It was after Independence and the partition of Punjab that the quality of Sikh leadership was vulgarized and went into rapid decline. Able men like Swaran Singh, Pratap Singh Kairon and Giani Zail Singh went out and joined the Congress party. The educational and ethical standards of the emerging Akali leadership fell well below the level of their predecessors. Factionalism, switching parties to better prospects of getting ministerships or lucrative posts in state-controlled enterprises, became the chief motivating factors. Corruption became rampant in the gurdwaras. Misuse of gurdwara funds for political purposes and manipulating the enormous patronage of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC) over the appointments of head priests, granthis, ragis, sevadars, the personnel of thousands of educational institutions, hospitals and orphanages were used to consolidate personal political power. The prime example of the degradation in the quality of leadership of the SGPC was Gurcharan Singh Tohra, a leftist of very little education who succeeded in being re-elected president for sixteen successive terms and, at the same time, had two terms as a member of Parliament, which he rarely attended. In secular politics, it saw the emergence of men like Badal. Balwant Singh and Amarinder Singh, whose sole commitment was to themselves. Gentlemen-politicians like Barnala were sidelined. In due course, the clergy, consisting of head priests, ragis and granthis felt that they had been left out in the cold for too long and staked their claim to control gurdwara funds and have their voice heard in community politics. Thus, the elected SGPC yielded power to priests nominated by it. It saw the elevation of the hymn-singer Darshan Singh Ragi15 to the post of acting head priest of the Akal Takht and, for a very short period, guiding the destinies of the Panth. In their turn, the clerics had power wrenched out of their hands by lads of the All-India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF) and nominees of the Damdami Taksal reared in the Bhindranwale school of terrorism. It is they who began to call the shots in more senses than one.
The Sikhs’ self-image bears little resemblance to reality. The spirit of one-upmanship which had helped them in becoming the most prosperous and go-ahead community of India was replaced by empty bombast. Devotion or religion gave way to a display of religiosity. Religious life declined into meaningless ritual and Akhand Paths through hired granthis; worship of the Granth, as if it were an idol, replaced its study as an hymnal of religious philosophy; and kirtans by professional ragis demanding high fees like film playback singers proliferated. Ragis and granthis acquired vested interests in perpetuating these practices. Despite claims of outlawing the caste system, discrimination against lower-caste Sikhs is only a shade less than amongst Hindus. The message of goodwill towards all mankind enshrined in the Granth has been reduced to a litany to be chanted on ceremonial occasions; Guru Gobind Singh’s exhortation to draw the sword only after all other means have failed to bring evil-doers to the right path is honoured more in the breach than in observance. Few people dare to condemn gangsters who haul out innocent, unarmed people from buses and kill them, lob grenades in crowded marketplaces and cinemas. The Hindu baiter, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, has become a martyred hero of lumpen sections of Sikh society. At times it appears that perhaps the Khalsa have run the course of history prescribed for them and that their Gurus in their inscrutable wisdom have given them leaders who will fulfil their deathwish.
The Monsoon in Indian Literature and Folklore
Monsoon is not another word for rain. As its original Arabic name (mausem) indicates, it is a season. There is a summer monsoon as well as a winter monsoon, but it is only the nimbus southwest winds of summer that make a ‘mausern’—the season of rains. The winter monsoon is like a quick shower on a cold and frosty morning. It leaves one chilled and shivering. Although it is good for the crops, people pray for it to end. Fortunately, it does not last very long.
The summer monsoon is quite another affair. It is preceded by several months of working up a thirst so that when the waters come they are drunk deep and with relish. From the end of February, the sun starts getting hotter and spring gives way to summer. Garden flowers wither. Wild flowering trees take their place. First comes the silk cotton, the coral and the flame of the forest, all scarlet and bright orange. They are followed by the firier flamboyant, known in India as the gulmohur. The last of the hot summer’s flowering trees is the laburnum which is a bright, golden yellow. Then the trees lose their flowers as well as their leaves. Their bare branches stretch up to the sky as if begging for water, but there is no water. The sun comes up earlier than before and licks up the drops of dew before the fevered earth can moisten it up. It sears the grass and thorny scrub till they catch fire. The fires spread and dry jungles burn like matchwood.
The sun goes on, day after day, from east to west, scorching relentlessly. The earth cracks and deep fissures open their gaping mouths asking for water, but there is no water—only the shimmering haze at noon making mirage lakes of quicksilver. Poor villagers take their thirsty cattle out to drink; both man and beast are struck down with the heat. The rich wear sunglasses, and hide behind curtains of khas fibre on which their servants pour water.
The sun makes an ally of the breeze. It heats the air until it becomes the loo (India’s khamsin) and sends it on its errand. Even in the intense heat, the loo’s warm caresses are sensuous and pleasant. It brings up prickly heat. It produces a numbness that makes the head nod and the eyes heavy with sleep. It brings on a stroke which takes its victim as gently as the breeze bears a fluff of thistledown.
