Dr Trilochan Singh on Sirdar Kapur Singh - 2

Once when I was with Kapur Singh at his Chandigarh residence some youngmen came and asked Kapur Singh a question; “What should the Sikh Youth do to save the Sikh Panth from the worsening situation?” Kapur Singh remained silent for some time and then said, “I will answer the question if you do not ask another question and leave us alone, we have met after many months.” The boys agreed. Raising his voice in bitterness of his experience of thirty years he said in a prophetic tone, “Remove three ‘B’s’ and three Jathedars from the political stage before it is too late and the Sikhs may get an opportunity to throw up new courageous and enlightened leadership who can guide the Sikhs in the right direction.” Then to clarify he added after a short time, “the three are Balwant Singh, Badal and Barnala and three Jathedars are Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Jagdev Singh Talwandi and Jiwan Singh Umranangal”. The record of treachery and betrayals of these three B's and three Jathedars are very much before us. Their performance in the last five years would put every Sikh to shame except their shameless Akali drum-beaters. 

— Kapur Singh's political thoughts and his Akali Dal resolutions (Dr Trilochan Singh)

Sikhs and Communism

Sikhs and Communism

Late Sirdar Kapur Singh


Ex-ICS, Former Member of Indian Parliament, National Professor of Sikhism

Sirdar Kapur Singh on Communist inroads amongst the Sikhs in 1977

[Reproduced from The Sikh Review, August 1977]

The early infiltration of Communism amongst Sikhs and the emotional liveliness with which it has been cherished amongst many of them has aroused curiosity in the minds of intelligent observers of this phenomenon of contemporary India. Some think it to be wholly fortuitous, whereas others believe that there is a casual nexus between it and the original Sikh impulse. A large number of Sikh Communists believe that Communism is nothing but an exegesis and an extension of the Sikh doctrine, though the better informed amongst them cannot have failed to notice the deep chasm that divides the basic postulates and metaphysical doctrines of Sikhism, and the fundamental dogmas of Communism as a social and a quasi-religious theory. Be that as it may, a free discussion and dispassionate thinking on the subject is desirable.

When in 1950, in the course of a discussion on Sikhism with an intelligent Hindu friend at Shimla, I remarked to him that the Order of the Khalsa was the real prototype of the All Russia Communist Party of Lenin and further suggested that this might be the real cause and explanation of the fascination which the Comintern has exerted over a section of the restless Sikhs, my Hindu friend reacted unfavourably towards this theory and considered it similiar to a certain other contemporary intellectual movement of the Punjab which postulates that all the modern scientific theories and discoveries, so far made and yet to be made, are adumberated in the Vedas as interpreted by these gentlemen.

Toynbee’s Endorsement
It was almost seven years later at the end of 1957 that this Hindu friend came across a certain passage, in an abridged publication of the monumental A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee, which runs as follows:
“The intensity of an alien intelligentsia’s hatred of the Western middle class gave the measure of its foreboding of its inability to emulate Western middle class achievement. The classic instance, up-to-date in which this embittering prescience had been justified, was the Russian intelligentsia’s catastrophic failure, after the first two Russian Revolutions in 1917, to carry out its fantastic mandate to transform the wreck of Petrine Czardom into a parliamentary constitutional state in the 19th century Western style. The Kerensky regime was a fiasco because it was saddled with the task of making bricks with straw, of making a parliamentary government without a solid, competent, prosperous and experienced middle class to draw upon. By constrast, Lenin succeeded because he set himself to create something which could meet the situation. His All Union Communist Party was not, indeed, a thing entirely without precedent. In Islamic Muslim History it had been anticipated in the slave household of the Ottoman Padishah, in the Qyslbash fraternity of devotees of Safawis, and in the Sikh Khalsa that had been called into being by a decision to fight the Mughal ascendency with its own weapons. In these… fraternities, the ethos of Russian Communist Party is already unmistakably discernible. Lenin’s claim to originality rests on his having reinstated this formidable potential instrument for himself and on his priority in applying it to a special purpose of enabling a non-Western society to hold its own against the modern West by mastering the latest devices of Western technology while at the same time eschewing the West’s current orthodox ideology.” (Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement, Vols. VII-X, Oxford 1957, pp. 187-188).

Three Questions
Let us examine three questions, the same which the Hindu friend, referred to earlier, posed after seeing this confirmation by an European scholar, of my contention and which confirmation alone, in the eyes of this friend, conferred respectability on it. These three questions are:

(1) Were these Islamic fraternities imbued with and grounded in the same ethos as the Order of the Khalsa?

(2) Has the Order of the Khalsa common characteristics with the All-Russia Communist Party.

(3) Is Communism consistent with Sikhism?

Ottoman Slave Household’s Selfish Motive
The slave households of the Ottoman Padishah entertained sentiments of firm loyalty to the ruling Turkish family for considerations that were purely mundane and grounded in immediate self-interest. The worldly interests of each and every member of this slave household were so inalienably and inextricably bound up with the existence and continuation in power of the dynasty of the Ottoman Padishah so that the former could not exist without the latter, and in being loyal to the royal household, therefore, the slave household were being only loyal to themselves. Their loyalty, thus, had no other ideal than their own mundane interests. It clearly had no reference to anything beyond their own moderately enlightened self-interest. This type of loyalty is not rare even in the animal kingdom, and it is the general mode of social behaviour of all sane human beings. It is not infused with any self-abnegating idealism and to consider it as a prototype of the All-Russian Communist Party is thoroughly mistaken.

