The Sikh Practice of Langar, a Free Meal Where Everyone Is Equal
135 comments
·January 14, 2025dghf
cmrdporcupine
Man, I have memories of helping serve in a inner city "missions" as part of my (evangelical Xian) church youth group and with my parents once as well and in all instances there were so many strings attached -- at the time I didn't see anything wrong with it but the older I got the more it disturbed and upset me and led (in part) in the long run to my atheism.
Was only later that I realized that at its onset Christian theology was novel among ancient religious systems in that it is not content with getting you to do deeds and rituals and be part of a religious community .. that's not enough. It requires complete psychological conversion ("ye must be born again") and subservience to the belief system, and also to get other people to do the same. And the "here's some food but what you really need is Jesus" thing goes along with that and really rubs me the wrong way.
TLDR I respect faith communities that serve only for the sake of serving. I never saw that in mine.
WorldMaker
Something I've found helpful in my studies trying to square my own atheism with the faith of my parents and grandparents and trying to figure out how much of Xian faith to throw out with the bathwater, is how much it started to feel apparent that most of the blame for all this rests somewhat squarely with Paul. It's Paul's huge mansplaining-energy Letters that bulk up the New Testament with their Make the Roman Empire Great Again rhetoric [1]. It's Paul's Letters that do so much of the work to set the conservative "faith not deeds" and patriarchal "tithe to the church as the new Empire" problems. It Paul's Letters that most directly retcon the actual "services and deeds over beliefs" (and liberalism and disregard for the Roman Empire) of Jesus' actual messages in the Gospels. It's Paul's Letters that are so especially focused on the afterlife over the current life, in part because Paul wrote those letters as passive aggressive threats of war.
I've about gotten to the point where I feel I can suggest that I will attend services with my family if I can get them agree that there will be no readings from any of Paul's Letters. That's a hard request to make sometimes because my family isn't evangelical but Roman Catholic, and Paul is hugely respected still by the Roman Catholic church (for the obvious reasons that it is the church that Paul most directly built). But it is slowly giving me a framework of being able to say here's where I have problems with your faith and here's what I like about the faith: the gospels minus the miracles, and the actual teachings of Jesus. (Unsurprisingly one of my favorite versions of the Bible is the Jefferson Bible. It's pamphlet sized. It might be so much better for the world if it replaced all the Gideon's Bibles. Also, I can recommend A Gospel for Liberals by Todd Eklof as another great view of the gospels.)
[1] Very literally, so. Most of the "to" groups were conquests of the Roman Empire either threatening to leave or already left.
tpmoney
The funny thing about the “faith not deeds” view to me is that it doesn’t square with what we’re told will happen when you’re finally judged. There is a very explicit list of things that we are told we will be judged on: feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and caring for the sick. “As you did for the least you also did for me” or something like that. And then people that didn’t do that they’re the ones cast out. Not “did you convert enough people”, “did you pray hard enough”. Not even “do you believe in me”. Those are indeed to various degrees doctrines of the faith, but all of them are also accomplished tangentially if you’re already doing the things you will be judged on.
In my (admittedly limited) view, the actual lessons of the Christian faith as outlined place huge limitations on your own behavior, but demand generosity and gracefulness to others. Christians are commanded to adhere to the precepts, but it is not for Christians to judge anyone else, including other Christians. Instead their role is to serve others as commanded. To cloth the naked, heal the sick and feed the hungry… without any expectation from those you are serving. If you expect specific duties or actions, you are no longer serving, you’re selling.
readthenotes1
I think Paul's stuff is deviant from the first 5 books.
I contrast Corinthians 11:5, which I have never seen followed even among missionaries, with Acts 15:10-29, we're in the disciples get together and decide what's really important about being Christian. Spoiler: it's not putting women in their place.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians...
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2015&versi...
cmrdporcupine
Yeah I agree with much of this.
Thing is, effectively Christianity as defined by the earliest Church councils really is "Paulism". That plus the Nicene creed and its definition of the trinity. Which all ends up being really about purging the Judaism from Christianity.
A pre-Constantine and even more extremely, pre-Paul, "Christianity" could be interesting -- though really could be considered a kind of Messianic Jewish cult, and perhaps also influenced by Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, and Roman/Hellenistic paganism.
But I mean, I don't need any of it. But in a way I'm glad I studied the scriptures as a child, and then again as an atheist from a "wtf did they tell me .. that's not actually in there lol..." POV
inSenCite
Man, Langar is always awesome. They are not shy on serving size and the food is almost always legit amazing. Dont' miss out on the halwa!
