by Owen Cole
Sometimes the media describes jathedars as Sikh high priests and the Akal Takht has been called the Sikh Vatican. It should be clear by now that the idea of a clergy and priesthood and anything approaching a papacy makes a nonsense of everything the Gurus taught and their followers believe.
Should an international Sikh governmental organization exist? It will be for Sikhs to decide how this question should be answered; not because outsiders would like a body with which councils of Christian churches can confer, but because Sikhs themselves feel the need for one. They are unlikely to be pressurized by developments in other religions to conform and break with their own principles.
Defining orthodoxy
The parameters of orthodoxy are matters of perennial concern within religions, though they may go unnoticed by the outside world. Contemporary societies are generally more liberal and tolerant than those of the past when heretics, those who held views unacceptable to established canons of orthodoxy, were imprisoned or even put to death. Some people might argue that this results from the weakening of religious power rather than enlightenment, of course. However, the fundamental issue of defining such words as Jew, Muslim, Sikh or Christian remains.
The definition of Sikh was formalized in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925:
Sikh means a person who professes the Sikh religion or, in the case of a deceased person, who professed the Sikh religion or was known to be a Sikh during his lifetime. If any question arises as to whether any living person is a Sikh, he shall be deemed respectively to be or not be a Sikh according as he makes or refuses to make in such a manner as the State Government may prescribe the following declaration:
‘I solemnly affirm that I am a Sikh, that I believe in the Guru Granth Sahib, that I believe in the Ten Gurus, and that I have no other religion.’
The Gurdwaras Act gave custody of the historic gurdwaras of the Punjab to the Panth through the elected SGPC. Some kind of definition was necessary to decide who had the right to vote or stand in elections to the SGPC. The concern about ‘a deceased person’ had to do with property rights. It was caused by the ownership of many gurdwaras being in the hands of Hindu families as ancestral possessions. A conversion of convenience could result in such families retaining ownership and thus being able to perpetuate the kinds of practices found in Hindu temples. The Act tried to provide safeguards to meet this possibility. The 1971 Delhi Gurdwaras Act, giving control of its gurdwaras to an elected Delhi SGPC, added greater precision to the 1925 definition. It reads:
Sikh means a person who professes the Sikh religion, believes and follows the teachings of Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the Ten Gurus only, and keeps unshorn hair. For the purposes of this Act, if anyone poses the question whether a living person is a Sikh or not, he shall be deemed respectively to be a Sikh according as he makes or refuses to make in the manner prescribed by rules the following declaration:
‘I solemnly affirm that I am a Keshdhari Sikh, that I believe in and follow the teachings of Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the Ten Gurus only, and that I have no other religion.’
Three aspects of these statements might be noted. First, the movement towards sharper definition. Once a Sikh was simply a devotee of the Gurus. By 1925 it was felt that there was a need to stress three features in the act of affirmation, namely belief in the Ten Gurus, the Guru Granth Sahib, and the exclusive statement of having no other religion. Behind this requirement lay the awareness that some Sikhs described themselves as Nanak panthis, that is devotees of Guru Nanak who rejected the developments associated with Guru Gobind Singh embodied in the Khalsa tradition. Secondly, there was also a tendency among some Sikhs to value some of the hymns of the Guru Granth Sahib more than others. For example, chamars, members of the leather worker jati, honoured Ravidas, and sangats comprised solely of chamars might use only his compositions. They also came to regard Ravidas as a Guru, a status denied him by Sikhs. The reference to Ten Gurus could be applied against this tendency. Thirdly, while Sikhs at the popular level of their religion may declare themselves to be Sikhs and Hindus or even Sikhs and Christians, the condition of the Panth at the turn of the century required the inclusion of the phrase ‘no other religion’ when the opportunity came to use it.
A proposal for an Act to place all the gurdwaras of India under the control of one body is being considered at the time of writing. It will be interesting to see how it defines a Sikh.