Qyslbash Loyalty Grounded in Gratitude
The Qyslbash fraternity stands on a somewhat different footing, however. Their loyalty to the Safawi dynasty originated in gratitude and was sustained by religious and national patriotism. Sheikh Saif-ud-din Izhak was a lineal descendant of Musa, the seventh Imam and forefather of the famous and fabulous Aga Khan. He was a pious Sufi residing at Ardebil, south-west of the Caspian, in the 14th century. Timur, known to Europeans as Tamerlane (Timuri Ling), (1335-1405) was so impressed by the stories of the Sheikh’s piety that he sought him at his abode, and was so charmed by the visit that, as a consequence of the Sheikh’s intercession, he released from captivity a large number of prisoners of Turkish or Georgian origin, taken in wars with Beyzid. This ensured to the Sheikh constant devotion and gratitude of these men, and this sentiment of loyalty was maintained by their descendants for the members of the Sheikh’s family in successive generations. Junaid, the great grandson of the Sheikh, married a sister of Uzan Hasan of royal family and the youngest son of this marriage, Ismail, born in 1480, was the Sufi who founded the Safawi dynasty by his assumption of royalty in 1499. Shah Abbas the Great was the greatest king of this dynasty and he was a contemporary of our Akbar the Great.

He came to throne in 1587, and Sir Anthony Sherlay, an English soldier of fortune in his service, wrote of him, “His furniture of mind is infinitely royal, wise, valiant, liberal, temperate, merciful and an exceeding lover of justice.” In 1598, he made his capital at Isfahan, where on a plateau over 5,300 feet above sea-level, a superb city grew up which early in the 17th century had a population of over 600,000 wherefrom the Iranian saying, Isfahan nisfi Jahan (trans. Isfahan is half the world). This dynasty was ended in 1736, with the accession of Nadir as the Shah of Persia, who made his acquaintance with the Sikhs after his sack of Delhi and the loot of the Peacock Throne and who correctly prophesied that “az dahani-shan bui shahanshah miayed” (trans. The Sikhs are clearly destined for being the masters of India).

The Qyslbash fraternity throughout remained loyal to Safawi rulers and they made every sacrifice possible to sustain them in power. The Safawis were rightly regarded as the national monarchs, not only in respect of origin and birth but in essence and spirit also, and it is, therefore, legitimate to assume that the loyalty of the Qyslbash was based upon national sentiment as well as communal gratitude. This is the basic characteristic of ethos of the Qyslbash loyalty to the Safawis. This loyalty was essentially personal and secondarily national, and the idealism which sustained it consisted of communal gratitude and national pride. This is the ethos, with its basic component of gratitude and patriotism.

Origin of the Khalsa Misunderstood
The Order of the Khalsa has no contingent origin as it is sometimes believed. This basic misunderstanding about the nature and aims of the Khalsa has not only misled scholars of the calibre of Toynbee, but has also vitiated the Sikh historical impulse as well as the operative attitudes of other Indians towards the Sikhs. For want of proper analysis and non-availability of meagre original documents to the scholars on Sikhism, there has been created and perpetuated the wholly false impression that Guru Gobind Singh inaugurated the Order of the Khalsa to meet some historical contingency such as fighting the Mughal rulers, and the real truth, to stress which Guru Gobind Singh himself took such pains, is thus almost forgotten even by the generality of the Sikhs themselves.

Guru Gobind Singh made it abundantly clear that the Order of the Khalsa had been founded to achieve a Divine Aim, which was not contingent upon time and place. And he proclaimed it in no uncertain terms that he was doing nothing which was not logical and natural entelechy of the doctrines of Guru Nanak.

The Order of the Khalsa is, thus, a party of voluntary members, selected on the basis of ideology and strict psychological and character-qualifications relating to disposition and behaviour patterns, overriding geographical, racial and sex limitations and pledged to establish a global Society of Human Brotherhood, the basis of which is spiritual and the ground of which is material abundance. For this purpose, the Order of the Khalsa aspires to achieve control of political power. The original sources on the Sikh doctrine and a proper understanding of it leave no doubt that this is the case and it is implicit in the text of the Jap, the first chapter of Guru Granth Sahib.

Real Prototype of the Communist Party
Once the matter is put this way, it becomes plain that the Order of the Khalsa is the only and the real prototype of the Communist Party of Lenin in so far as the ethos of both the parties is concerned, and that Lenin was mistaken in his belief that his party was a unique phenomenon in the history of human societies. The differences between the nature of their respective aims and ideologies that inspire them, however, are no less striking.

Fundamental Difference
The basic assumption of Marxism, which is the credo that inspires the Communist Party, is that the essence of the real is its characteristic of being perceived through the physical sense, and this is its materialism which it regards as the only true philosophy and metaphysics. Sikhism sharply joins issues with Communism on this postulate. Sikhism postulates the idea as real and more primary, and conceives of reality as ideational and not as material, and, therefore, asserts that man shall be regenerated and liberated through introversion in contra-distinction to the essential and exclusive acceptance of extroversion as the only true approach towards reality. This difference is fundamental, far-reaching and pregnant with significant practical consequences, and Sikhism will never meet on this issue: bhagatan te sansarian mel kade na hoi.

