Sikhs Feed The World

CHANDIGARH: ‘Hello Langar, Goodbye World Hunger’ is the slogan for the second International Langar Week starting on Monday that aims at striking a chord with scores of non-Sikhs in Europe, Canada and India. Even though langars or Guru’s community kitchens are organized in gurdwaras daily, the concept is being taken to non-Sikhs from October 5 to 11 in California and New York as well.

Last year, Sikh Press Association in the UK had mooted the idea to promote langar, an institution started by Guru Nanak Dev over 500 years ago to break down barriers and teach equality . This year, several Sikh organizations across the globe have joined in to take it to the next level.

Press director, Sikh Press Association in London, Rupinder Kaur Virdee, told TOI, “The campaign is to tell the world that langar can help tackle the problem of hunger. The response from the British community in particular has been very encouraging.”

“There have been several heartwarming stories from different communities. For instance, we have had a visually impaired elderly man, a London local, who walked up to one of our volunteers and handing over donation to him for the local gurdwara. He said he had never heard any such community initiative before,” she recalled.

In UK, California and Canada, Sikhs have been propagating the idea of langar in their own ways. For instance, added Kaur, they have fixed days when they take lots of food to office and share it with their colleagues.

Meanwhile, back home, langars are being organized in slum areas of Delhi and at Government Medical College and Hospital in Chandigarh by ‘Basics of Sikhi’ organization on Monday as part of the campaign. “We approached corporates in the capital to hold langars on their premises. Those who initially told us that they had a no-religion policy were eventually convinced that the basic idea of langar is to remove barriers between communities,” said Opinder Preet Singh of Basics of Sikhi.

Langar Week was set up to make the wider non-Sikh community aware of the fact that gurdwaras are places to go for free food for anyone, with no expectations or stigmas attached. “Free food for all is a core principle of Sikh gurdwaras. We all sit as equals to eat food prepared by volunteers,” he said.

The volunteers of various organizations have been asked to take non-Sikhs to a langar, organizing their own langars or joining a group doing street langar.

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