One of the mind blowing things about this is the sheer amount of people some of the Gurdwaras end up feeding (1000s) and how non-trivial the whole process is from kitchen to serving. All volunteers generally.
savrajsingh
A key purpose for langar was to challenge the prevailing caste system — people of all castes would be equalized by sitting together and sharing a community meal, a revolutionary concept.
__rito__
Exactly. This is in common with Gaudiya Vaishnavism of Bengal, where people has to sit on the floor and eat along with people of 36 castes- (so called) low and high, at the same level at festivals.
dyauspitr
Yes Sikhism was a result of/was heavily influenced by the Bhakti movement that started in the south of India around 1000 years ago and then rapidly spread through central and northern Indian. It’s akin to the Protestant movement in that it de emphasized the role of Brahmins and interlocutors and emphasized a personal relationship with god.
himmatkhalsa
It's still revolutionary to sit down with people you don't know and share a delicious meal. Sitting on the floor is something we don't do all that often in the West, so IMO, that also opens one's eyes to a different perspective. Langar was and still is revolutionary!
JumpCrisscross
> still revolutionary to sit down with people you don't know and share a delicious meal
The revolutionary part isn't sitting with strangers. It's sitting with strangers across classes. The equivalent to a langar in the West would be everyone in a community dining at the soup kitchen.
WeylandYutani
Revolutionary in India. I am an atheist but I have to give Christianity credit all are equal before god.
makingstuffs
Just to correct a small detail, you don’t need to attend a service to visit langar hall and have a meal. Generally Gurudwaras serve 3 meals a day and you can just visit them. From my experience they will do their utmost to serve you regardless of the time when you arrive.
If you’re ever near one and want to serve they usually are very welcoming of any help and I find the process to be quite meditative, personally.
hshshshshsh
If you think everyone is not equal just keep in mind that in 100 - 200 years the Universe is going to recycle you and everyone living here and allocate atoms and consciousness somewhere else. There would be no exceptions.
Now meditate on this till you realize your resume or ego or sense of who you are is just a miscalculated compute cache you hold on to keep your mind away from this truth.
MichaelZuo
Why does it matter so much what people think about everyone else?
e.g. Someone can think everyone worships the flying spagetti monster or UFOs or whatever. And I’ll merrily go on life not knowing or caring.
hshshshshsh
What AIs think probably matter. So might be useful.
MichaelZuo
Why would that matter either?
null
null
r00fus
Even more extreme - keep in mind that everyone is a literal Ship of Theseus - we cycle all our atoms every 7-10 years.
ddtaylor
In theory we exist to escape that and truth is temporal.
hshshshshsh
What does truth is temporal mean?
ddtaylor
It means one thing being true for one person changes both with respect to that person but more importantly with respect to time. What most people believed was truth 500 years ago is mostly removed now and we have to understand them on the information they had at the time.
stephenitis
Existential Crisis, Terror, Acceptabce
Traubenfuchs
My media literacy is not strong enough to understand if all the positive content about Sikh is "organic" or a very successful campaign by them to increase their reputation.
On reddit I keep reading about them doing great things, volunteering, silently providing what is needed to people in emergencies, for example the current wildfires in the US. (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/1i0kavt - currently prominently featured on the front page) And now there is even some on Hacker News.
I am not disparaging anyone here, I am honestly curious about this pattern I have recognised.
JumpCrisscross
Between the assassination in Canada [1] and attempted assassination on U.S. soil [2], there is international curiosity about (and default sympathy for) a group most previously didn’t know existed.
(There may have also been awareness in the American and Canadian Sikh communities that they need to educate their fellow countrymen about who they are and why they’re the subject of what looks like a new form of state-sponsored terrorism.)
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/what-is-known-about-m...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216647148/after-foiled-assas...
jgrahamc
there is international curiosity about (and default sympathy for) a group most previously didn’t know existed
You didn't grow up in the UK then. Made me laugh to think of not knowing Sikhs exist.
JumpCrisscross
> You didn't grow up in the UK then
I didn’t, but I do have Indian heritage. I knew Sikhs existed and the basics of their customs, but I was unaware of e.g. Operation Blue Star [1] or the Khalistan independence/separatist movement [2].
Plenty of Americans and Canadians (and, I’d posit, Brits) meanwhile could probably recognise the headdress and little more.
piltdownman
Same story in Ireland, we've even changed the uniform rules for our police force in recent years to allow for the Sikh Turban in lieu of the traditional hat.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ive-had-guys-we-are-ar...
