by Kiran Nirvan
To better understand the heroes of the Saragarhi chronicle, it is now important to delve into the origin and transformation of the Sikh race, as these core beliefs are crucial to the stand they took that fateful day in 1897. Quite simply, a ‘Sikh’ is one whose manners are plain and simple, who is moderate in his conduct and honest in his dealings with no dislikes and prejudices or superstitions in his culture. Later transformed into a spectacular combatant surnamed ‘Singh’ by Guru Gobind Singh, a Sikh warrior was feared for his daring and revered for his humility.
The Origins of the Sikhs
The history of the Sikhs spans the time of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, up until the present day. It is further divided chronologically into periods: from the foundation of Sikhism to the establishment of the ‘Khalsa Panth’ by Guru Gobind Singh, from the rise of Banda Bahadur, the disciple of Guru Gobind Singh who conquered large tracts of land from the Mughals in the 1700s, to the end of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule. The Sikhs originally and primarily hail from the state of Punjab, a region in north-west part of India, also commonly known as the land of five rivers where the inter-fluvial area between two rivers known as ‘Doab’ divides the state into the Bist Jalandhar Doab between the Beas and Sutlej rivers; Bari Doab between the Beas and Ravi rivers; Rachna Doab between the Ravi and Chenab rivers; and Chaj Doab between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers. The Punjab during British rule in India had larger expanse than it has today as it included the entire plain between the Jamuna and the Indus rivers. Its northern boundary extended until the Himalayas in the north and its southern boundary was marked by the desert of present day Rajasthan. Most of what is now Pakistan was earlier a part of Punjab, ruled by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the nineteenth century before British annexation.
The region of Punjab has always held importance due to the fact that its abundance of river water and rich fertile land for cultivation coupled with moderate climatic conditions make this region most suitable for settlements. After Alexander’s visit to this region, it was not hidden from the world that vast empires thrived in this region and it was not long before it attracted the attention of the Mughals. As a result, Timur, the recognized predecessor of the Mughal emperors, marched into India towards the end of the fourteenth century. Later, as the successor of Timur, Babur occupied Afghanistan with the intent of spreading his dominions in India. An ambitious Babur then led his Mughal forces and occupied the region of Punjab in the early 1520s. Following in the footprints of Babur, the Mughals would rule over the integral region of Punjab for over 200 years. During the time, the demography of this region was a mix of Baloch, Pathans, Gujjars, Brahmins, Rajputs and Jats. However, the Jats were larger than any other agricultural tribe and had gained numerical superiority by the end of the sixteenth century. During the Mughal rule in India, a variety of Islamic religious beliefs and practices were also introduced in the Punjab region. With this came a confusing mix of languages and dialects and, to this date, it is not clear as to which religion and what language was predominant in the region at the time.
In the midst of this religious, political and caste-based chaos, in April 14691, Guru Nanak Dev was born in a village called Rai Bhoi di Talwandi (present day Nankana Sahib in Pakistan). After his early education and marriage, Guru Nanak left his village in search of work, finally finding a way to make a living in the town of Sultanpur, which was then under the administration of Daulat Khan, an important official of the Mughal empire. For a decade, Guru Nanak lived in Sultanpur with his family but neither his work nor his wife and two sons could keep his attention. He was displeased by the Islamic mysticism introduced into the region with its many superstitions and he began to search for the real purpose of human life, the true light of eternal knowledge.
Guru Nanak disapproved of the brutality with which the early Mughal rulers had begun to destroy temples and deplete religious freedom. Vedic education was being replaced by an interpretation of the Quran, and the message that there was no God but Allah and his messenger, the Prophet Muhammad, had begun to spread across the region. Guru Nanak believed that this weakening of the social order could not be saved by either Hindu or Muslim religious ideologies, and that a new set of ideas was required which would become the basis of a new social order devoid of prejudice and superstition.
After years of meditation, his search ended in a moment of divine calling and he set out on a journey to spread his message, leaving Sultanpur around 1500 AD. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Guru Nanak visited important towns and religious centres of both Hindus and Muslims to question and debate with leaders of various religions practiced in contemporary India and to learn everything he could about society, politics, the education system, caste-based dealings, regional diversity and nature. As he reached his late fifties, his message of redemption, his logical reasoning and spell-binding preaching had begun resonating, attracting loyal followers from all across the Indian subcontinent.
