Jas Cheema on Equility
Vancouver, BC
Although our Sikh Guru ji’s preached equality
for all, I am sorry to say that even today many are
bent on discriminating based on castes. This is an
excellent example of how the Sikh religion teaches
us one thing but the culture accepts another. Castes?
What you may ask is a caste? Traditionally in India,
families were classed based on what caste they belonged
to. Most of the time castes were based on occupations.
Basically if you were born into a Carpenters home,
you automatically became a carpenter even though you
may choose a different occupation. This caste system
also lead into a hierarchy with certain castes being
seen as better than others. Today here in Canada,
farmers are now janitors, janitors are carpenters
and carpenters farmers. So how can anyone be better
just because they happen to luck out and be “born”
into a higher caste??
I was listening to a group of Jatt “farmer”
teenage girls speaking about how liberal their parents
were and that they were allowed to choose there own
spouses. They were even permitted to date as long
as the guy was a Jatt. When I questioned the mother,
she explained to me how the caste system worked back
home. The lower level jobs such as cleaning were only
done by the lower castes. These people were known
as the “untouchables” or a newer term Dalits
or the oppressed. People of higher castes would not
dare to eat in their homes let alone marry them. She
described how people of the lower castes wanted to
rise to the higher level caste of Jatts. She even
felt that the lower castes were conspiring to marry
their children into higher caste families thereby
eliminating the caste system. She was insistent that
it was up to us to educate our children not to fall
victim!! I was totally appalled how this woman could
live in such a diverse community with so many other
cultures around her, and still be so intolerant of
someone based on their ancestor’s caste. Then
she reminded me of the young girl who was killed in
Maple Ridge because she chose to marry someone from
a lower caste. Even though these things have happened
in the past, does it mean we don’t question them?
Isn’t it up to us to stop the wrongs of yesterday?
As we advocate acceptance of other cultures, religions,
races and inter-racial marriages, etc, should we really
be teaching our next generation about castes? Shouldn’t
our culture more closely resemble what our religion
preaches, equality for all. We are very lucky that
we have such a mosaic of cultures around us. Accepting
others values and keeping an open mind will assist
us in adapting to the changing times. We should always
be looking at ways we can improve our society, letting
go of values that no longer work and accepting things
that do. This in turn will help build a cohesive community
of citizens that are accepting of each other