RAVIDASIS
Mention has already been made of Ravidasis, people who belong to the same social group as the mystic Ravidas (c.1414–c.1526). They tried to improve their untouchable status by becoming Sikhs who were considered to be egalitarian and included compositions of Ravidas in their scriptures. The attempt was not successful, as was the effort which some made to improve their lot through conversion to Christianity. They were permitted to participate in the religious life of the Panth but usually not to serve on committees. Sikhs of other social groups would not intermarry with them. They have responded by establishing their own religious institutions, though they keep the Sikh outward form and use the Guru Granth Sahib as the focus of their worship. Often they now prefer to call their place of worship a sabha (association) rather than gurdwara. An edition of the works of Ravidas is being prepared which may replace the Guru Granth Sahib in worship.
VALMIKIS
Equally unfortunate was the experience of the chuhra (sweeper/cleaner caste). This untouchable group found its attempt to gain full acceptance within the Panth equally difficult. It has therefore turned from Sikhism and Christianity to Valmiki (sometimes written as Balmiki), the legendary author of the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, recognized him as their founder guru and installed the Ramayana as their focus of worship, sometimes together with the Guru Granth Sahib. However, they tend no longer to keep the uncut hair and turban and seem closer now to Hinduism than Sikhism, though they would insist, like the Ravidasis, on their distinctiveness, as well as their wish to remain in good standing with Sikhs as well as other religious groups. Like the Ravidasis, their meeting places tend to be called sabhas, associations, rather than gurdwaras. A chuhra named Bhai Jaita Ranghreta recovered the head of Guru Tegh Bahadur in Delhi and brought it to his son, the tenth Guru. For this his family and caste were honoured. The Guru told him, ‘Ranghretas are the Guru’s own sons.’ Pictures of this episode are often to be found in Valmiki sabhas.
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of two important Sikh reform movements led by Dayal Das (died 1855) and Baba Balak Singh (died 1861). Both of these remained within the Panth but produced a succession of their own gurus. It is against such groups that the emphasis upon ‘Ten Gurus’ in the Gurdwaras Acts of 1925 and 1971 was intended. Another group that the Acts focused on was the Radhasoamis, who also originated in the nineteenth century but outside Punjab, in Agra in 1861, and outside the Panth. They have never regarded the Guru Granth Sahib as their scripture as have the four groups previously mentioned.
However, some of their gurus have come from Sikh backgrounds, and Sikhs in Punjab and elsewhere sometimes attend their gatherings at Beas, following the common Indian practice of seeking spiritual guidance wherever it might be found. The constitution of the Singh Sabha gurdwara in Southall, UK, which says that members should ‘reject belief in any other gurus’ (than the ten Sikh), is specifically intended to discourage Sikhs from religious association with these groups whose danger lies in their apparent proximity to the beliefs and practices of the Panth as well as their physical presence in a very multi-faith conurbation. Unlike the Punjabi village it has no one group that can assert domination, especially as the context is one of a Britain in which the norms have changed only slightly from what they were 50 years ago. Whichever community gains local ascendancy, it remains a fairly powerless minority in broader social terms.
In our conclusion to this discussion of a search for uniformity within the Panth, we must point to the Rahit Maryada’s pervading emphasis upon the desirability that all Sikhs should become amritdhari. Although, as ha
s been seen, the Gurdwaras Acts do not define ‘Sikh’ so rigidly; it is clearly perceived as the norm towards which all should strive. Pressure to accept this definition of orthodoxy is growing both in India and in parts of the diaspora.
Khalistan
This is the name of a concept which some Sikhs hope will be realized in the establishment of an independent Sikh country based on the historical and geographical Punjab, not the present small north-west Indian state. The concept goes back beyond the Partition of India in 1947. In 1945 the Shromani Akali Dal (Sikh political party) put forward a scheme when it became clear that the British government accepted partition. This province would remain within the Indian Union.
