Sikh-Hindu Conundrum: Who’s Who!!!
Previous Part: Sikh-Hindu Conundrum – An Introduction
On Republic Day, a highly charged Sikh mob unfurled their flag ‘Nishan-Sahib’ in the ramparts of the Red Fort. It invited anger from several quarters. In response to that, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, in the parliament, ferociously eulogized the virtues of ‘Nishan Sahib’. She called ‘Red Fort’ as ‘the seat of Oppression’ for the Sikh as the order to kill the ninth Guru- Teg Bahadur was proclaimed from there. She poked a jibe at the Hindus, ‘why was our ninth guru martyred’? and then fervently retorted, ‘For preserving your janeu (sacred thread) and Tilak’. Immediately, Meenakshi Lekhi tried to club Guru Teg Bahadur as the guru of both Sikhs and Hindus by calling him ‘our’ guru, but Harsimrat Kaur was not impressed by what she perceived as the appropriation of the ninth Guru by a Hindu.
The exchange of words between Kaur Badal, a Sikh, and Lekhi, a Hindu, regarding Who’s who, was not a coincidence but a reflection of the difference between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ embedded in the Sikh consciousness. This demarcation between the two communities had never been this stark, arguably, till the time British arrived.
In the previous article, we drew attention to the sense of insecurity among Sikhs of being considered a subset of Hindus, which has led them to misinterpret Bhakti saint Surdas’s verses to establish their distinct identity. In this article, we shall deconstruct the neo-Sikh identity in the light of historical interventions which transformed Sikh identity into a ‘monolithic, codified, and closed culture’[1] as we view it today.
So, what constitutes a neo-Sikh identity? As per the official document of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), ‘The code of Conduct and convention’ or Sikh Rahit Maryada states,
Any human being who believes in the one eternal being, ten gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib, can be called a Sikh, provided that he does not owe any allegiance to any other religion.
The document offers detailed do’s and don’ts of a Sikh, and forbids idol worship, doing ‘homa’, performing Arti, applying Tilak or wearing the sacred thread, placing Kalash in their sacred space, consulting auspicious occasion or horoscope before marriage or observing funeral rituals like Pind Danam or ancestor worship during Shradh paksha. Moreover, it explicitly mentions that Sikh should not believe in Vedas or Shastras or mantras like Gayatri. On the funeral pyre, Sikh should not do the ‘Kapal-Kriya’ of the dead.
It directs a true Guru-Sikh to undergo baptism, where he ‘renounces his previous lineage, abdicates his caste affiliations,’ descent, birth, country, religion etc.’ and becomes ‘a pure Khalsa’ and maintains the five K’s, that is sporting kesh (unshorn hair), wear a Kara (bracelet), Kashera (soldier’s short), keeping a comb (kanga) and a Kirpan (sword).
But was the demarcation between Hindu and Sikh always like this? Certainly not. In post-colonial times, it is surely hard to imagine ascetic order like Udasi or Nirmala within Sikhism, which doesn’t follow the above dictums zealously. But they exist. Udasi are the ascetic-order within the Sikhs, started by Baba Sri Chand, son of Guru Nanak. Udasi literally means to be disenchanted from the material world. They immerse in adoration and perusal of the sacred volume of the doctrine of Guru Nanak.
Nirmala ascetics have their origin during the time of Guru Gobind Singh. In order to translate the Sanskrit classics in Punjabi and Braj for easy reach of the common masses, the tenth guru sent five of his disciples to Benaras to acquire competency in the Sanskrit language, where they lived as brahmacharis. They returned as ‘Pure one’, the unsullied. From there, the tradition of the ascetic order of Nirmala started that interprets Guru Granth in the light of Vedanta.[2]
So we can say with conviction that Sikhism was meant to be much more diverse than it is today. It was possible to be an ‘Udasi, Nirmala, Suthresashi, Sangatsaihbie, Jitmale, Bakhatmlie, Bagatbhagavanie, Mihansahie, and still be considered a Sikh’[3] without being zealous about maintaining the external symbols of five K’s, which is now considered as an essential practice of Sikhism. The Five K’s have been historically linked and followed by those initiated in the Khalsa order, which had a military as well as political character.
For the ease of understanding the metamorphosis of the sikh identity, let’s use Harjot S Oberai’s classification of Sikh History in four crucial phases. First is the ‘Guru phase’ covering the period of sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Second is the heroic phase with the end of the British annexation of Punjab in 1849. And third is the colonial phase lasting till 1947 and fourth is the post-colonial period.