Sikhism denies Communist Theory
The Communist postulate on this issue implicates another significant and far-reaching proposition of Communism, which regards all movement as real, which generates the assumption that human history is conditioned not by ideas or man-made laws, but by the economic organisation of the society, which in turn is based on the mechanism of production and exchange of goods. This is the Marxian interpretation of history. Sikhism denies this proposition and considers its apparent plausibility as naive and superficial, generated by absence of a profounder critical faculty and intuition. It is not true that all history is economic history, that all intellectual, political and social changes can be explained as consequences of changes in material production, and that “the class struggle” that have determined the past of mankind, will determine the future until all classes have been eliminated giving birth to some utopia on earth, and Sikhism, therefore, refuses to allow its social and political organisation and conduct to be determined and deflected by this erroneous mode of thought, and the Order of the Khalsa, thus, can never countenance the all too familiar institutions of dictatorship without popular support, without an independent legal system, and without the free competition of ideas and the sharp assault of free criticism, which errors are the warp and woof of a communist system.

Again, the Order of the Khalsa and the Communist Party are separated by a moral abyss that is unbridgeable. The “immoralism” of Communism is its basic postulate, whereas the Order of the Khalsa attaches fundamental importance to the ethical character of the means than even to the ends themselves, and the Order of the Khalsa regards ethical values, howsoever dimly perceived in different societies and ages, as absolute and not relative and compromisable.

Brainwashing and Physical Regimentation
Lastly, the Order of the Khalsa was intended to be an elect body, a political and spiritual aristocracy on account of its regenerated character, and liable to persecution because of its pugnacious distinctiveness and refusal to compromise, pledged to reform and regenerate a deeply corrupted and unconverted world by example and precept, by persuasion and control, but never through coercion and regimentation of the mind and body, and this also places Communism and Sikhism poles apart.

Thus, Sikhism, and the Order of the Khalsa, which is pledged to propagate Sikhism and to ensure its prevalence, considers the worship of man and man’s collective achievements, whether this appears as Communism or nationalism, as the most serious challenge to the true Religion, the protection of which is the main objective and aim of the Khalsa.

What is it then that has made it possible for communist ideas to obtain a hold on a section of the Sikhs ?

Two Reasons for Communism’s Appeal
There are two reasons, one occidental, and the other emotional. Ever since the middle of the last century, when the Khalsa lost its sovereignty to the new-low diplomacy of the European adventurers, there has been a natural and deep-rooted restlessness and frustration in the Sikh heart. Not that the occidental was basically immoral or unmoral just like the Communist Party, the Sikhs, only after they met with political disaster at his hands, not in the battlefield but on the more slippery ground of political trickery. To Dr Wolff, who visited Lahore in 1832, Ranjit Singh said, “You say, you travel about for the sake of religion, why then do you not preach to the Englishmen in Hindustan, who have no religion at all?” When Dr Wolff repeated this to the Governor General Lord William Bentinck at Shimla, he observed, “Alas, this is the opinion of all the natives about us, all over India.” In reply to a question by Dr Wolff, “How may one come nigh upto God?” the Maharaja replied, “One can come nigh unto God by making an alliance with British Government as I lately did with Laird Nawab Sahib (the Governor-General) at Ropar.” (Joseph Wolff, DD LLD, Travels and Adventures, p. 375).

Nucleus of Sikh Communists
This insight into European political character, however, could not save the Sikhs from being enslaved as the rest of India had already been done. But the Sikhs, in their heart of hearts, never reconciled themselves to the loss of their sovereignty, without which the Order of the Khalsa cannot make any progress towards fulfilment of their divine assignment, their final goal. The dawn of the 20th century found a band of Sikh immigrants to North America organised into the well-known Ghadar Party, the Party of Mutiny against subjugation, and as such, on the eve of the World War I, a number of them landed on Indian soil with the object of ousting the British hold on the country. The attempt proved abortive and most of these revolutionaries ended their lives on the gallows, or in infernal lands of Andamans. The last words of these Sikhs in their last moment on earth are recorded :
“The Khalsa shall guide the destinies of mankind, and eventually there shall remain no opposite camp. For, all shall realise, after bitter frustration, that there is no redemption except in the Way of Life that the Khalsa upholds.”
“This is pre-ordained that the Guru’s Army shall control and guarantee the welfare of the whole of India. Then indeed, the New Era of peace and prosperity for mankind shall dawn.”

[Raj karega Khalsa, aki rahe na koi, khuar hoi sab milenge, bache saran jo hoi.
Dilli takht par bahegi ap Guru ki phauj, raj karega Khalsa vadi hoegi mauj.]

It was the remnants of these Sikh revolutionaries that constituted the nucleus of the now powerful group of Sikh Communists. They established contacts with the Comintern in the early twenties of this century, with the avowed object of securing foreign aid and help for freeing India from the foreign yoke, since the Comintern was the only organisation then outside India which promised such help readily. This brought some of the most ardent and sincere, not necessarily politically wise, of these Sikhs under the spell and discipline of the All-Russia Communist Party and the relationship thus forged has endured.