Sikhs now tersely express their view of these events in the sentence: ‘The Muslims got Pakistan, the Hindus got India, what did the Sikhs get?’ Faced with the choice of belonging to India or Pakistan, Sikhs say, they chose India because Nehru offered them virtual autonomy whereas Jinnah had offered a religious freedom that he could not guarantee. He said, ‘I see nothing wrong in an area and a set up in the North wherein the Sikhs can also experience the glow of freedom.’
This promise has never become a reality. The federal India which Nehru and Gandhi, as well as Ambedkhar who drafted its Constitution, envisaged has never matched their ideal. It was to have been a secular nation, secular, that is, in the Indian sense of one in which all religions enjoyed equal respect and none was privileged. To protect the secular ideal against his great fear of communalism, Nehru deferred granting Sikh demands for a Punjab state defined along linguistic lines, a quite proper request within the Constitution. As a reward to Sikhs for their loyalty during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who had become prime minister, granted it. The Punjabi Suba, as it was called, of 1966, however, did not satisfy the aspirations of those who wanted a Sikh state albeit within the Union. As Mrs Gandhi defended national unity, designated Kashmir, Assam and Punjab as the regions which threatened it, and increased the powers of central government, so opposition grew.
In Punjab such opposition was led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whom the Congress party hoped to use to embarrass the dominant Sikh Akali Dal party. He proved to be his own man and was eventually destroyed in June 1984 by an Indian army assault upon the Darbar Sahib complex (Figure 14.1), which he had been obviously fortifying for at least six months. On 31 October Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh members of her bodyguard. In Delhi and elsewhere, Sikhs were attacked and many were killed. Rajiv Gandhi, who replaced his mother as premier, attempted to solve the Punjab crisis by drawing up the Punjab Accord with a Sikh leader, Sant Harchand Singh Longawal, in July 1985, but he lacked the authority to implement the agreement. On 26 January 1986, for example, Chandigarh was to be transferred to Punjab. The day came and went but nothing happened. Longawal himself was killed by Sikh militants.
Figure 14.1 An overall view of the Harimandir Sahib in the Darbar Sahib complex which is set in the centre of a large rectangular artificial lake. Visitors always walk around the marble walkway (parkarma) in a clockwise direction.
The events of 1984 and 1986 have not been forgotten by Sikhs in India or elsewhere but the community gets on with its life and draws some satisfaction from the fact that the present leader of India is a Sikh federation in which central authority is curbed and cannot be imposed upon the regions in the way that Mrs Gandhi imposed it. A growing number of Sikhs, however, do no believe that an Indian government will ever have the will to relinquish central power and the immense patrimony which goes with it. At present the militants may seem to be checked in Punjab, though still active. Outside India, the Council of Khalistan under its President, Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh (based in Washington), seeks to influence the USA, with some success, and other governments, and draw attention through such organizations as Amnesty International and the United Nations to what they describe as the continued repression of the Sikh nation. Some diaspora Sikhs support the Khalistan movement financially; many regard the cause as futile, but few, in Britain at least, would not denounce separatist demands openly for they might be dubbed disloyal to their religion.
In 1991 the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won many seats in India’s general election. These were gained by a clear religious appeal to Hindus to make India a Hindu nation. This has often been accompanied by criticisms of Christians and Muslims for being aliens, not true Indians. Sikhs are fearful of the rise of Hindu militancy for two reasons. If the Hindus tell them that they are really Hindus (as the Vishnu Hindu Parishad, a Hindu religious and political group, suggests, calling them ‘Keshdhari Hindus’) their distinctive identity is threatened. If churches and mosques are attacked they fear that gurdwaras will be the next chosen targets. Some Sikhs have moved to the Punjab from other parts of India, anxious to avoid this danger. Occasional Sikh attacks on Hindus in Punjab should be seen in the context of creating an exclusively Sikh state de facto by forcing Hindus to flee, if the Hindu government, as they see it, will not grant them one de jure. This is a form of ethnic cleansing. In every respect it goes against the teachings of the Gurus.
