffer from it too. Old system in india was 50% of the time a person should study religion and all wisdom within it and 50% should be academic study. The gora western system demolished that as they put religon in a room go on sundays only and rest of the time i.e 90% on western style educaiton which just causes greed in the world to flood and a self fullfilling money making propehcy for governments. I would say any Sikh state has to start with that system 50/50 which will give rise to balanced individuals who would be leading examples without a doubt due to being bought up in a balanced way in the first place.

I do agree with the 50/50 system where half of the cirriculum would focus on philosophies of different religions and half of the curriculum on sciences and mathematics, but would the half of the curriculum focusing on religions also focus on the atheistic reasoning behind the rejection of religion? It is important to study all philosophies, whether it be religious philosophies, socio-political philosophies of even atheistic philosophies to allow the children to have a hollistic and educated perspective of the world. The 50% that would concentrate on philosophy should be unbiased so that children can come to their own conclusions due to facts, statistics and reasonable moral conduct.

Sorry for misunderstanding. The article on Sikh State and other topics have been written by scholars not myself. The one I will post I think is from 'Guru Nanak's Philosophy of Politics' by Gurdip Kaur. It covers many subjects.

The article's been uploaded here: [www.sikhfreedom.com]

VJKK VJKF

Thanks Bijla Singh for uploading the article.

@ 'Sinner',

I don't believe there is a current Western system which correctly emulates 100% of Gurmat thought and philosophy. Saying that, it is clear to me that a Gurmat social and political system would be anti-capitalist, and socialist in nature; essentially "Sikh Socialism."

Great research done by Bhai Bijla Singh Jee. You are doing great seva by writing on such topics. One point about the constitution of the Sikh state. Maybe Sikh researchers, historians should look into by what laws Anandpur Sahib was governed by Guru Jee and use that as the bases for the constitution of the Sikh state. Add to that, the first Sikh state of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur also had laws that can be added as the bases of such a constitution

Veer Navroop Singh Jee, may I ask what is your reasoning behind suggesting that a gurmat Socio-Political system would have socialist characeristics, Jee?

The three pillars of Sikhi are often defined as:
1) Kirat Karni
2) Vand ke Shakna
3) Naam Japna

At a young age Guru Nanak Dev Ji was given money by his father to go to the market and make a profit. On the way to the market, Guru Sahib saw some hungry Sadhus and said that there was no greater profit to be made than by feeding the poor and hungry Sadhus.

The above brief points can be interpreted as socialist principles; Kirat Karni and Vand ke Shakna are easily identifiable principles. Sikhi is however also about the Spiritual, and Naam Japna can never be sacrificed. Many Sikhs today work very hard, but the exploitation of the labour force in today’s capitalist society makes it difficult, for example, to maintain a strict Amritvela.

There are many different forms of socialism, but one of the key aspects is the idea of society as a whole owning the means of production, thereby eliminating exploitation. Socialism is therefore about sharing, and would ideally lead to a classless society (in terms of the material world). The establishment of Guru Ka Langar can already be seen as an example of this.

As a Gursikh, I believe that the application of Gurmat, would naturally lead to society evolving into what would be termed today as socialist society.