His teachings were based on his belief that all life was suffused with divine light and all creation in this universe was His creation. He who was shapeless, formless, timeless, faceless, casteless and dimensionless and sat at the center of the universe, created a balance. Caste distinctions and social differentiation did not resonate with Him. For Guru Nanak, God had no ‘caste’ and He never discriminated against anyone based on whether they were born into a high caste or a low caste. In one of his verses, Guru Nanak says, ‘Be there the lowest among the low, or even the lower, Nanak is with them.’ Under the prevailing Mughal rule, the roles of Brahmins and Khatris were no longer relevant or well-defined, as a result of which their conduct degraded. The region, as Guru Nanak believed, was full of wrongdoers subsisting on the rightful earnings of others. He preached that those who followed the true path of knowledge were the true Brahmans and those who fought against the wrongdoings were the true Khatris: ‘Satguru Nanak pargateya, miti dhund jag chaanan hoya. [With the emergence of the true Guru Nanak, the true teacher, the mist cleared and the light of knowledge scattered all around.]’
Guru Nanak passed sikhya [instruction] to all who visited Kartarpur, a town on the banks of the river Ravi where he had finally settled for nearly a decade and a half before passing away on 22 September 1539. While the followers he gathered on his journeys cannot be estimated correctly, it is believed that most of his followers were from the state of Punjab. These followers who lived by the sikhya of Guru Nanak came to be known as Sikhs, a Sanskrit word for disciple.
With a core belief in the concept of equality and in the universality of spiritual opportunity, the ideas of Sikhism began to spread rapidly across the region of Punjab. It alarmed the Mughal emperors as the idea threatened their orthodox beliefs and soon the Sikhs were being forced to renounce their religion and convert to Islam. Sensing the looming threat against the ideals of Sikhism, the successors of Guru Nanak began to transform Sikhs into people who could protect their core ideologies.
The Transformation of Sikhs
The Sikh soldiers at Saragarhi would not have been as history knows them if Sikhism had not gone through a transformation post its inception. This transformation tells us a lot about the overall qualities, characteristics and behavioural customs that the Sikh soldiers of the nineteenth century inherited from their ancestors.
Guru Nanak Dev was succeeded by Guru Angad Dev, a Khatri of the Trehan subcaste and a petty trader; Guru Amar Das, a Khatri of the Bhalla subcaste; Guru Ram Das, a Khatri of the Sodhi subcaste and a young hawker; and Guru Arjan Dev, son of Guru Ram Das. These four successors, all from the Khatri background, took the reins of Sikhism in their responsible hands and guided it until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Each of these four successors contributed to the ideology of Guru Nanak in their own distinct way, working within the institutional parameters set forth by him. During this time, Sikhism evolved in terms of numerical strength, composition and social infrastructure. This is also when the concept of the community kitchen – called the langar – was introduced. The follower
s of the Guru would gather in congregation in a place of worship called the gurudwara where they would sing songs in praise of the Guru and listen to bani – the Guru’s teachings sung by minstrels appointed by him. This idea of ‘brothers-in-faith’ and ‘friends-in-faith’ became a source of shared camaraderie among the Sikhs. Between 1574–77, Guru Ram Das got a sacred tank built in the present day city of Amritsar, one that was meant to remove the impurity of the soul and heart from the bodies of those who took a bath in it. The area around the tank slowly grew into a bustling town which came to be known as Ramdaspur, or the town of Guru Ram Das.
The Sikh of the early 1600s became more and more conscious, humble, righteous and non-violent, owing to the teachings of the Guru. A Sikh made by Guru Nanak was a man who did not retaliate and left everything to God. However, even as Sikhism spread far and wide, it drew the ire of the Mughals who wanted to keep the sect’s fame and faith in check. While the Guru’s successors encouraged their followers to cultivate profound faith and trust in God, it became difficult to remain non-violent in the face of growing atrocities committed against them, particularly when Guru Arjan Dev was tortured and executed on 30 May 1606 by the Mughal emperor Jahangir’s men after refusing to convert to Islam.
