09/18/2014
Trip to lands of Sikhs :
(Amritsar) Doors from the dining room open giant. An armada of faithful hungry rushes inside, compartmentalized plate, utensils and bowl in hand. Just enough time to find a place to sit on long mats in rows that food distribution begins. Chapatis (flat bread), vegetables, rice pudding, water. A few minutes to eat and presto! after one last quick bite, you have already giving way to the next guests.
Welcome to the giant canteen Golden Temple Amritsar. Every day, 35,000 free meals are prepared and served entirely by volunteers. For devotees, it is a way to comply with one of the pillars of Sikhism, that perform an altruistic action properly.
Spiritual center of the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple - who owes his nickname to his dome inverted lotus flower covered with 750 kg of solid gold - daily welcomes more visitors than the Taj Mahal. The vast majority of them come here to pray, but the tourist is just as welcome. Provided cover their heads and remove their shoes.
After all, Sikhism, founded in the fifteenth century not far from Amritsar, itself an inclusive religion. His first guru, Nanak, was trying to free his followers of the Hindu caste system and other overly strict rules of Hinduism and Islam, the two dominant religions including Sikh worship is greatly inspired.
One thing that surprised us by entering the huge complex of white fortifications that surround the Golden Temple: the complete lack of security measures. No bag searches or body search. A notable exception in a country where terrorist attacks have resulted in excessive securing public space.
Even more surprising when one recalls that in 1984, separatists calling for the creation of a Sikh state - called "Khalistan" - barricaded themselves in the Golden Temple, armed to the teeth. The assault by the Indian army to dislodge them was 600 dead, greatly damaged the place of worship and triggered a series of unprecedented violence. Four months later, the first Indian Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her two Sikh bodyguards. The anti-Sikh riots that followed killed 3,000 innocents.
The separatist movement is now weakened, but it still counts supporters among the 20 million Sikhs in India, but also in the diaspora abroad, particularly that of Canada, which has 300,000 members.
However, these tragic events seem distant today when we see the quiet religious complex, rocked at any time by kirtan, devotional songs accompanied by traditional Indian instruments. Near the sacred pool around the Golden Temple, worshipers bow, while others perform their ablutions in the middle of big fish, guarantee clean water