Sikhs and Gurkhas would be reasonably well known and have a pretty sterling reputation in Ireland/UK - but that cultural consciousness would sharply decline the further you get into Western Europe due to historical colonisation being African rather than Indian focused.
mschuster91
> a new form of state-sponsored terrorism
Government assassinations of exilants... that's sadly not new at all. Back when Yugoslavia was governed by Tito, the regime sent out killer squads across the world for about half a century [1] - mostly Germany was targeted (because most Yugoslavs ended up there as Germany was rich and happily accepted emigrants fron Yugoslavia), but Croats got also targetted in places as far away as Canada, South Africa, Argentinia or Australia.
It's a dark part of history many people to this day aren't aware of, it only made the news again for a short time after the attacks on Litvinenko, Skripal and Khangoshvili respectively.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Attentaten_auf_Exilk...
JumpCrisscross
You're correct. But it's not frequent on the American homeland.
obvious78
[dead]
Brian_K_White
Sikhs are literally the nicest. Just read anything about them from any source. Best if you can find someone how has ever met any. I've known some but you don't know me so it doesn't count for much.
They are the real deal.
cultofmetatron
for the most part I can concur. I've travelled the world and i've met assholes in just about every race and religion except sihks. and I've met enough sikhs to have a reasonable sample size. I'm sure they have their assholes too but I'm honestly amazed I havent' met one yet.
amriksohata
We shouldnt make general assumptions about any community as a positive on one minority can disparage another community, we are all human, come to see Sikh politics in Punjab and you can make your own judegments.
Beas
While I appreciate the sentiment of not glorifying any one demographic, It’s hard for me to take your comment(s) in this thread seriously.
As a Sikh, I was raised with the Gurus’ teachings that all paths in life are unique and equal, given the person is genuinely trying to make a positive impact on the world, and that good deeds should be recognized and emulated.
I agree with you that Sikh politics in Punjab are often very performative and a hindrance to the progression of the state, but the rest of your comments (like equating langar to prasad in what almost seems like an attempt to erase the uniqueness of Sikhi) comes across as slightly offensive, not to mention inaccurate.
At the end of a Sikh ardas (prayer), we pray for “sarbat di bhala”, or the well-being of everyone. To me, this is also a reminder that at the end of the day, we are all the same on some fundamental human level that transcends religious belief and difference, and as a result, I like to find positives in communities and try to apply them to my own life, so I ultimately disagree with the suggestion not to appreciate the positives of one culture/religion because it may “disparage” another that doesn’t have those same practices.
Brian_K_White
Are you Sikh yourself? Because in my experience so far, one would never say a thing like this. While you did. That is an example of the difference in integrity between them and most anyone else. You would say "They're no so perfect", and maybe they aren't, but they would never say the same thing about you, regardless how true.
gjvc
"a positive on one minority can disparage another community"
horseshit
ChrisMarshallNY
They also have the coolest weddings.
b800h
I get the impression that there's some sort of controversy that brewed over in the US / Canada recently. I'm based in the UK and my opinion of Sikhs has always been positive, as a general group.
scheme271
The Indian government got caught trying to assassinate some Sikh activists that have previously called for an independent Sikh state. The Indian government considered them terrorists and the US/Canadian governments didn't.
JumpCrisscross
> Indian government got caught trying to assassinate some Sikh activists
"A former Indian intelligence officer" [1] is charged with directing the attempted killing of "a dual citizen of the United States and Canada" [2] on American soil. (They succeeded in Canada [3].)
It was an incredibly provocative and stupid move, on par with MBS's Khasshogi assasination, but if Riyadh had taken its bone saws to Pennsylvania. (A fair comparison would be America conducting a Bin Laden raid on an Indian national in India.)
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-charges-ex-indian-intellige...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurpatwant_Singh_Pannun#cite_n...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardeep_Singh_Nijjar#Death,_su...
navane
Yeah afaik they don't need to raise any reputation.
constantcrying
Social media puts us all into an alternate reality.
The video on Reddit is on some level a good example, as the title directly contradicts it's content. In the video you see precisely one person identifiable as a Sikh and many other people, who are clearly not Sikh, performing the same task. Most definitely it isn't "the Sikh community" doing anything. It isn't even clear who provided the resources here.