In fact, Mughal emperors such as Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb wreaked havoc in the lives of Sikhs during their reigns. A few years after the martyrdom of Guru Arjan, Jahangir ordered the imprisonment of Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru, in the fort of Gwalior. Having sensed the dire need of Sikhs being able to defend themselves, Guru Hargobind had moved away from Guru Nanak’s core belief in passivity and started the transformation of Sikhs in earnest. According to historians, Guru Hargobind yielded two swords on his person: one symbolizing his spiritual authority and the other his temporal power. He encouraged his followers to train in martial arts, and those tired of the injustice towards Sikhs did not need much persuasion. Guru Hargobind also added two new features to Ramdaspur: first, a high platform, which came to be known as the ‘akal takht’ or ‘the immortal throne’ where the Guru held his court; and second, as a part of his defensive strategy, a newly constructed fort called Lohgarh. This alarmed Jahangir, who ordered the arrest of the Guru. Later, while justifying the reasons for his activities, Guru Hargobind was able to convince the emperor that he was not a threat and was left alone to continue practicing and spreading Sikhism for the rest of the emperor’s reign. However, after Jahangir’s death, Guru Hargobind knew that it was only a matter of time before the new emperor, Shah Jahan, would wage war against him. Therefore, he developed a protective force around himself and settled down in Kartarpur where he managed to successfully repel attacks by Mughal forces.
The Sikhs had learnt to defend themselves under the influence of Guru Hargobind, but their troubles had only begun. After Aurangzeb succeeded Shah Jahan, he adopted a much more aggressive political and religious policy and went on to persecute every religion that wasn’t Islam. The new emperor had also set his sights on the successors of Guru Hargobind, namely Guru Har Rai, Guru Har Krishan, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last physical embodiment of the Guru. In one of his compositions, it is revealed that Guru Tegh Bahadur had begun to prepare himself and his people for the worst. In May 1675, a group of Kashmiri Pandits met Guru Tegh Bahadur in Makhowal where they informed the Guru about the saddening situation of growing religious persecution in the Kashmir valley by its Mughal governor. Having thought about the issue for a long time, Guru Tegh Bahadur came to the inevitable conclusion that even if he was required to martyr himself to uphold his beliefs in the face of Mughal oppression, he must do so. After nominating his young son Gobind Das as his successor, he journeyed to Delhi to meet the emperor. When Aurangzeb asked him to perform a miracle as proof of existence of his God, he stated that occult powers were not a proof of God’s existence. As a consequence, he was asked to accept Islam but when he refused, he was put in a cage and starved, as the three worshippers who had accompanied him were tortured and then killed in front of him. The first one was Bhai Mati Das, who was sawn in half; the second was Bhai Sati Das, who was wrapped in cotton wool and burnt alive; and the third one was Bhai Dyal Das who was boiled alive in a cauldron of oil. As a true devotee of Guru Nanak and his teachings, Guru Tegh Bahadur did not falter and was eventually beheaded in Chandni Chowk in Delhi on 11 November 1675. The Guru gave up his life for Kashmiri Pandits, who he had not known before they had come to meet him and with whom he shared no kinship whatsoever.
The reign of Aurangzeb was not a cherished time for Sikhism. While many of other faiths faltered in the face of Mughal tyranny and converted to Islam, the Mughals failed to compel Sikhs to do so owing to their supreme faith. Sikhs began to accept all atrocities as the order (hukam) of God – a test of their faith. Targeting the Sikhs – something that had begun after the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev – continued till the reign of Ahmad Shah Abdali (from 1748–67) in genocides that became known as ghallugharas. These atrocities are also recorded in the chronicle Tarikh-I-Alamgiri, written by Muhammad Kazim in 18652:
Abdali’s soldiers would be paid 5 Rupees (a sizeable amount at the time) for every enemy head brought in. Every horseman had loaded up all his horses with the plundered property, and atop of it rode the girl-captives and the slaves. The severed heads were tied up in rugs like bundles of grain and placed on the heads of the captives… Then the heads were stuck upon lances and taken to the gate of the chief minister for payment… It was an extraordinary display! Daily did this manner of slaughter and plundering proceed. And at night the shrieks of the women captives who were being raped, deafened the ears of the people… All those heads that had been cut off were built into pillars, and the captive men upon whose heads those bloody bundles had been brought in, were made to grind corn, and then their heads too were cut off. These things went on all the way to the city of Agra, nor was any part of the country spared.
