Singhs at Crossroads

WaheguruJeeKaaKhalsa WaheguruJeeKeeFateh!!

Sangat Jee,

Whilst doing some research on War. I came across this article on the BBC website and thought it was interesting enough to post.

Sikhism has a concept of the Just War. It's called 'Dharam Yudh', meaning war in the defence of righteousness.

In such a war:

• The war must be the last resort - all other ways of resolving the conflict must be tried first 
• The motive must not be revenge or enmity
• The army must not include mercenaries
• The army must be disciplined
• Only the minimum force needed for success should be used civilians must not be harmed
• There must be no looting, territory must not be annexed, property taken must be returned

This is similar to the ideas contained in western Just War Theory - which is mostly a christian concept.

Sikhs also believe that treaties and cease-fires must be honoured, places of worship (of any faith) should not be damaged, and soldiers who surrender should not be harmed.

The crucial difference from Just War Theory is that Sikhs believe that if a war is just it should be undertaken even if it cannot be won.

Sikhs are expected to take military action against oppression, and there is no modern tradition of absolute pacifism amongst Sikhs, although Sikhs are strongly in favour of action to promote human rights and harmony between religions and states.

For Further Reading goto the link below for a more indepth article.

http://allaboutsikhs.com/books/kjs/07.htm

WaheguruJeeKaaKhalsa WaheguruJeeKeeFateh!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 9:00 am and is filed under Gurmat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.