INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

near the airport in the outskirts of Varanasi. The committee set up a school board and
appointed a Sikh woman from Kanpur, Beant Kaur, to be director of the educational
establishments ‒ a post she still occupied at the time of my fieldwork. Whereas the
school in Gurubagh is affiliated to the Educational Board of Uttar Pradesh and offers
primary education in Hindi medium up to class twelve, the school in Shivpur is an
English Medium school allied with the Central Board of Secondary Education. The
school committee of VGPC employs teachers to the two institutions, but otherwise
grants the schools independence in educational matters. The students are offered
teaching in Punjabi language as an optional subject and are expected to participate in
annual functions organized by the gurdwaras, such as city processions and public
distributions of food on the day commemorating Guru Nanak’s birthday.
As a religious association VGPC is under the obligation to render accounts of
assets and liabilities, which is done separately for the two gurdwaras. To provide
public control of the financial position the manager and committee members make up
a balance sheet of each month that is signed by the office secretary and general secretary
of VGPC and published on a blackboard in the courtyard of the gurdwara. These
reports give a fairly clear grasp of the items of expenditure and revenues in control of
the institution, and attest that quite a substantial amount of money is put into circulation.
For instance, the monthly turnover of Gurubagh Gurdwara is between two to
three hundred thousand rupees and the expenses for organizing a festival like Guru
Nanak’s birthday usually exceed far beyond one hundred thousand rupees. The reports
mirror a community, whose religious activities are firmly built upon the idea of
giving monetary donations to the place of the Guru and the congregation. In November
2004, for instance, Gurubagh Gurdwara collected 62896 rupees from the charity
box (golak) that is placed in front of Guru Granth Sahib and in which people give
secret donations (gupt dan). In addition to these daily offerings, individual families
may donate thousands of rupees for public distributions of food and arrangements of
unbroken reading of Guru Granth Sahib (Akhand path) in connection with festivals
and other events. The income from series of Akhand path forty days before the celebration
of Guru Nanak’s birthday in 2004 amounted to 55450 rupees. Another important
source of income is real estates, some donated to the gurdwara and owned by the
committee. Rents from the shops surrounding the gurdwara complex in Gurubagh
and incomes from other buildings usually cover the larger part of higher expenditures,
such as salaries to employees. The VGPC also keeps a security fund within the
organisation to cover all expenses for public distribution of food and other items in
case no individual family is able to sponsor. Like many other religious communities
the Sikhs in Varanasi have thus created a self-subsistent system, founded on the principle
of communal service in the shape of monetary contributions and altruistic work.
BHUILI SAHIB
73
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008