In spite of the dire consequences, the Sikhs continued to defend their right to worship, which angered the Mughals even more. They plundered Sikh settlements and gathered them forcefully to make them witness beheadings of young men and children who refused to accept Islam. Besides using torture as a tool, the Mughals also often humiliated the Sikhs by raping family members in front of them. This was when the idea of arming the Sikhs to defend themselves as envisioned by Guru Tegh Bahadur began to be implemented with utmost urgency.
1The date of birth of Guru Nanak has been widely debated for years. Traditionally, it is believed that Guru Nanak was born in the month of Katik (October-November) in 1469 which is why Sikhs all over the world celebrate Guru Nanak’s birthday during that time. Modern scholars such as J.S. Grewal, however, have claimed that according to their research, he was born in the month of Baisakh (April) in 1469.
2Basu, Dipak and Miroshnik, Victoria, India as an Organization: Volume One, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; Singh, Iqbal, The Quest for the Past, Xlibis US, 2017.
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From Sikh to ‘Khalsa’
As explained in the previous chapter, the rise of persecution of the Sikhs led to the rise of the Khalsa Panth. The Sikhs were introduced to swords by Guru Hargobind, but all Sikhs as one race needed a show of unified strength to fight the odds stacking up against them. Many other elements of society who were dissatisfied with the Mughals, including Pathans such as Painda Khan, joined Sikhism which soon began to emerge as a rallying point for discontented elements, and those who stood for justice. The supreme martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur only paved the way for the final transformation of Sikhs into an armed force.
Guru Tegh Bahadur was succeeded by his young son Gobind Rai, born in Patna, who soon came to be revered as Guru Gobind. He received literary education and gained expertise in the use of arms at a very young age, inspiring other Sikhs to learn martial arts with the underlying aim of building a fighting force from amongst his kinsmen. He founded Anandpur Sahib, a town with better fortifications than Makhowal – his father’s town – or Lohgarh, in the vic
inity of the former. A philosopher, a poet and a king, Guru Gobind soon gained fame even among the Mughals, who even feared him and his force. A story that showcases this fact goes like this: once, Emperor Aurangzeb sent a Mughal force to infiltrate Anandpur in the dead of the night but on learning that the Guru had been awakened by the guards, the commander of the Mughal force, afraid of facing the Guru in battle, fled with his men.
After proving his prowess in various battles fought against the Mughals, on the day of Baisakhi in 1699, Guru Gobind gathered a large number of Sikhs at Anandpur where, to the astonishment of the entire congregation, the Guru raised his naked sword in the air demanded a head. Awestruck at this strange demand, nobody came forward until a Sikh from Lahore named Daya Ram, a Khatri by caste, stepped in front of the Guru with his head bowed and hands folded in supplication. The Guru then accompanied him inside a tent that had been set up. A few minutes later, Guru Gobind repeated his call and this time, Dharam Das, a Jat; Himmat Rai, a water carrier; Mohkam Chand, a washer-man; and Sahib Chand, a barber, came forward and one by one accompanied their guru inside the tent.
Before long, much to the surprise of the congregation, Guru Gobind emerged from the tent with the five Sikhs who had answered his call. They were now all clad in beautiful robes and wearing turbans just like the Guru’s. Guru Gobind then announced that the five loyal Sikhs would henceforth be called the ‘Panj Piyare (Five Beloved Ones)’, and proclaimed that all Sikhs would now be known as ‘Khalsa’, uniting them into a military brotherhood. Cries of ‘Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh! (Khalsa was creation of God and God has been victorious in the creation of Khalsa)’ soon rose triumphantly into the air. Guru Gobind introduced into the religion the chastening baptism by the double-edged sword which obliged the Sikh to keep the hair unshorn, to wear arms and to bear the epithet ‘Singh’ (for men) meaning ‘lion’ and ‘Kaur’ (for women) meaning ‘princess’ in their names. Any of the five Singhs could initiate others into this new order. These imperative measures introduced the principle of unity and equality in the Sikh race. As a contemporary writer puts it, the Khalsa stood distinguished from the rest of the world.