The Guru Phase (1600-1707): vars or (heroic odes with several stanzas) of Bhai Gurdas Bhalla (1558-1636) provides insight into what it meant to be a Sikh during the embryonic phase of the community. ‘There can hardly be a better source’[4] than Bhai Gurudas Bhalla, who was a contemporary and close associate of the four Sikh gurus, well known for his role as a scribe of the Adi Granth.
According to him, ‘it was required that a Sikh should rise before dawn, bathe and recite the sacred composition of the’[5] Guru Nanak and his successors. ‘In the early hours of the morning, a Sikh should visit a Dharamshala, the place used for devotional singing and prayer in the locality, and participate in the activities of the assembled Sangat’[6].
‘Bhai Gurdas advised the Sikhs to be humble, courteous and charitable, to eat, speak, and sleep in moderation, and, in doing so, to transcend the human ego’[7]. Following the ‘precepts of the gurus’ is the ideal way to overcome the affliction caused by unrestrained human energies and chaotic living.
The doctrine of the Gurus was put together as the Adi-Granth by Guru ArjunMal, or Guru Arjan as he is now called. The first Guru Nanak has the maximum contribution in the corpus of the Adi Granth, while rest of it comes from Kabir, Ramanand, Mira Bai and other vaishnava or sectarian teachers.
Guru Arjun was the first of the two gurus martyred on account of his increasing popularity among the ‘infidels’. Moreover, Guru Arjun placed saffron Tilak on the forehead of Khusrau ‘wishing him good fortunes on his journey’, but the paranoid jahangir interpreted this harmless act of Guru Arjun as covert support to Khusrau, who was Jahangir’s rival to Mughal throne. Therefore, Guru Arjun was arrested in Lahore in 1606. In Jail, he was tortured to convert to Islam and add hymns in praise of Mohammad in his newly compiled Adi-Granth. The guru did not relent and he was put on a red hot iron plate in the scorching heat while white hot sand was poured on his body. He bore the punishment with steadfastness and bravery before giving up his life.[8]
Much to the chagrin of neo-Sikhs, we find that placing tilak on the forehead, that too by the Guru himself, was not a taboo, as it is construed now. There were no explicit statements on an independent Sikh Identity but elements were enunciated which will be significant in the later construction of the exclusive Sikh identity. Like centrality of the belief in the utterances of the Gurus, ‘need to go to Dharamshala’, out of which the Gurudwara was to emerge as a salient institution in the cultural and political identity of the community, and repeated emphasis on the ‘sangat’ as a body of ‘Gursikh’ who is an ideal man, the follower of the doctrine of Gurus.
In the Guru Phase, the focus was more on the philosophical aspect of Guru’s doctrine, the theological aspect or ritual ascept like five K’s was conceived during the Heroic Phase (1708-1849).
If the meta-commentaries are to be believed, it was on the day of the Baisakhi festival in 1699 that the Tenth Guru established the Khalsa Order and commanded his disciple to maintain the five external symbols. However, one must be cautious as there is a ‘lack of positive historical evidence’[9] to back the believed legend. Moreover, noted scholar of Sikh history, Mcleod has an interesting but controversial view that ‘till the end of the eighteenth century the five symbols of the Khalsa had not been clearly stated in the Guru Kian Sakhia written in 1790’[10]. Moreover, Pashaura Singh is of the opinion that five K actually stands for the five weapons, which a Khalsa was obliged to carry, the kesh Kangha etc were later, colonial time, additions. Nevertheless, Guru Gobind Rai assigned adherents of the Khalsa order the name of Singh- or lion, a term usually associated with Hindu Rajput. Hence the tenth Guru was called Gobind Singh.
The tenth Guru is credited to introducing a code discipline of ‘rahit’ to the Sikh identity which included the five k’s, but again historically it remains unclear what precisely constituted the rahit in the eighteenth century or how was it enforced or punishment meted out in case of transgression.
Eighteenth century literature ‘Guru-Bilas’ is very important in this context. The various buffalo sacrifices offered to Goddess Chandi by the tenth Guru and his Khalsa and her invocation in the Khalsa order’s foundation point to Khalsa devotion to the Hindu deity.
It was in this Heroic phase that the evolving sikh community lost its guiding hand with the death of the tenth master in 1708. He forbade any human as his spiritual successor but the Adi Granth to be considered as a living guide to the community with regard to rituals or authority. In the case of ‘insoluble crises’, the community was to turn to the collective wisdom of the community (Sangat).
