WE SEEK YOUR DASWANDH OF TIME MORE THAN THE DASWANDH OF MONEY!

INSTITUTE FOR TRAINING IDEOLOGY, HERITAGE AND ARTEFACTS OF SIKHISM

Itihas is basically a Sanskrit word. It means something happened this way or this event took place. But what actually constitutes Itihas? The answer to this question might seem easy, but even experts and academics hold differing opinions on it. However, the views of well-known American historian David Maclaough seem the most apt. He says, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are?”
In other words, we can analyse and interpret our future only in the light of our past status and the present scheme of things.
         History is the spirit of communities and the heroic deeds done by the ancestors passed on to the succeeding generations play the same role as blood running the veins of the human body.
It also helps us take pride in our shared cultural heritage. If we take a look at Sikh history, then we notice that the Panth has used its own blood as ink and the sword’s tip as the pen and created history. But it has not shown the same alacrity in penning it down.
It might be possible to explain away our past mistakes by taking recourse to the standard argument that the tough times the Panth went through in the 18th century and thereafter hardly left it with the time and resources to embark upon the task. But if we continue to be in a state of stupor then it will only be termed as most unfortunate and show utmost carelessness on the part of the present generation.
Time is fleeting past and with it is changing the ways and means and the pace of doing things. The communities which even do not have history of their own, have borrowed religious traditions from others and made them their own and are acting in consonance with the changing times. They are leaving no stone unturned in creating their icons and penning down historical texts and establishing institutions. But the Sikh community seems completely uninterested in embarking upon this path. The situation has deteriorated to such an extant that our historiography is increasingly coming under a vale of suspicion and even established facts and events are being turned into mythology because we have failed to carry out our responsibilities in tune with the changing times.
After studying the evolution of species, Charles Darwin famously noted, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.”