Reddit especially is full of things like that, small snippets of an event presented as if it were the whole story. It is a very effective propaganda tactic and groups obviously benefit from portraying themselves a certain way and using these tactics to frame an issue a certain way.
2Gkashmiri
not all sikhs wear a turban....... just so you know
constantcrying
What a novel revelation. Tell me then, what percentage of the Sikh population are white women? 40%?
sirtaj
What do you mean "clearly not Sikh"? Just not wearing a turban?
constantcrying
Have you looked at that video at all?
jbjbjbjb
It says Khalsa Aid USA provided the resources
constantcrying
Oh wow, I did not notice. That is an earth shattering revelation.
My post was explicitly about how you can not trust reddit headlines with 30 second videos, which show nothing about the claimed events. But now that you have pointed out that the headline actually says something it has to be true, thank you so much for your attention to detail. I don't know how I could have missed this tiny detail which my entire post was about.
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copx
I think it's the same phenomenon as with the Kurds. Both groups need the West because they are existentially threatened in their native region and have no other allies.
The Kurds are surrounded / occupied by Turks, Arabs, and Iranians - all who have a long history of trying to exterminate the Kurdish people / culture.
Sikhs aren't any better off with their native lands being ruled by either Hindus or Muslims, two groups who have a long history of trying to exterminate the Sikhs.
That's why both groups - quite frankly - suck up to the West so hard and are often picture perfect immigrants because they really don't want to be sent back. Because whatever "racism" you might think exists in the West, it is nothing compared to the religious hatred coming from Muslims and (to a lesser extend) Hindus.
rldjbpin
Interesting parallels, but some important distinctions needed:
- Kurds have at least a millennium-old history [1], while Sikhism is much more recent in comparison. The latter do not share the same level of regional complexities as besides the diaspora migrating in the past century, their presence is shared between two countries split up during their independence.
- In recent history we have seen armed conflicts with Kurd factions, especially in Syria, but this has not been the case for the past decades for the latter. The insurgent movements [2] for the latter were much like the IRA movement, in the past but not forgotten for some.
From my eyes, it seems that a vocal small section of the expat population wants to promote the separatist ideals, for the land they have long left not out of fear of prosecution solely for their identity.
The original article is a reflection of the act of servitude to others, but it is must be viewed separately from the conflicts a part of the group following the faith might have elsewhere.
[1] http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kurdish-language-i
prawn
I'd guess that it just came about after the wildfire story, and a few curious people looking further into it.
From my one experience at a Langar event, it really was as advertised - very welcoming, zero pitch or expectation and quite refreshing.
nkoren
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it were organic, spurred on to some extent by recent news in Canada.
Many years ago I worked on a project in Amritsar, which had me regularly engaged with the Golden Temple (the most sacred place in the Sikh religion) authorities. I have to say that all the Sikhs I interacted with were fantastic: honest, generous, hard-working, fun-loving, good-hearted people. I do think a lot of this was grounded in Sikh religious principles, which promote a kind of radical moderation that's actually pretty unique among religions. (the story goes that the founding guru of the Sikhs had two sons, one of whom destroyed his life with gambling and alcohol, and the other of whom destroyed his life with asceticism and abstinence. The guru repudiated both of them, saying that the latter was as much of a vice as the former. Instead, he preached that the point of life was to be happy, and to make other people happy: have a family and take good care of it, take care of other people, don't be an asshole, and have a good time. Balance these imperatives well, and you're doing God's work. As far as organised religions go, it's really pretty great.
And langar at the Golden Temple is a truly amazing experience. Men and women from every strata of society, from every religion, sitting down together to eat good food in silence. No preaching or any other bullshit -- the shared togetherness and humanity is enough. Honestly, it's profound. One of my dreams for later in life, when I have the time, is to go back there for a few weeks and volunteer to cook in their kitchen.
That said: Sikhs aren't all cuddles and sunshine. Early in their history they were strictly pacifistic, and also heavily persecuted. After a while, one of the head Gurus decided that if the way to do God's work was to live a good life, and there were oppressors who were committed to preventing you from doing so, then a necessary part of God's work would require, er, helping those oppressors to reincarnate as quickly as possible. Ever since then, they haven't been keen on turning the other cheek, and have had a very strong martial/military culture. There's still a very strong ethic that you shouldn't use violence unless there's absolutely no alternative -- but if you do have to use violence, then you might as well be bloody good at it. But of course the more that one participates in violence, the greyer the morality becomes. So I wouldn't dare wade into the India vs. Khalistan conflict: I'm sure that many of the beefs on both sides are well-founded at this point. But if you can separate the culture and the religion from the politics -- then yeah, it's a really great thing they've got going on there, and I think it's great for the world to have more exposure to it.
mschuster91
> After a while, one of the head Gurus decided that if the way to do God's work was to live a good life, and there were oppressors who were committed to preventing you from doing so, then a necessary part of God's work would require, er, helping those oppressors to reincarnate as quickly as possible.
