on religious training in early childhood

I don’t know about rest of India but the place I grew up at was poor, some criminal, smuggling yet others illiterate hard working folks....I remember when I opened my eyes or as far as I can remember in my childhood...more than 60% of the land in our village was barren and "kallar"..now you can’t find an inch where they don’t grow something...one thing they were really bad were religiousity..I mean good. I went to pinD da school until high school and I don’t remember once my father, mother or anyone else telling me or instructing me to do any memorizing or reciting religious text. I did not go to gurdwara formally just for praying until I was in college where I saw boys from urban background doing so....some of us rural boys were surprised to find out people go to gurdwara everyday or every Sunday in shehar...we thought you go there only on "masseya" or "sangraand" or vaisakhi. My nani was a bit religious and so my mother used to be most religious in our neighourhood when she came after marriage to my father’s home....after 10/15 years I remember my nani making fun of us that only one person knew how to do "paaTh" in whole family (recital) and now that has forgotten too. One of shocking memories of my mother in her in-laws home was finding a stack of kissa’s in my grandfather’s room...he was fond of reading and reciting Waris di Heer and other kissas...in my mother’s family such love stories were considered bad influence...when my my mother told my Nani that her father-in-law reads Waris and Peelu’s kissas, nani told her don’t tell anyone here, otherwise they will think we have found such a bad fmaily for you... We did not had full functional gurdwara in our village until after I left....my first real introduction to some of the texts from the Granth was I think in our 9th or 10th school syllabus of Punjabi...where we read Baba Farid, Guru Nanak, Bulleh Shah, Waris along with modern poets...I remember at the same time we read Kabir, Meera, Surdas etc in Hindi class. of course these portions were more literary than religious.

like

simbal rukh sarayra att’ dheeragh att’ much
oaye je aawe aas kar jaye nirase chit
phall phikkay phull bak bakkay kamm na aawe patt
miThat neewiN Naanka gunn changayeaN tatt

or

Farida kaale mainDay kapray kaala mainDa vais
aughan bhareya main phiraN, lok keh darwaish

Only people religious around us were people who have been really really bad in their youth or ex-alcoholics or ones trying to recover from it by diverting their attention. rural punjab I believe on Pak side was also very traditional and not very religious.

Of course there were pockets and times which produced some fanatics. Most people believed or practiced going to samaadhs, mazaars or to baba’s....as stupid and ritualistic as it is, such people usually are not communal or fundamentalists...they go there to get something to have some wish fulfilled and if it does not they move to the next baba or place...pretty business like behaviour.:-)

that was untill early 80’s...of course from 83/84 till 90’s things went pretty bad...and lot of people became religious atleast visibly and we all know what followed.

before formal school system in Punjab, sikh kids used to go maulvi to learn writing and reading..hence lot of older people have read gulistan bostaN and Rumi....then sikhs started parallel system to teach gurmukhi and religious texts in gurdwaras..which continued until 30’ 40’s probably....but after independence as formal school system took roots in every village....people abandoned teaching by Bhai at gurdwara...now even poorest of poors and illiterate does not send his kid to gurdwara for getting any kind of education. Although some schools run by religious orgs do give religious training and practice some religious decorum in schools...but mostly it is not.

Rigrous religious teachign in gurdwaras in western world where people take their kids for Sunday school is new and producing some very confused individuals with some fantasies simialr to madrassa students but fortunately this indoctrination goes only until kid is 10/12 years old...most kids absorb it as a part of their heritage and move on with their lives.

Nonetheless there are a number of religious seminaries in Punjab where they train kids until they grow up to be adults for religious preaching like Sikh Missionary college or Damdami Taksal(which produced Bhindranwala). But their influence is very limited and not more than couple of thousand kids enroll in such place in whole of Punjab.