Holding Down the Fort
Chart: Holding Down the Fort
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Mukta Kaur Khalsa, left, an official of the Sikh Dharma religious group,
and Daya Singh Khalsa of Akal Security with President Bush last
September. Akal has donated generously to political campaigns.
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Sikh Group Finds Calling in Homeland Security
*By LESLIE WAYNE*
Published: September 28, 2004
ESPANOLA, N.M. - At the end of a dusty road, behind a barbed-wire fence,
is the Sikh Dharma of New Mexico, a religious compound with a golden
temple of worship, a collection of trailers used for business and a
quiet group of people wandering the grounds wearing flowing white robes
and turbans.
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In the New Age culture here, the Sikh Dharma community, founded in the
early 1970's, provides a place where admirers of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh
spiritual leader and yoga master, can live in harmony and follow their
beliefs in vegetarianism, meditation and community service. Except for
Yogi Bhajan, who was born in India and came to the United States in
1969, most members of the Sikh Dharma are American-born converts who
moved here to pursue their way of life.
The compound is also home to Akal Security, wholly owned by the Sikh
Dharma and one of the nation's fastest-growing security companies,
benefiting from a surge in post-9/11 business. With 12,000 employees and
over $1 billion in federal contracts, Akal specializes in protecting
vital and sensitive government sites, from military installations to
federal courts to airports and water supply systems.
Despite Akal's unusual lineage, Sikh Dharma members say they are
following an ancient Sikh tradition of the warrior-saint - as well as
showing deftness at the more modern skill of landing federal contracts.
"Our customers look at who we are and filter it all out,'' Daya Singh
Khalsa, Akal's co-founder and senior vice president, said in an
interview in his office here. "They couldn't be less interested in our
religion and what we look like.''
Among Sikhs "there is no stigma in being financially successful,'' Mr.
Khalsa added. "Prosperity does not take away from spiritual net worth.
You can have both."
Akal certainly bears that out. It is the nation's largest provider of
security officers for federal courthouses, with contracts for 400
buildings in 44 states, including the federal courthouse in Manhattan.
The company just won a major contract to guard Army bases and munitions
dumps in eight states, and also provides guards for the Ronald Reagan
Building in Washington, blocks from the White House. It handles security
at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, as well as at four
new detention centers run by the Homeland Security Department where
foreigners await deportation.
In the straight-laced world of the security business, where most people
have a police or military background, Akal stands out. It is the only
security company that anyone in the business, including Akal's own
executives, can think of that is owned by a nonprofit religious
organization.
"If we are in a room with 50 other contractors, you won't remember the
other guy, but you will remember us," said Mr. Khalsa, who wears a white
turban, has a long beard and refrains from cutting his hair.
It has also not hurt that Akal has been a generous campaign contributor
to both Democratic and Republican candidates at the federal level, and
that Mr. Khalsa has met with President Bush both in the White House and
in New Mexico. Local New Mexico politicians have also benefited from
this largess - and responded with friendship and support.
Four former New Mexico governors stopped by Yogi Bhajan's recent
75th-birthday party; Gov. Bill Richardson was last year's keynote
speaker at the group's International Peace Prayer Day.
"We play in the political arena like everyone else," Mr. Khalsa said. He
and his wife, Sat Nirmal Kaur Khalsa, who is Akal's chief executive,
have given more than $30,000 to both Democratic and Republican federal
candidates since 2000.
Mr. Khalsa, who was once known as Daniel Cohn, was given his name by
Yogi Bhajan after he moved here in 1971, soon after graduating from
Amherst College. Like other members of the 300-family Sikh Dharma
community, he has adopted the name Khalsa, which refers to a group of
orthodox Sikhs.
The Sikh Dharma community here blends New Age values and orthodox
Sikhism, a monotheistic religion that originated in the Punjab region of
the Indian subcontinent in the 15th century.
"We are not used to non-Punjabis joining our religion; it is a curious
development," said Gurinder Singh Mann, professor of Sikh studies at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, who explained that many of
these new converts are more devout than those born into the religion.