Before the arrival of the British, the later dichotomy between Sikh and Hindu identities was not even discussed. Shaving head, smoking tobacco or opium was not a taboo for believers in Guru’s doctrine. Except for the initiation rite, the communities ‘rites de passage’ were similar to Hindus.’[11]
Another historical document known as ‘sau-sakhia’ is believed to contain sermons of Guru Gobind Singh delivered just before his death. According to Historian Louis E. Fenech, ‘sau-sakhis’ was produced sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. But the document is important as it gives insight into the spiritual aim of a Sikh. The Guru explains that the spiritual goal of ‘brave’ is to cross the ‘ocean of existence’ by breaking the cycle of birth-dying-rebirth. He uses Hindu scriptural terminology like “Maya”, deities like Kuber and even gives reference to Rig vedic King ‘Raja Bipasachit’[12]. In Hindu terminology, this very exit from the cycle of birth-rebirth is called ‘Moksha’. So, we can say with much conviction that before the arrival of the British, the knowledge-myths, texts, narratives, folklore produced by non-Sikh authors were accorded a firm place within the Sikh cosmology. Festivals like Kumbha at Haridwar were important for Nirmalas and Udasi sects, where they were regular attendees in large numbers.
The intervention of the British grossly altered the dynamics between the Hindus and Sikhs during the Colonial phase which lasted from 1849 to 1947.
The construction of the neo-Sikh identity was the response to the threat perception from the juggernaut of Hinduism, borrowing the eloquent phrase of the much celebrated Irish-origin-British officer, Max Arthur Macauliffe.
“[Hinduism is like a] boa-constrictor of the Indian forests. When a petty enemy appears to disturb it, it winds around its opponent, crushes it in its folds and finally causes it to disappear in its capacious interior…..Hinduism has embraced Sikhism in its folds.”[13]
Macauliffe warned that if the British Indian state did not intervene, Sikhism would meet the same fate as that of Buddhism, which had lost its hold over India.
A wannabe Max Mueller, Macaullife hankered for the same respect which Mueller got for his translation of Vedas. Although his works are problematic and miss the dispassion of a historian , Macauliffe is credited to be the first writer to document Sikh History in English, which runs over six volumes.
For Macauliffe, by denouncing priestcraft and ‘idolatry’ Kabir and Nanak stood for the same values which Wycliffe and Luther stood for in medieval Europe, warning people of the errors that had crept into Christainty. While the reforms that Luther et al introduced created a new sect within Christianity, Macauliffe intended to create a new religion based on arbitrary criteria. He lamented that Sikhs were fast losing values their Gurus nurtured, so much so that they were sliding into the cult of Goddess or getting dependent on Brahmins for their birth, marriage or death rites.
Preserving the Sikh identity, as Macauliffe understood, was not the one way favour that the British were doing for Sikhs. The strategic location of Punjab made it the ‘bulwark of the British Power in the land’ against any invasion from the western front. It was a necessary condition for the British to appease clan chieftains, who were dominantly Sikhs, so as to win their loyalty and get their men enlisted in the British Army. Macaulliffe had an understanding that Punjab was the first home of the Aryans and the Sikhs had retained their ‘vigorous masculinity’ and were the ‘most martial of the subject races of British Indian empire’, and therefore, ‘Sikhs were physically and spiritually worthy of being collaborators with the British ruling India’.
In the grand project of rescuing Sikhism from the folds of Hinduism, Macauliffe’s close associate, Bhai Kahn Singh, was the royal tutor of the princely state in Nabha. Macauliffe and his small coterie did linguistic and theological hair splitting, reinterpreting the Sikh texts to suit their discourse.[14]
The Singh Sabha movement took the lead in reforming the Sikhs in the late nineteenth century. Tat Khalsa formed the radical section of the Singh Sabha. Kahn Singh of Nabha was the prominent leader of Tat Khalsa. He wrote the first book asserting a distinct Sikh identity “Hum Hindu Nahin’ in 1898. It was a radical ideology of the Tat Khalsa that prevailed over the Singh Sabha and through consecutive movements later in early twentieth century, it took a firm hold over Gurudwaras. Thus, the spiritual institutions became vehicles to propagate the narrative of the Tat Khalsa.
And thus ‘the house of Sikhism was purged of most of these older conventions and practices’[15] which included a pilgrimage to Haridwar or Benaras, practice or observance of rituals like Hom, shradh or believing in the horoscope.
The newly constructed identity revolved around the five K’s, ‘visiting only Sikh shrines, considering Punjabi as the sacred language of the Sikhs, conducting rites de passage according to the prescribed rituals’[16]. Sikh sects like Nanak-panthis or Nirmale ascetics who were generally called ‘Sanatanist’, did not conform to the ‘new paradigm’ and were sidelined forever, often dubbed as ‘Patit’ or apostate.