Emotional Appeal Twofold
The emotional reason for the hold of the communist idea on a certain section of the Sikhs is twofold. The similarity of the Order of the Khalsa and the All-Russia Communist Party of Lenin has already been suggested. The attraction of self-sacrificing work in a dedicated spirit, as is demanded of a communist fieldworker, comes natural to a Sikh since it gives him ample opportunity of releasing the impulse of self-abnegation in the service of fellow beings generated by the Sikh teachings and which Guru Gobind Singh harnessed to the Order of the Khalsa. By working as a loyal and devoted member of the Communist Party, this class of Sikh, feels that he is loving Sikhism and the teachings of the Gurus in practice in the manner that Guru Gobind Singh enjoined. Secondly, this Sikh is not attracted by what Marx said, or by what the party dogma of the moment is. What fascinates him and ensures his devotion to the Party is what he thinks lies behind it, its essential humanitarianism. To be a champion of the oppressed and the under-privileged is the basic Sikh motivation, and the shibboleths of the communist parties are admirably designed to appeal to this sentiment.

Polyreligiosity
These are the basic reasons that underlie the hold of the communist idea and the influence of the Communist Party amongst a considerable number of Sikhs, though it cannot be denied that with the lapse of time and persistent indoctrination, there has come into existence a top layer of Sikh communist leadership that is fully aware and that enthusiastically accepts the real hiatus that separates the teachings of the Gurus from the dogmas of Communism, but he finds it in the interests of the cause to maintain the pretension that by being a communist he is no less a Sikh. He is shrewd enough to realise that the main function of political ideas is to express in effective and pungent manner the political attitudes which some group of people feel that it must consolidate within itself, foster in a society at large, and set up against those of its opponents, and that without this deep co-ordination of belief no common action for great ends is possible. He is, therefore, keenly aware that if he brings out too clearly the deep chasm that separates Sikhism from Communism, the Sikh communist workers will either become non-communist or what anthropologists call, poly-religious. For this reason, and knowing that moral scruples are uncommunistic he never attacks or repudiates Sikhism openly in accordance with the guidelines given by the Communist comrades from Moscow direct, directing the Sikhs turned communists not yet to undo the Sikh mark from their faces and to observe Sikh religion’s symbolism carefully and diligently so as better to misguide and ensnare the Sikhs. Here it is worth noting that the prominent Sikh religious symbolism, unshorn hair and uncut beard are anathema to genuine communists as symptomatic of bourgeois decadence. Le Parisienne Libre, Paris (as quoted in the Indian edition of Reader’s Digest of March, 1975, p. 30) remarks that:
“It is amusing to note that although Marx, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Yeidel are among the world’s most famous bearded men, many communist countries consider beards as anti-social, an obvious sign of bourgeois decadence. The Rumanian Government it seems, recently decreed the need for a special permit to wear a beard. Three groups are considered legitimate: being an actor playing the role of bearded character, having an excessively receding chin or scarred chin. The situation has reached such a point that those men who are permitted the imperialist bourgeois provocation of having hair on their chin, must carry a special card like a Driver’s Licence, which they are obliged to have with them at all times and must show when challenged by the authorities.”

Now, polyreligiosity describes a social condition in which history and myth have lost their dramatic characters, their capacity to impose obligations and compelling images, and, thus they no longer provide a basis for continuity of conviction and behaviour. A polyreligious Sikh is shorn of the very advantage which he has as a fearless and self-sacrificing revolutionary, and he, therefore, becomes a useless member of the Communist Party. He is a great asset only if he retains his pristine Sikh impulse intact as his motivating force in action and at the same time owes willing allegiance to the Party.

The analysis alone seems to offer an explanation of the pains which the Sikh communists have taken during the last quarter of a century to win and retain an effective share and position in the Sikh political and religious societies and institutions.

Those well-informed in the subject know that in Sikhism, the supreme, all overriding value is religion. That which opposes or hinders the religious dimension of man, is pure evil: jalau aisi rit jit main piara visrai, while for Communism the first priority is to destroy and suppress all religions and religious attitudes, as Lenin points out in his essay, On the Importance of Militant Materialism, wherein Lenin resolutely condemns “any conciliatory attitude towards religious ideology.”

Reminiscing Kapur Singh

Reminiscing Kapur Singh

Set up Sirdar Kapur Singh chair urges Khalsa Action Committee’

Zafar Zang Singh 

AMRITSAR: To commemorate the centennial birth anniversary of the Sikh stalwart, Bhai Sahib Sirdar Kapur Singh, the conglomeration of Panthic bodies, the Khalsa Action Comittee, sought the establishment of Sirdar Kapur Singh Chair in any of the Universities of Punjab at a seminar organised here by the Dal Khalsa at the auditorium of the Guru Harkrishan Public School. The Committee also sought the raising of a memorial in honour of Sant Jarnail Singh and other brave warriors who laid down their lives during the June 984 attack on Darbar Sahib. 

There would not have been a better occasion than this one, for the fledgling Khalsa Action Committee to initiate a series of programmes to commemorate the twenty five years of the storming of Darbar Sahib.  

Reminiscing the role and contribution of Sirdar Kapur Singh, various personalities including former minister and SGPC member Manjit Singh Calcutta, Dal Khalsa president Harcharnjit Singh Dhami, Shiromani Sikh Council head Narain Singh, Chief Khalsa Diwan secretary Bhag Singh Ankhi and Prof. Jagmohan Singh who touched upon various facets of the life and times of Sirdar Kapur Singh. 