Then comes a period of false hope. The temperature drops. The air becomes still. From the southern horizon a black wall begins to advance. Hundreds of kites and crows fly ahead. Can it be . . .? No, it is a dust-storm. A fine powder begins to fall. A solid mass of locusts covers the sun. They devour whatever is left on the trees and in the fields. Then comes the storm itself. In furious sweeps it smacks open doors and windows, banging them forward and backward, smashing their glass panes. Thatched roofs and corrugated iron sheets are borne aloft like bits of paper. Trees are torn up by the roots and fall across power lines. The tangled wires electrocute people and set houses afire. The storm carries the flames to other houses till there is a conflagration. All this happens in a few seconds. Before you can say Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the gale is gone. The dust hanging in the air settles on books, furniture and food; it gets in the eyes and ears, throat and nose.
Rudyard Kipling has described the pre-monsoon heat of northern India in his story False Dawn,1 in which an ardent suitor caught in a dust-storm proposed marriage to the wrong sister:
I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter, but nobody seemed to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind began lashing the orange trees with a sound like the noise of the sea. Before we knew where we were the dust-storm was on us, and everything was roaring, whirling darkness.
Again it was Kipling who captured the feeling of listlessness that the months’ searing heat produces:2
No Hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in,
And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down.
Full on the bosom of the tortured town,
Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin
That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease,
And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite
Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light
The torment of the uncomplaining trees.
Fall off, the Thunder bellows her despair
To echoing Earth, thrice parched. The lightnings fly
In vain. No help the heaped-up clouds afford.
But wearier weight of burdened, burning air,
What truce with Dawn? Look, from the aching sky
Day stalks, a tyrant with a flaming sword!
This happens over and over again until the people lose all hope. They are disillusioned, dejected, thirsty and sweating. The prickly heat on the back of their necks is like emery paper. There is another lull. A hot petrified silence prevails. Then comes the
* shrill, strange call of a bird. Why has it left its cool bosky shade and come out in the sun? People look up wearily at the lifeless sky. Yes, there it is with its mate! They are like large black-and-white bulbuls with perky crests and long tails. They are pied-crested cuckoos (Clamator Jacobinus) who have flown all the way from Africa ahead of the monsoon. Isn’t there a gentle breeze blowing? And hasn’t it a damp smell? And wasn’t the rumble which drowned the bird’s anguished cry the sound of thunder? The people hurry to the roofs to see. The same ebony wall is coming up from the east. A flock of herons fly across. There is a flash of lightning that outshines the daylight. The wind fills the black sails of the cloud and they billow out across the sun. A profound shadow falls on the earth. There is another clap of thunder. Big drops of rain fall and dry up in the dust. A fragrant smell rises from the earth. Another flash of lightning and another crack of thunder like the roar of a hungry tiger. It has come! Sheets of water, wave after wave. The people lift their faces to the clouds and let the abundance of water cover them. Schools and offices close. All work stops. Men, women and children run madly about the streets, waving their arms and shouting ‘Ho, ho’—hosannas to the miracle of the monsoon.
The monsoon is not like ordinary rain, which comes and goes. Once it is on, it stays for three to four months. Its advent is greeted with joy. Parties set out for picnics and litter the countryside with the skins and stones of mangoes. Women and children make swings of branches of trees and spend the day in sport and song. Peacocks spread their tails and strut about with their mates; the woods echo with their shrill cries.
After a few days the flush of enthusiasm is gone. The earth becomes a big stretch of swamp and mud. Wells and lakes fill up and burst their bounds. In towns, gutters get clogged and streets become turbid streams. In villages, mud-walls of huts melt in the water and thatched roofs sag and descend on the inmates. Rivers which keep rising steadily from the time the summer’s heat starts melting the snows, suddenly turn to floods as the monsoon spends itself on the mountains. Roads, railway tracks and bridges go under water. Houses near the river banks are swept down to the sea.
With the monsoon the tempo of life and death increases. Almost overnight grass begins to grow and leafless trees turn green. Snakes, centipedes and scorpions are born out of nothing. At night, myriads of moths flutter around the lamps. They fall in everybody’s food and water. Geckos dart about filling themselves with insects until they get heavy and fall off ceilings. Inside rooms, the hum of mosquitoes is maddening. People spray clouds of insecticide and the floor becomes a layer of wriggling bodies and wings. Next evening, there are many more fluttering around the lampshades and burning themselves in the flames. The monsoon has its own music. Apart from thunder, the rumble of storm-clouds and the pitter-patter of rain-drops, there is the constant accompaniment of frogs croaking. Aristophanes3 captured their sound: ‘Brek-ek-ek-ex, Koax, Koax! Brek-ek-ek-ex, Koax Koax!’
While the monsoon lasts, the showers start and stop without warning. The clouds fly across, dropping their rain on the plains as it pleases them, until they reach the Himalayas. They climb up the mountain sides. Then the cold squeezes the last drops of water out of them. Lightning and thunder never cease. All this happens in late August or early September. Then the season of the rains gives way to autumn.
