I. J. Singh | New York, NY Posted: 04:57 PM | October 21, 2011

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT: A Way Forward

Communities are built together by the imperatives of survival, self-interest and collective worldly concerns. Naturally the social contract between the individual and the society stipulates that in return for the community’s protective shield that we all need, the members will obey the rules and regulations faithfully. It further implies that the community practices are transparent and applied to one and all equally without overt bias, and the leadership remains accountable.

This is how the smallest to the largest human organizations -- from families to nations and supranational organizations -- take their life.

What happens when an individual flouts the rules? Such things happen for this is the human condition. But how exactly to respond when individuals rebel or act foolishly? A secular society has its laws; a religious community has its own list of transgressions and how one may atone for sins, both large and small. Everyone is fallible, no matter the religion, culture, nationality, color, race, gender or age.

Let’s cut to the chase via a hypothetical case: An amritdhari Sikh, holding a responsible office within the community’s gurduara, gets arrested for drunk-driving. The facts are clear and can’t be denied. The law will surely take its course.

The question for us: How should the local Sikh community respond?

Past history of the accused includes a record of exemplary service to the gurduara. The drunk-driving charge is true beyond any doubt. Let’s assume that the management could demand resignation from the gurduara management.

Clearly, this infraction is a violation of the Sikh Code of Conduct (Sikh Rehat Maryada) in which any and all intoxicants are taboo. But this code also asks that the offender be subject to a tankhah or a penalty that is decided and imposed by five Gur-Sikhs -- in other words, it invokes the institution of the first five who were initiated as the Khalsa.

Five ordinary Sikhs sitting in collective authority can render judgment after due deliberation. A wonderful, representative and transparent system; nothing could be theoretically better. But the devil is in the details.

Our history suggests that severe transgressions were publicly confessed in sangat and some kind of penalty imposed by the Akaal Takht, which then became the judge, jury and the hangman. The punishment, often seemingly arbitrary these days after minimal deliberation, was usually restricted to limited recitations of gurbani, cleaning shoes of the visiting sangat at the gurduara or service in the Gurus free kitchen (langar) while wearing a plate around the neck proclaiming one’s guilty status. Enforcement of such edicts remains inconsistent and difficult.

Extremely serious violations are punished with shunning or expulsion from the community; that’s the way with just about all religions, including Sikhism. In secular societies and secular law the equivalent situation would be a sentence of life imprisonment or death.

I think history and tradition should serve as guides and not become chains that hold us to the past. Also the process now at the level of Akaal Takht is too remote and unconnected from Sikh communities that are spread all over the globe.

Recourse to the Akaal Takht at the onset of a dispute also robs us all of self-governance.

We recognize the virtue in the adage that advises us to “Think globally but act locally,” and this applies equally to justice.

Keep in mind that the first and the best place for penalizing and correcting misbehavior in the family is within the family. When the norms of a social contract are flouted the first and best place for justice to be rendered is in the community where the transgression occurred and not thousands of miles away in a distant land.

So the first (lowest level) of the Sikh judicial system should emerge from within the local gurduara. Where should the judges come from? Obviously from the local community or from a nearby Sikh community. Must they be amritdhari? It depends on the composition of the community. The framework of the sangat in the gurduara determines the structure of the bench.

What should the punishment be?