Speaking on the occasion, Bhai Jasbir Singh Khalsa, Giani Baldev Singh, and the convenor of the Khalsa Action Committee, Bhai Mohkam Singh and Damdami Taksal head, Baba Harnam Singh deliberated upon the events leading to the Indian army attack on Darbar Sahib and its impact on the Sikh nation.  

The underlying theme of all discussions and deliberations at the seminar hovered around the contribution of Sirdar Kapur Singh towards evolving, enunciating and elucidating the concept of Sikh doctrinal sovereignty.  

Dwelling extensively on his life, former SGPC secretary, Manjit Singh Calcutta told the audience that he is the only ‘National Professor of Sikhism’ and that this title was bestowed on him by Akal Takht Sahib honouring his profound scholarship of Sikh religious thought and traditions and his clear espousal of the Sikh cause.  

Calcutta described him as an encyclopaedia of world knowledge, who had mastered ancient scripts and modern scientific scholarship and methodology. “He was not only a writer but a fighter too, who fought for the Sikh cause at all forums available to him”, said Calcutta and added that Sirdar Sahib was of the firm belief that it was Sikhs should be masters of their own destiny without fear or favour. Recalling the times spent with him, Manjit Singh Calcutta said that, “Sirdar Sahib will always remain an inspiration to those who want to see the Khalsa flag unfurl with full glory on this planet.”   

Prof Jagmohan Singh urged the Young Khalsa to read and re-read the writings of Sirdar Kapur Singh and to learn the idiom necessary for a better understanding and response to the challenges of modern political thought processes.   

Bhai Mohkam Singh said the Indian army attack on Darbar Sahib and Akal Takht was meant to terrorize the community and liquidate that Sikh leadership which was perceived to be representative of the spirit of a free, proud and independent Sikh community.  

Dal Khalsa secretary, Kanwarpal Singh stressed the need for pre-eminence of the Khalsa as enshrined in the Anandpur Resolution and Sikh Homeland resolution as drafted by Sirdar Kapur Singh. “The political sovereignty of the Sikhs cannot be compromised.” he further said.  

Paying tributes to the martyrs of 1984, Mr Dhami said the long tryst with brown imperialists can and should culminate in the regain of Sikh sovereignty by peaceful and legal means.  

A special issue of the Punjabi journal Awaaz-e-Khalsa, edited by Narain Singh of the Shiromani Sikh Council was released by Bibi Paramjit Kaur, wife of late Jaswant Singh Khalra and Waryam Singh, the former Secretary of the SGPC. 

Speaking on the occasion, Baba Harnam Singh Dhumma of the Damdami Taksal pointed out that the times have not changed since Kapur Singh. He told the audience that in the last twenty-four hours, Panthic-baiters, the followers of Ashutosh, had held a function in the holy land of Amritsarat the behest of BJP MLA and firebrand anti-Punjabi leader Laxmi Kanta Chawla, which was attended by member parliament and prospective candidate, Navjot Singh Sidhu as well. He appealed to all the Panthic bodies to join hands to counter all challenges faced by the Sikh nation.

The nostalgic memories of Gajinder Singh -founder member of Dal Khalsa, now in exile, and who had spent a good portion of his life with Kapur Singh, in Chandigarh was read out on the occasion.  He described Sirdar Kapur Singh as his mentor and a driving force behind the formation of the Dal Khalsa way back in 1978. He said he was proud to be associated with Kapur Singh and that it was befitting that we eulogize his character and temperament. 

In a message from the US, Dr. Amarjit Singh urged Sikhs to heed the warnings of Kapur Singh.

A large number of Sikh youth, including those from Sikh Youth of Punjab, who attended the Seminar, were visibly happy at the conclusions drawn at the meet as it provided them an opportunity to imbibe the vast knowledge of Sirdar Kapur Singh.

4 March 2009

http://worldsikhnews.com/4%20March%202009/Reminiscing%20Kapur%20Singh.htm

Are Sikhs Stupid?

Are Sikhs Stupid?

The learned author presents a deep insight into the ways of the Sikh leadership over the last five centuries and the hope that “like all living things, Sikhs want to live, they do not want to die”.

Sirdar Kapur Singh

Bhai Sahib Sirdar Kapur Singh, (M.A. (Canterbury), Ex-ICS and National Professor of Sikhism, in his characteristic style, in this speech delivered in Vancouver, Canada on 7 October 1974, under the auspices of All Canada Sikh Federation, spells out the fundamentals of Sikhism for a non-Sikh audience.

The first publication of this speech bore the title, Stupid Sikhs, as given by the author himself, for he wanted to drive the point home that the too-trusting Sikhs are viewed in such a manner by the chicanery and deceitful Brahmin leadership of independent India.  

As a young concerned Sikh from Mumbai, I traveled to Chandigarh to obtain the learned philosopher’s permission to republish the same speech under the heading, Sikhs and Sikhism.  The permission was granted and we printed and circulated thousands of copies of the same.  This time around, I take the liberty to publish the same with a slightly changed heading. 

Readers are invited to read the full version on the website, whereas, here we publish and edited and abridged version for reasons of space. Believe me, it is best savoured in the full.  –Editor.

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Sikhs are a religious community and a political nation, simultaneously, and thus they are a unique society of the world.  The Sikhs are distinguishable from the Hindu society, which is essentially a territorial culture-group.  In the ancient Sanskrit texts, Vishnu-purana, in particular, it is laid down that Hindus are those born in the geographical area called, Bharat and this geographical area is delineated as extending from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, Cape Comrin of Europeans, and from the river Indus to seas that girdle the soil of India; that is, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.  Essentially, Hinduism is non-exportable and relocatable and its modern conversion and oecumenical activities are unsanctioned innovations.   

