Shabd has been someone who I’ve been following for a while and inspired me to start my own podcast, so it was great to get to know a bit more about him and I cannot thank him enough for taking the time out to talk.
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In this episode, we get to know a bit more about Shabd and his upbringing near Washington DC in Northern Virginia, amongst the 3HO community, his parents, who are both converts to Sikhi through 3HO, his background including his mixture of Jewish, Basque and Parisian ancestry, his attendance at Miri-Piri academy in Punjab, his further education, a period of change in his life more recently and his involvement in politics and how it took him further then he could have imagined.
Did you know his mum travelled overland through Afghanistan to reach India in the 1970s?
We continue and talk about how Shabd spends some of his spare time focusing on his own podcast – The One: Intersection of Sikhi/Sikh Affairs and Left/Progressive politics.
How Sikhi is more than a religion, a book called the “Jakarta Method” which helps to map the American backing of the Indonesian death squads of the 1960s (resulting in the death of over a million people) and how this was part of the CIA’s broader project of extinguishing the left wherever it was. Those who doubt socialism and use a lack of historical examples sometimes miss that since inception socialism has been aggressively attacked and undermined by the USA and Western powers & specifically undermined.
Can Sikhs be part of a modern day military? How WWI and WII are not unrelated or disconnected from colonialism and the purpose of modern militaries. The tokenisation of Sikhs, the concept of langar and the human right of food security, the relationship of colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy.
Malcolm X, truly questioning the system, the Khalsa mindset, the acceptance of death, learning and teaching and how Shabd tries to use this to keep grounded when involved in politics.
We then dive into Shabd’s upbringing as a Sikh, experience of the 3HO community and the cult, criminal activities and systems of abuse controlled by Yogi Bhajan. Shabd outlines his own personal journey and the importance of Kashi House’s accessible production of pre-colonial Sikh history that was particularly helpful. Amongst other things, we round off the episode focusing on the 3HO community today, the entities and community of 3HO and why it is important to identify and change the systems around us.
We spoke about so much more than that. More importantly, I learnt so much and thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend time talking to Shabd Singh.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
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