Why are all the gurus of the Sikh community male upper castes?

This article is from a series of Questions asked on the internet and answered by Shekhar Bodhakar

I am not answering this question as a Sikh but as a rationalist with an inquiring and inquisitive mind. Many Sikhs may not agree with me but I urge you to consider the possibility of negative Brahmanic influences in Sikh institutions and eliminate them for the sake of a better future for the next generation of Sikhs.

These are two very good questions in one but why have you, as a questioner, chosen to remain anonymous?

FIRST QUESTION :

WHY ARE ALL THE GURUS OF THE SIKH COMMUNITY MALE? (I assume you are referring to the ten commonly accepted gurus in the Sikh religion)

We see in all popular world cultures that the founders/gurus/philosophers of major social, political and religious movements have always been mainly males, especially in the Indian subcontinent.

Why single out just the Sikhs?

The Sikhs haven't specifically CHOSEN males as gurus. The gurus are gurus because of what they taught about how to best develop yourself as human beings. I believe, if there had been female teachers who taught in line with the same philosophy as other Sikh gurus, then surely they would have been considered as gurus too.

Unfortunately we do not know of any females who did that (There were certainly notable Sikh women who upheld the Sikh faith to highest of standards, especially after the creation of the Khalsa Panth). Do you know of any woman from the time of Guru Nanak Dev ji to Guru Gobind Singh ji, who the Sikhs COULD HAVE included in the list of major Sikh gurus but didn't?

Is this the fault of Sikhs or the dominating Brahmanic culture in which women, being physically the weaker sex, were suppressed?

Times were such that women were protected and mainly did what was expected of them.

I.e serve the husband, raise children, not going out unaccompanied etc.

How could these women have become leaders of social, political or religious movements in which, the likelihood of covering great distances alone like Guru Nanak, would have been almost impossible?

This changed to a great extent after the formation of Khalsa when women were actively encouraged and trained in the Sikh way of life including warfare tactics, giving them the surname KAUR, meaning princess.

SECOND QUESTION:

WHY ARE ALL THE GURUS OF THE SIKH COMMUNITY UPPER CASTE? (Again, I assume you are referring to the ten commonly accepted gurus of the Sikh faith).

As far as I know, there are thoughts of 36 major guides in the Shri Gurus Granth Sahib (SGGS). Ten of them are commonly referred to as Gurus. The rest, referred to as saints or Bhagats. Collectively, the teachings of all the three dozen guides are considered as ONE AND SAME philosophy incorporated in the SGGS. Thus making the SGGS the ONE GURU to which all Sikhs bow.

A guru by definition is a teacher, a master or a guide, whether he/she is a school teacher or any other guide of any discipline. In this respect all three dozen guides in the SGGS are Gurus.

Nowhere in the SGGS does it say there are only ten Gurus. Why be selective of the 36 guides? Why consider only ten as Gurus? Why not one, either the first or last? Why not both? Why not all 36? Why not just Baba Farid (one of 36), the oldest? Who nominated them as gurus and most important, Why just ten? I have already given the answer to this. There weren't just ten gurus. There were thirty six.

It is my belief that to weaken the Sikhs, there was an infiltration of the Sikh religious institutions by the Manuvadi Brahmins. Brahminism had subtly sneaked in with fake Sikhs and sometime after the creation of the Panth, the Sikh religious institution were fully controlled by the high castes.

They deceptively propagated only the higher caste guides as gurus and the others as Saints or Bhagats. They almost destroyed the essence of Sikhism by promoting a strong sense of caste identity that the Granth Sahib is strictly against. The result of which we see today in the form of building caste based Gurudwaras, ending in the formation of the Ravidassia religion being created in the twenty-first century. It all began because the so-called "low caste" Sikhs at one stage were prohibited from entering the supposedly 'high caste" Gurudwaras. Who brainwashed the Sikh leaders into believing that was the right thing to do? It wasn't the SGGS.

Let's be clear. Not contradicting the SGGS, there are either thirty six Gurus (originally from those castes considered untouchables to high caste khatris) OR just one, the SGGS. Both options mean the same thing.

 ALSO READ:

1. What can be done to eradicate the caste system in Sikhism?

2. Why do some Sikhs and Ravidassis use terms which are counter productive to annihilation of caste, like " Dalit Sikhs" and statements like “Guru Ravidasji was an eminent Chamar according to Guru Granth Sahib”?

3. What is the Indian caste system and how does it work?