Once the ‘Hum Hindu Nahin’ separatist discourse got institutionalised, Sikh Leaders added another dimension of territoriality or the desire for a homeland in the neo-Sikh identity during the Postcolonial phase (1947-1985). They incessantly articulated the seaparatist political rhetoric, asking why Sikhs got nothing when ‘the Hindus got Hindustan, the Muslims got Pakistan’? In 1966, the government in the centre caved in the demand for a separate, Sikh majority state within the Indian republic but the aspiration for a separate, sovereign Sikh state remained embedded in the Sikh consciousness, which often finds expression in the form of absurd statements made by Akal Takht Jathedar. For example, on June 7, 2020, they declared,
“As for Khalistan, if someone gives it to us, we will take it. We never said no or denied it, no Sikh will say no. We will take better care of it”[17].
Even the most secular events exacerbate the identity issue and flare intense passion. During the decade of the sixties, a non-political and non-religious achievement like ‘The Green Revolution’ was perceived as a ‘Sikh miracle in their own backyard’[18] that is Punjab. There was a popular narrative among Punjabi Sikhs that they fed other Indian states. Now, Sikhs not only perceived themselves as ethnically and religiously different but economically better off than the rest of India.
The decade of seventies saw the political rise of Bhindranwale, a charismatic religious preacher, whose speeches had exceptionally egregious overtones. His negative influence was compounded by the sense among Sikhs that the Government of India was discriminating against Punjab by diverting their resources to other states. Hindus of Punjab silently, and unjustifiably, faced the repercussions.
The military crackdown, Operation Bluestar, on the Golden temple, the ensuing assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and revenge riots engineered by political leaders following her death, embittered the Sikhs even more against the Indian State.
The conundrum of who’s who is not limited to the Sikhs with respect to Hindus, it has taken over the internal politics of the Sikhs that has resulted in motivated interpretation of the Guru’s doctrine, resulting in a political advantage to the radical group over others.
As happened in July 2008 during the graduate programmes of Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical science and Research at Amritsar, run by Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), Sikh parents expressed dismay over the admission, under seats reserved for Sikh students under minority quota, of those children whose parents didn’t qualify to be Sikhs as per the norm laid out by SGPC. According to them, these candidates were not eligible as their parents had diluted the essential practices of being a Sikh, like not cutting hair. Many Sikh students protested, claiming that they had been denied admission to MBBS courses in the college mentioned above, on the ground that they were either trimming their beard or plucking their eyebrows[19].
Moreover, in April 2016, with the passing of the very contentious Sikh Gurdwara (Amendment Bill) 2016, those Sikhs who observe relaxation in maintaining five K’s, commonly known as Sehajdhari Sikhs, were legally debarred to participate in the election process of Shiromani GurudwaraPrabandhak Committee (SGPC), the body which manages the Sikh shrines and the property attached to it[20]. Thus, Sikhs who were non adherents of Khalsa, were debarred from legally participating in Sikh institutions.
Conclusion
Much water has flown under the bridge since the time Nanak lived and gave his doctrine to transcend the human ego. Now, the importance of external appearance has reached absurd levels. Be it Harsimrat Kaur’s rant in the parliament, Yograj singh’s virulent statement against Hindu women, Punjabi songs demeaning Hindu rituals as superstition or the blockade against Farm laws. All these events and expressions do not emerge out of nowhere rather it is the pent up collective frustration of the disenchanted Sikhs, in India or abroad. This frustration originates from a fake identity, manufactured in the colonial era which is essentially an ‘intersection of history and geography, discourse and space, territoriality and metacommentary’. So how will this conundrum of who’s who be resolved ? Perhaps dispassionate deconstruction of the neo Sikh identity.
[1] From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary Harjot S. Oberoi
[2] the Encyclopedia of Sikhism Volume III, Punjabi University, Patiala, pages 236–237
[3] From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary
Harjot S. Oberoi
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6]Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Lakshman Singh, Sikh Martyrs
[9] From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary
Harjot S. Oberoi
[10] Sikhism and History by Pashaura Singh, N. Gerald Barrier.
[11] From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary
Harjot S. Oberoi
[12] Martyrdom and the Sikh Tradition
Louis E. Fenech
[13] Dining alone in Rawalpindi? Max Arthur Macauliffe: Sikh scholar, reformer, and evangelist
Foley, Tadhg
[14] Dining alone in Rawalpindi? Max Arthur Macauliffe: Sikh scholar, reformer, and evangelist
Foley, Tadhg
[15]From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary
Harjot S. Oberoi
[16] Ibid
[17]https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/akal-takht-jathedars-remarks-on-khalistan-create-a-flutter-6446392/
[18] From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary
Harjot S. Oberoi
[19] The politics of Sikh identity:Understanding Religion Exclusion: Paramjit S Judge and Manjit Kaur
[20]https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/why-sahajdhari-sikhs-are-opposing-the-sgpc-act-amendment-bill-2773158/