The solution of the Punjab problem may lie in a radical redrafting of the Indian Constitution to produce a federation that gives more regional autonomy. Punjab is not the only region to have been in conflict with the centre, but it is the only one in which religion and politics have united to create a powerful opposition. The rise of Hindu political parties, such as the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with their communalist appeal to Hindus, arguing that tolerance of non-Hindus in the land of Hinduism has gone too far, is unlikely to bring such federal reform nearer, unless the Congress government can find leaders of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru to reinforce the secular democratic ideals upon which India was founded.
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THINGS TO REMEMBER
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sikhism seems to many historians more political than religious. It is not surprising that the phrase ‘martial race’ was attached to Sikhs by the British.
Within the Panth the struggle for survival also had important religious aspects, the impact of which has been important into the twentieth century and beyond.
Sikh Nirankari and Namdhari movements survive as distinct forms of the religion.
Nineteenth-century Christian missions attracted members of the Sikh intelligentsia perhaps because of their apparent sophistication. The Sikh reply took the form of the Singh Sabha movement.
The Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement, became active in Punjab in 1877.
The Rahit Maryada exerts a strong influence upon sangats worldwide and thus on the development of the Panth.
The development of takhts and the role of jathedars are constantly changing.
Questions as to who is clearly a Sikh and definitions of orthodoxy seem to be continually in a state of flux.
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15
Sikh attitudes to other religions
In this chapter you will learn:
about the notion of critical universalism
about the attitudes of the Gurus to other religions
about the influence of history.
India is a land of many faiths. In most parts of the country they may all be experienced as one goes along the main highways. The vast majority of the population of about 1 billion people is Hindu (they number about 800 million), but Islam has 180 million adherents – a population only paralleled by Indonesia and Pakistan. Other groups are fairly regionally concentrated though members are to be found in almost every state; Jains mainly in Rajasthan, Sikhs in Punjab and Haryana, Christians in Kerala. There are now few Jews; Buddhists come usually from the dalit sections of the nation, descendants of the followers of Dr Ambhedkar who discovered that the new India of the late 1940s could not give them the equality to which they aspired. In Guru Nanak’s day there were no Buddhists in India, and Christians had not spread beyond the south.
It is possible, of course, not to be affected in any way by contact with memb
ers of other religions. This position can be found even among people active in the interfaith movement. ‘Live and let live’, ‘we all worship the same God’ are the slogans, while a critical awareness of beliefs other than one’s own does not seem desirable or necessary. It is possible for academics too to adopt this kind of position, bracketing out one’s own beliefs in the study of others. One may also encounter believers who deny the validity of other creeds as a matter of dogma, and so do not find any need to study them, much less share in discussions about them.
Guru Nanak himself pays much attention to the religious traditions that he encountered, principally forms of Hinduism and Islam. To understand Sikhism fully it is necessary to be conversant with his response to them; any study of Sikh attitudes to other religions must begin with Guru Nanak.
A few general points must be made before turning to details. First, it was common until very recently to describe Sikhism as syncretistic, a blend of Hinduism and Islam. Sometimes writers asserted that the Guru took the best from the two religions! We must ask what constitutes the best, and what criteria of choice can be used. His affirmation of one God might be seen as Islamic, while his attitude to women might be said to accord with some forms of Hindu bhakti (devotion). However, with a greater study of these facets, it will be recognized that though his monotheism may be similar to that of, some Sufis, an Islamic origin does not seem satisfactory. As for the equality of women and men he seems to go well beyond the norms of his day, and we have addressed such issues as ritual pollution or the divisions in society which are to be found in Islam as well as in the Hindu caste system. Sikhism must be studied ultimately sui generis and recognized to be a distinctive revealed religion or success will not be achieved. As with all other features of his life and work, the basis of Guru Nanak’s attitudes to the religions he encountered is his concept of God and humanity.