Long Way From Home : Sikhs Persist in Quest to Locate Temple in Residential North Hills

It is hard for any religious group--Christian or non-Christian--to build a new house of worship in the well-populated San Fernando Valley without neighbors objecting to the prospect of increased traffic and noise.

But what are the chances of a religious group whose men often wear turbans and long beards, converse in a foreign tongue and who, tradition has it, carry a small sword tucked away in their garb?

A local group of Sikhs--members of an 18-million-strong world faith rooted in the Punjab region of India--is finding out.

Residents of a North Hills neighborhood are so far winning a battle against the group to transform two houses into a religious and day-care center. City officials, siding with neighbors, turned down the project in June.

The Sikhs (pronounced either SEEKS or SICKS) have appealed.

As their growing numbers have sought spiritual footholds in the Valley in recent years, two other Sikh groups avoided residential neighbors altogether by locating temples amid repair shops in commercial and manufacturing sections of North Hollywood and Northridge.

But now, say Sikh leaders, they want to erase misunderstandings about their religion, which they believe may have accounted for some of the objections by neighbors in North Hills.

“I think it would have helped if we had presented people with detailed background on what Sikhs are all about,” said Haspinger (Harry) Singh Manku, a leader of the 150-member Sikh group and the owner of a door-and-hardware business in Van Nuys.

Brigitte Siatos, vice president of the North Hills Community Coordinating Council, said religious discrimination did not motivate the 80 residents who petitioned against the proposed temple on Plummer Street, east of Sepulveda Boulevard.

“We feel we’re being inundated by outsiders and the traffic they bring,” Siatos said. “We’re having to put up with all the new churches: a Buddhist temple, a Korean church, a Chinese church and then another Korean church.”

Zoning and planning administrators said that it is rare for houses of worship to be turned down--perhaps one in 100--because prospective neighbors are usually courted beforehand. A compromise is usually forged to limit size and activities to win city approval.

Sikh spokesmen indicated their preparation was faulty in that regard.

Unlike many other fast-growing, ethnically based religions, which joined interfaith councils to aid understanding during the 1970s and 1980s, the Sikhs remained largely to themselves. The San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, for example, has had Buddhist, Islamic, Bahai and Hindu participation, but no contact with Sikhs.

Southern California religious leaders have received their primary picture of Sikhism from the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood, founded by Yogi Bhajan on Los Angeles’ Westside after his immigration in 1969. Through his 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy) Foundation, Bhajan attracted thousands of young converts to ashrams and centers in North America by blending yoga teachings with Sikh dress and ritual.

Yogi Bhajan and his associates have joined numerous interfaith organizations, including the pioneer Interreligious Council of Southern California. But the scrupulous wearing of white clothes and head coverings by Bhajan’s followers, as well as their emphasis on outward symbols, sometimes gives a deceiving picture of Sikhism as practiced by many Indian-ancestry Sikhs, say some leaders.

“The majority of Sikh men do not have a turban and beard,” said Dr. Shivdev Singh, a Harvard-trained pediatrician from Palmdale who himself wears a beard and turban. “Many wear the bracelet, but most do not carry the kirpan (sword).”

Rajen Anand, a physiology professor at Cal State Long Beach, agreed. “It is human nature not to look conspicuous,” he said.

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak, who was born in 1469, during a period of conflict in northern India between Hindus and Muslims. Similar to Islam, Guru Nanak taught that there was one God, and like Hinduism, he also taught karma and reincarnation.

Devout Sikh men and women are expected to never cut any body hair--thus, the turbans for men--and to wear four other symbols of faith: a steel bracelet, a comb, special undershorts and a small, ceremonial sword.

The tradition of Sikh bravery in defense of justice became known worldwide as Sikhs were formed into elite troops in British colonial forces. Although making up only 2% of India’s population, today they are more than 7% of the armed forces.

The name “Singh” that identifies the male as Sikh means “lion.”

Sikhs began settling in California’s agricultural regions in the San Joaquin Valley and in Imperial County during the first third of the 20th Century. The first Sikh temple in the U.S. was founded in Stockton.

Another wave of Sikh immigrants arrived in the late 1960s and 1970s, composed mostly of students and professionals. Many were doctors, college professors and businessmen.

Singh, the Palmdale physician, was president of the Sikh Council of North America in 1981-82. The organization attempted to serve the needs of Sikh temples “and hopefully to pass on our heritage to our children,” Singh said.

The religious council, however, was replaced by the politically oriented World Sikh Organization following the June, 1984, attack by Indian soldiers of the Sikh’s Golden Temple at Amritsar in Punjab.

The attack preoccupied and politicized many American Sikhs, dividing them between those who favored creation of a Sikh state separate from India and those opposed. A number of Sikh men who were clean-shaven for professional reasons grew beards and went back to long hair and turbans.

“It was a time when people like me, who opposed a separate Sikh state, were forced out of the temples,” said Inder Singh, a computer software consultant who lives in Tarzana. He immigrated to the United States in 1968 and held positions in the first Los Angeles-area Sikh temple on Vermont Avenue in Hollywood.

“I think the Sikh Council would have taken a major lead in (interfaith activities) were it not for the events of 1984,” he said.