Islamic society is grounded in totalitarianism of religious formulae and social laws, enforceable by political sovereignty and overlordship over non-Muslim societies. Christendom and Christianity formed a political society of medieval ages and are an oecumenical, universal religion of Gentiles, without being a political society in the modern world. The Jewish society is basically and fiercely ethnical while Buddhism is fundamentally non-social and non-political. 

Sikhism is a social religion, non-ethnical, oecumenical, grounded in a political society, directed and committed to propagation and establishing of a plural world-society, tolerant, open, progressive and free in character. 

Thus, Sikhism and the Sikhs form a unique religion and a unique society, which and who can be clearly distinguished from the other religious and political societies of the world.

Arnold Toynbee, the world-famous historian and philosopher of History, in his magnum opus, "History", refers to Sikhism as the forerunner of the true elan of the Communist Party of Lenin.  Arnold Toynbee adds that Lenin was quite mistaken in claiming that his Communist Party was a unique party in the history of the world and had been formed for the first time.  Arnold Toynbee asserts that because of its elan and structure, the Khalsa of the Sikh society is a true fore-runner and prototype of the Communist Party of Lenin. 

Sikhism and its apotheosis, the Khalsa, have merely a structural affinity and kinship of elan with the Communist Party of Lenin insofar as it is essentially an organisation of committed elites for furthering the cause of social transformations, but in aims and content it is poles apart from communism as it is irrevocably committed to social pluralism and freedom of conscience, tolerance and recognition of the human individual as an end in himself, and not an expendable limb in the beehive society of communism.  This aspect of the matter, Arnold Toynbee has failed to appreciate and point out in his great book. 

Above all, Sikhism is irrevocably committed to the doctrine of the existence of God, the one almighty God, as the beginning and the end of all, that is and that shall be, alawawal walakhir, as the Koran puts it. 

Sikhs are an international community.  There is a quip, current in European as well as in Asiatic countries to the effect that wherever life exists and is sustainable on earth, the potato and the Sikh are bound to reach there sooner or later. 

Arnold Toynbee, in his latest, one of the latest books--not the latest, "East to West", has observed to the effect that if the human race survives its follies at all--he is doubtful that it will survive--but he says that if it survives its follies at all, Sikhs shall surely be there as vigorous, hardy and go-getting homosapiens on this planet. 

Sikhs are universally admitted as excelling most other races of mankind in the basic activities of man:  production of food, manipulation of tools and fighting.  As agriculturists, artisans and manual labourers they excel many other races and human groups and as soldiers they are inferior to no group in the history of the world, in bravery inspired by ethical considerations. 

This religion of Sikhism was founded, as we know, by Guru Nanak, who was born in the year 1451 AD. Guru, in Sikh terminology, means, a prophet and a world-teacher and Sikhism is a prophetic religion based on a definitive revelation, like semitic religions of the West, and it, therefore, can be clearly contra-distinguished from the eastern religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, which have anonymous mysticism as their source of validity.   

During his missionary journey to the inner Himalayas on the mountain of legendary Kailash near the celestial lake of Mansarowar, he explained the first priority principle on which the Sikh society was to be based.  Bhai Gurdas, a very learned man of Sikhism--sometimes he is described as the St. Paul of Sikhism--tells us that when the Yogins residing in these inaccessible regions asked Guru Nanak as to "how did the news go in the world of the mortals"--mat lok main kia vartara--the reply of the Guru was sharp and to the point:  "The society has become rotten to its core."  And here he raised an accusing finger at these Yogins, adding:  "And Sires, you are the guilty ones, for, society cannot be guided and sustained without men of high sensitivity and cultures, but you, who possess it, have become escapees."--Sach chandarma kud andhiara, siddh chhap baithe parbatin kaun jagat kau parutara. 

In this doctrine, he answers the question of questions, the question which has been, for thousands of years, worrying the sensitive and thinking man and which question still remains finally unanswered.  This question of questions is as to whether the carriers of the grace, the liberated men, the men who have achieved the highest apex of spiritual evolution, whether they should rise like lions or die like lambs; whether the spiritually elite should withdraw into wilderness to bear witness, or act as leaven to the lump.  Guru Nanak's answer is clear: it is that every fully liberated person must be socially and politically committed, and must return back to the society to serve and guide it, to elevate it, and to preserve its basic ethical and spiritual values. 

The next doctrine of Sikh society was demonstrated by Guru Nanak during his fourth sojourn when he traveled by sea to Mecca by sea, the holy sanctuary of Islam, along with the Muslim pilgrims of India.  Inside this holy sanctuary, when doubts arose on account of his behaviour as to whether he was Muslim or a Hindu, he was accosted with the question:  "Who are you, and what is the book that you carry under your arm for it is not the holy Koran?  Tell us, please, according to this book that you carry, whether the Muslim religion is true or the Hindu religion?"--Puchan khohl kitab nu hindu vada ki mussalmanoi. 

The reply of the Guru is not only clear but fearless, particularly when you keep in view the situation in which this reply was made.  The Guru said: "Oh, pilgrims, neither those who profess Islam nor those who profess Hinduism are superior, one to the other.  It is the practice and its moral quality that makes one individual superior to the other in the eyes of God, and not mere lip profession.--"Baba akhe hajio subh amlan bahjon dovain roi." 