The monsoon is the most memorable experience in the lives of Indians. Others who wish to know India and her people should also see its impact on the country. It is not enough to read about it in books, or see it on the cinema screen, or hear someone talk about it. It has to be a personal experience because nothing short of living through it can fully convey all it means to a people for whom it is not only the source of life, but also their most exciting contact with nature. What the four seasons of the year mean to the European, the one season of the monsoon means to the Indian. The summer monsoon is preceded by desolation; it brings with it the hopes of spring; it has the fullness of summer and the fulfilment of autumn all in one.
It is not surprising that much of India’s art, music and literature is concerned with the summer monsoon. Innumerable paintings depict people on rooftops looking eagerly at the dark clouds billowing out from over the horizon with flocks of herons flying in front. Of the many melodies of Indian music, Raga Megha-Malhar is the most popular because it brings to the mind distant echoes of the sound of thunder and the falling of raindrops. It brings the odour of the earth and of green vegetation to the nostrils; the cry of the peacock and the call of the koel to the ear. There is also the Raga Desh and Hindole, which invoke scenes of merrymaking—of swings in mango groves and the singing and laughter of girls. Most Indian palaces had specially designed balconies from which noblemen could view the monsoon downpour. Here they sat listening to court musicians improvising their own versions of monsoon melodies, sipping wine and making love to the ladies of their harem. The most common theme in Indian songs is the longing of lovers for each other when the rains are in full swing. There is no joy greater than union during monsoon time; there is no sorrow deeper than separation during the season of the rains.
The Indian attitude towards clouds and rain remains fundamentally different from that of the Westerner. To the one, clouds are symbols of hope; to the other, of despair. The Indian scans the heavens and if nimbus clouds blot out the sun, his heart fills with joy. The Westerner looks up and if there is no silver lining edging the clouds, his depression deepens. The Indian talks of someone he respects and looks up to as a great shadow, like the one cast by the clouds when they cover the sun. The Westerner, on the other hand, looks on a shadow as something evil and refers to people of dubious character as shady types. For him, his beloved is like the sunshine and her smile a sunny smile. An Indian’s notion of a beautiful woman is one whose hair is black as monsoon clouds and has eyes that flash like lightning. The Westerner escapes clouds and rain whenever he can to seek sunnier climes. An Indian, when the rains come, runs out into the street shouting with joy and lets himself be soaked to the skin.
The Monsoon in Indian Literature
The monsoon has exercised the minds of Indian writers (as well as painters and musicians) over the centuries. Some of the best pieces of descriptive verse were composed by India’s classical poets writing in Sanskrit. Amaru (date uncertain, but earlier than ninth century AD) describes the heat of the summer and the arrival of the monsoon (page 70, verse 68):
The summer sun, who robbed the pleasant nights,
And plundered all the water of the rivers,
And burned the earth, and scorched the forest-trees,
Is now in hiding; and the autumn clouds,
Spread thick across the sky to track him down.
Hunt for the criminal with lightning-flashes.
To be away from one’s wife or sweetheart during the season of rains can be a torture (page 76, verse 92):
At night the rain came, and the thunder deep
Rolled in the distance; and he could not sleep,
But tossed and turned, with long and frequent sighs,
And as he listened, tears came to his eyes;
And thinking of his young wife left alone,
He sobbed and wept aloud until the dawn.
And from that time on
The villagers made it a strict rule that no traveller Should be allowed to take a room for the night in the village.4
Literary conceit and facetiousness have always been practiced by Indian poets. Thus Sudraka (probably third-fourth century AD) has a girl taunt a cloud (page 73, verse 81):
Thundercloud, I think you are wicked.
You know I’m going to meet my own lover,
And yet you first scare me with your thunder,
And now you’re trying to caress me
With your rain-hands!
Bhartrihari5 (AD 500 or a little earlier) went into erotic ecstasies combining descriptions of the monsoon with dalliance (page 101, verse 137):
Flashing streaks of lightning
Drifting fragrance of trop
ical pines,
Thunder sounding from gathering clouds,
Peacocks crying in amorous tones—
How will long-lashed maids pass
These emotion-laden days in their lovers’ absence?
He writes of ‘autumnal rains rousing men’s lusts’ (page 103, verse 140):
When clouds shade the sky
And plantain lilies mask the earth,
When winds bear lingering scents
Of fresh verbena and kadamba
And forest retreats rejoice
With the cries of peacock flocks;
Then ardent yearning overpowers
Loved and wretched men alike.
While the downpour lasts there is little that lovers can do besides stay in bed and make love (page 105, verse 142):
Heavy rains keep lovers
Trapped in their mansions;
In the shivering cold a lord
Is embraced by his long-eyed maid,
And winds bearing cool mists
Allay their fatigue after amorous play.
Even a dreary day is fair
For favoured men who nestle in love’s arms.
Once the rains have set in good and proper, clouds, lightning and rain become a routine affair (page 79, verse 102):
Black clouds at midnight;
Deep thunder rolling.
The night has lost the moon:
A cow lowing for her lost calf.
Monsoon is not only trysting time for humans but also for animals and birds, above all India’s national bird, the peacock. Yogesvara (circa AD 800) describes the courtship dance in these beautiful lines (page 125, verse 216):
Not a Nice Man to Know Page 21