Despite the divisions within their faith, worshipers tend to be granted freedom of conscience on matters such as dress at the three Sikh congregations in the Valley, spokesmen said.

About 60% of the 150-member temple congregation seeking to locate in North Hills are Sikhs who emigrated to this country from East Africa, where many do not follow the rules of Sikh appearance. Spokesman Harry Manku himself cuts his long hair and trims his beard.

Manku maintained that if the North Hills neighbors could see his group’s services in the Granada Hills Women’s Club, they might be more receptive. “We have been meeting in Granada Hills for the last five years and never had any sort of complaint,” he said.

A smaller Sikh temple of 60 members, which bought a commercial building on Parthenia Street in Northridge in 1991, purposely sought to avoid zoning difficulties.

“We did see another property in a residential area and we found that we might have problems with neighbors,” said spokesman Gajender Shah Singh, 55, a businessman who lives in Agoura Hills. “We didn’t want to spend too much energy getting the place.”

Instead, the Nanak Sadan Sikh Temple, which holds services in a converted workshop, is an occasional victim of taggers. “It looks ugly,” he said. “Every time we clean the place, they come and paint more graffiti.”

Singh said that the group is looking for a building near other churches where zoning problems might be avoided.

The largest Sikh temple in the Valley, the 1,000-member Sikh Gurdwara on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, was purchased in 1989. The plain-looking building was formerly a Masonic Temple.

Services there start as early as 7 a.m. and continue until 3 p.m. each Sunday to serve worshipers who come from as far away as Simi and Antelope valleys.

“Some stay only 10 to 30 minutes and some stay all day,” said temple president Malkiat S. Sidhu, an architect-contractor.

“Whoever comes on Sunday must eat the food--it’s sacred to eat the food,” Sidhu said, emphasizing the Sikh tradition of food and lodging for any visitor, regardless of their religion.

Even with the spacious worship hall in North Hollywood, Sidhu said that the growing Sikh population “needs more places” in the Valley.

The 1990 U.S. census estimated 43,828 residents with East Indian ancestry lived in Los Angeles County, but the government does not ask for religious affiliations.

Tarzana’s Inder Singh, chairman of the National Federation of Indian-American Assns. in this country, said he estimates that Sikhs make up about 15% of the people in Southern California who have roots in India, which would mean there are about 6,500 Sikhs in Los Angeles County.

The occupations of the Sikh population in the Los Angeles area is changing, he said. The immigrants of 15 to 25 years ago, often well-educated professionals, are now helping relatives to immigrate and find jobs at convenience stores, gas stations, liquor stores and motels. There is also evidence of some Sikhs who have entered the country as illegal aliens, he said.

Some newly immigrant Sikhs, who bring traditional beliefs and practices to the U.S., may be critical of the less orthodox practices of more Americanized Sikhs.

Dr. Singh of Palmdale, who worships at the North Hollywood temple, said that he welcomes the religious freedom Sikhs enjoy in America even though it may create some conflict within his group.

“Sikhs feel very fortunate to be Americans,” he said. “If Sikhs are not keeping up their religion intact, I think we are the ones who are responsible for that. We shouldn’t find a scapegoat in Western culture.”

The Sikh Way of Life

The Sikh way of life has been summed up as meditating on God, honest labor and sharing earnings with others.

In a break with the Indian caste system, Sikhism demonstrates its belief in equality by offering free food to anyone after religious services. The gurdwaras , or temples, also traditionally offer free lodging to the needy.

The Sikh religion, Sikhism, is one of the world’s youngest, dating from the birth in 1469 of founder Guru Nanak Dev in the northern India state of Punjab.

Still rooted in Punjab, where the majority are Sikhs, the world religion claims more than 18 million Sikhs, slightly above the global total for Judaism.

By tradition, Sikhs (pronounced SICKS in Punjabi, but often SEEKS in the West) are expected to cut no body hair. In modern practice, however, many Western-influenced Sikhs do trim their hair and beards.

The admonition regarding hair ( kesh in Punjabi) is one of “the five K’s” of outward symbols of faith for Sikhs. The others, to be worn or carried by the devout, are the kirpan , a small ceremonial sword; the kangha , a comb for cleanliness; the kada , an iron wrist bracelet, and the kachha , special underpants to symbolize a pure life.

Because of historical circumstances, Sikhism defined itself in distinction from Hinduism and Islam. Unlike Hinduism, Sikhs are monotheistic, believing in one God. Unlike Islam, Sikhs do not require fasting periods, rigid prayer schedules or pilgrimages.

Singh is supposed to be used as the last name for men and Kaur for women. But in practice, many Sikhs outside of the Punjab province drop the name or use it as a middle name.

The holy scriptures are considered a living guru, called Guru Granth Sahib, inasmuch as the 1,430-page book of mostly hymns embody the works of the faith’s first 10 human gurus as well as the works of other holy men. The last Sikh guru--Guru Gobind Singh, who died in 1708--performed the last editing of the Granth (pronounced GRUNT) and formed the Khalsa Brotherhood to assume human leadership of the movement.

Sikhs accept the Eastern religious concepts of karma, that humans are punished or rewarded by their actions, and that humans have gone through cycles of rebirth. But Sikhs believe the transmigration of the soul can end through meditation and divine grace.