Likewise, the third doctrine was demonstrated by his exclamations against the tyranny involved in the invasion ofIndia by Babar, the Mughal, in the year 1521.   The heart-rendering cry and audacious question of Guru Nanak put to God is the Babar-Bani, on witnessing the misery caused by Babar's brutalities to undefended and unarmed civilians of India, "just as a herd of meek cows is attacked by a bloodthirsty tiger", as Guru Nanak puts it: Sinh pave ja vagge.    This is the harsh cry and the question of Guru Nanak in relation to a situation of this kind, implicating that under such circumstances it becomes the duty of an enlightened and spiritually committed person to come forward and to organise with those who are similarly cultured, to resist evil--resist evil at all stages, resist in the hope and in the faith that God will grant success, but never to sit in the corner, or on the fence, feeling that it is none of my concern or saying that it is the concern of God alone, whose duty it is to send somebody to stop this evil.   

These doctrines which Guru Nanak had thus enunciated were, by the successor-Gurus, demonstrated in relation to individual and contingent situations.  They were applied to the practical task of setting up a new society, the Sikh society.   The last of the Sikh prophets, the tenth Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, ordained an Order of the Sikh elites, the Khalsa, who now represent and spearhead the tasks of Sikh religion, and are recognisable throughout the world as bearded and turbaned Sikhs.   

Then the perfected yogins in the Kailash mountains asked Guru Nanak specifically as to how does he propose to eradicate evil and to oppose the tyrant, as no individual has the power to eradicate evil, it being universal and inherent.  The Guru is recorded as having  said, " I want to use two levers:  human organisation of those seriously committed to the task of defending goodness and to the task of opposing evil and I want to use a second lever, of the authentic and true "idea" of religion which is revealed in the conscience of highly sensitive and cultured men.  The "organisation" and the "idea" which are both human, with these two levers I hope to be able not only to resist the evil, not only to halt the progress of evil in society, but to elevate and exalt society to heights yet undreamt of, jin manas te devate kie.  Through this society I hope to evolve, deified men on this earth, who will be God-like, God-united, and yet-human." 

Such are the basic social and spiritual principles of Sikhism as enunciated by its founder, as perfected by his nine successors, as apotheosized by the last Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, into the Order of the Khalsa, who now have the responsibility and the assignment of setting-out these directives of Guru Nanak into practice; and who now bear the heavy burden of this responsibility of establishing a world-society in which the growth and unchecked march of evil is stopped and evil is ultimately, if not eradicated, controlled and contained.  Such a high task it is that lies on the shoulders of those whom you sometimes see in various parts of the world wearing turbans and unshorn hair.  These turbans and unshorn hair are not symptomatic of some kind of lack of modern cultural view-point.  They are the exteriorisation of a psyche and of a sense of such high mission the like of which the history of the world does not know, that which has not ever been conceived or practised before.   

In 1711, they set-up a republic in the heartland of the Moghul Empire in India, wherein they gave land to the tillers in a feudal society, proclaimed equality of all men as citizens of a state, and declared that power emanated from and justly belonged to the people and not to a hereditary privilegentsia.  These remarkable and most modern principles, which were not only avowed but which were put into practice, although for a very short while, are historical phenomena with which not many people in the West or even the East are acquainted; but which, if properly understood and appreciated, would make men marvel as to how it was that in a conservative, tranquil, progressive-and-struggle-avoiding East, such revolutionary and remarkably dynamic ideas not only could spring-up but could be put into practice and could be applied to the actual polity of a state which was founded, but which, unfortunately, did not last.  This state of the Sikhs lasted only for six or seven years.   

There was yet another principle which the Sikhs, inspired as they were by the teachings of the Gurus, proclaimed and actually applied in this short-lived republic.  It was on the 10th of December, 1710 that an Imperial Ordinance was issued from Delhi by the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah, which runs to the effect that: nanak-prastan ra harkuja kih biyaband ba qatal rasanand---"Every Sikh, wherever he is found,wherever he is seen, should be put to death without any hesitation and without any further thought".  On 7th April, 1711, hardly three months and a few days afterwards, an Ordinance in reply was issued by the Sikh Republic under the seal of the state and sign manual of their chief executive, Banda Singh Bahadur, which proclaimed:  "We do not oppose Muslims or Islam, but only tyranny and usurpation of power."  The substance of this Ordinance of The Sikh Republic is recorded in contemporary documents, such as the Persian Ruquati--Aminul-davallah, Dastural--Insaha and the Imperial Daily Diaries, the day-to-day records made by authority of what passed in the royal court.  They are now available for everybody to see. 

After that, there comes a period of about half a century of relentless persecution and genocide pogroms against the Sikh people by two contending empires, the mightiest empires of Asia of those days:  the Mughal and the Pathan Empire.   

But the Sikhs withstood this terrible onslaught.  They neither submitted nor abandoned their harsh cry of "death or liberty", a sentiment foreign to and unknown in the Eastern societies, ancient or modern.  And then it slid into the form of the Sikh Empire, which was called the Sarkar Khalsa that is “the people’s Commonwealth” from the middle of the eighteenth-century to the middle of the nineteenth-century. 