That is a viewpoint that I believe was ... either missed, ignored or deemed to collide too much with back-then views on national sovereignty after the world wars. Humanity decided to give itself at least a basic set of rules of civilized behavior - think of stuff like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 or the Hague and Geneva accords on waging war.
But what good are these rules, when there was and is barely any enforcement of them, especially against large/hegemonial powers? The utter majority of war crime tribunals were against African warlords and a couple of the worst actors in Yugoslavia during the 90s collapse/independence wars. Meanwhile, all of the permanent UNSC member countries (especially the US, Russia and China, but also France and the UK) have faced a host of credible war crime or general human rights violation accusations, and so did and do many of their protege countries - in the Western sphere, Turkey is accused of a genocide against the Kurds, Israel with the Palestinians, and on the other side we got accusations of a physical and cultural genocide of Russia against Ukraine, of China against Tibetans and Uyghurs, or Syria's falln regime against everyone but Alawites.
atonse
Even though I am Hindu by birth (but not at all religious, personally), I always admire Sikhs culture of service.
I want to post this video[1] because I think the HN crew will appreciate this.
When you feed people for free, more people show up. So instead of turning them away, what do you do? You use machines and efficiency to feed MORE people.
It is absolutely amazing.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWWe2U41N8
When I think about how our schools (in America) mostly feed kids processed frozen sad looking food, I think about videos like this.
Where there's a will, there's a way... to feed kids and others fresh food with real ingredients with the help of automation.
sanmon3186
It’s not uncommon for Hindus from northern India to worship Sikh Gurus alongside their own deities. Similarly Sikhs often visit Hindu temples. This is generally not seen as unusual.
While there have been some instances of tension between the two communities, things are not as bad as media might suggest.
atonse
Right, I just meant that as an "outsider" I admire this particular pillar of values that are espoused daily.
ddtaylor
I experience good interactions with Sikh people. The local store I go to one is operated by a Sikh and the other is operated by an American - someone I went to school with ages ago. The Sikh store is always in shape and if I forget my wallet he let's me pay when I come back or calls me if I forget my wife's candy bar. The American store never looks up from his phone, when I forgot my wallet looked at me stunned at the idea of coming back next time (I am in daily and live down the road and operate a local business) and the one time I know I forgot something they made no attempt to resolve it and wanted me to buy another all with a very entitled tone.
gigatexal
I love this. If you’re going to be religious then being true to whatever that is and actually living that faith is cool — especially cool if it benefits society as a whole like this does.
nottorp
I can't figure out if this is an article about Sikh practices that happens to include a recipe, or an article about the recipe with way too much extraneous information :)
HelloNurse
The article can be both, discovering nice neighbours and their recipes aren't opposites.
nottorp
Is it, or is it recipe SEO but instead of reminiscing about the taste of the madeleine^H^H^H^H poor aunt Jane's deprived childhood and cooking they pasted something legit about said Sikh practices?
HelloNurse
The recipe is obviously bad (e.g. it says to stir a pressure cooker, and to put lots of spices in a pressure cooker in the first place): I guess it is incompetently adapted from the overly terse notes of a Sikh cook who knows what they are talking about, and therefore it seems to be an attempt to add a useful appendix to a typical article about community life.
kjsingh
Langar halls are also places of community where you can interact with strangers in your area and build sangat (similar to community). Most people would do sewa (help out) in langar and then eat. Also you cannot waste. People would eat down to last bit rice before handing back plates. The one who is taking Langar, the one who is serving, consider each other as Guru (Waheguru/God) doing both the serving and consumption of food. Washing the plates is the most imp sewa and usually that part of kitchen is always busy (people seek it).
pkphilip
I love the sikhs and their passion to serve. It is amazing to watch the richest sikhs serving alongside the poorest in the kitchens preparing the langar and then serving it
Once a month (or possibly more often, I didn't keep track), the local Sikhs where I used to live would set up a stall on the high street and give away hot food to all-comers, no questions asked, donations gratefully received but absolutely not necessary, zero attempts at proselytising.