It was in the middle of the nineteenth century that the British perfidiously attacked the Sikh Commonwealth, after corrupting and buying the Hindu Generals of the Sikh army and the Hindu-dominated civil government at Lahore; and during the fierce Anglo-Sikh wars and battles, as a historian says, "the Sikhs beat the British and their Hindu mercenaries to their knees every time!"  I am quoting.  But the Sikh country was, nevertheless, annexed to the British Empire through treachery at the diplomatic table. 

Before the First World War, when the ideas of freeing India from the foreign yoke started stirring the minds of the Indian people, Sikhs were the spearhead of this movement.    Such hardships and such terrible conditions of existence they bore, and not a case of a single Sikh is known who either wavered or apologized, though many opportunities were offered them to just say one word:  "We are sorry for what we have done"; and they could come back to their villages and to their lands and live a life of comfort and ease as their other compatriots were doing. 

Such was the society which the principles of Sikhism gave birth to, and such is the history and tribulations of this society which, though on the material plane may seem to have failed to make a conspicuous mark, but, which on the plane of principles and on the plane of essences has made such a remarkable imprint, as superior to which would be difficult to find in the histories of the societies of the world, from ancient times to the modern times. 

When in 1947, the British--in 1946 or even earlier, the British gave it out that they no longer wanted to hold India and it was known that they cannot hold India and it was also known that the British would now quit, and they wanted to hand over the sovereignty and the political power of India to the Indians themselves.  Then the question arose, how and to whom should this political power be transferred?  The broad outlines are that the British Parliament, who was penultimate authority in this matter of the transfer of power, declared unequivocally that after the British quit India, there are three peoples, distinct peoples, who are the legitimate heirs to the sovereignty of India. 

Definite concrete and pressing offers were made half a dozen times by the Muslim League, as well as by the British, to the Sikhs to carve out and to have an area for themselves in which they could also be a free people and not altogether unlike the Hindus and Muslims were going to be.  There is no doubt about it, because I am a personal witness to some of  these occasions, and there is such heavy and credible documentary evidence on the point, that it cannot be doubted or denied. Whenever the British made these offers, the Sikhs said, "No, we tie our destiny irrevocably to the destiny of India.   

The promises and commitments which the Hindu leaders made to the Sikhs were as follows: after the British quit India and the Sikhs have refused to accept the offers of separate, sovereign or semi-sovereign areas for themselves made by others--after that happens, the Hindu majority--the Indian Congress, the mouthpiece of the Hindus as they rightly regarded themselves--the Hindu majority community solemnly promises, first, that they will not promulgate any Constitution for the future government of India which does not have the free concurrence and assent of the Sikhs; two, that an area in the north of India, with an autonomous status shall be carved-out in which, in the flowery words of Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, "the Sikhs also might feel the glow of freedom,"--which means, "therein the Sikhs shall be able to act effectively at the decision-making levels of their state."  These promises were given-from the year 1930 onwards upto the year 1947.   

After August 1947 nothing was done to put these promises into effect, and they seemed to have been forgotten and slowly-but-slowly attempts were made to win-over and corrupt the individual integrity of Sikh leaders. In 1950 the Constitution of India was framed.  Nothing was included therein which may have even the remotest semblance to fulfillment of these two solemn commitments which were made to the Sikhs.  Thus, the Sikhs had been tricked to give up their right of sovereignty, their right of being legitimate heirs to the power and sovereignty of India.   

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, the constitutionality of these political tricks and manoeuvres might be debatable, but their gross unethicality and cynicality, their low perfidious character, is all too obvious.   

And ever-since 1947, persistent, calculated, well-planned and regular attempts have been made on the cultural, on the political and on the economic levels, not only to disintegrate the Khalsa--the collectivity of the Sikh people-- once and for all, but to weaken the Sikh citizens in all ways.  

I conclude and sum-up in a few propositions what I have been trying to convey here: 

1. Sikhism is not a Hindu sect but a prophetic religion and a unique political society, guided and led by an Order of the elite Sikhs, the Khalsa, whose unshorn hair and turbans are merely an exteriorisation of their religious psyche, natural, spontaneous, evolutionary and authentic.  This is the first proposition which I have tried to elucidate before you.           

2. The second proposition which I have tried to make out before you is that Sikhism enjoins a religion grounded in truth alone, a growing truth in the enlightened conscience of man and sternly translated into day-to-day living of individuals.           

3. The third proposition which I have tried to put before you, to demonstrate before you, is that the Sikhs are committed to help the establishment of a world-society which is plural, non-coercive, expansive and forward-looking, motivated God-wards, in which there is maximum toleration, ever-growing affluence and minimum of mutually destructive ambition.   And on the basis of this, I want to observe in the form of the fourth proposition that:           

4. The mosaic pattern of Canadian society comes nearest to the Sikh ideal of a world-society, though the Canadian society is not, in every respect and in essence, its replica or prototype.           

5. And the last proposition which I now formulate in precise words is that, while, as Canadian citizens, the Sikhs may look forward to a hopeful and bright future, in India, their historical homeland, they now face the basic problem of their identity and existence, since the control of their own history has been snatched out of their hands and their historical potential has been submerged and throttled.           

6. And I add that the Sikhs want to live, as all living things do; they do not want to die.

Thank you (Applause).

4 March 2009

http://worldsikhnews.com/4%20March%202009/Are%20Sikhs%20Stupid.htm

Sachi Sakhi 1972 edition