HINDU-SIKH RELATIONSHIP Ram Swarup Voice of India 2/18, Antari R.oad, NEW DBLHI-l10 002 February, 1985 PRICE :R~.3.ClO TERMS OF THE DEBATE / 11 HINDU-SIKH RELATIONSHIP RAM SWARUP VOICE OF INDIA 2/18, Ansari Road, New Delhi ñ 110 002. 2 1st Edn.: 1985 Pdf: 2015. TERMS OF THE DEBATE / 33 INTRODUCTION Sikhs have always been honoured members of Hindu society. Hindus at large have always cherished the legacy left by the Gurus and venerated Sikh Gurudwaras no less than the shrines of any other Hindu sect. There has never been any bar on inter-marriage, inter-dining and many other modes of inter-mingling between the parent Hindu society on the one hand and the Sikh community on the other. Hindus and Sikhs share a common cultural heritage and a common historical consciousness of persecutions suffered and freedom struggles fought. Sikh Spirituality The Sikh sect was founded by Guru Nanak Dev (1469-1538 A.D.) and promoted further by nine other Gurus, the last of whom, Govind Singh (b. 1675), died in 1708 A.D. Guru Nanak came from a Vaishnava family in that part of the Punjab which went to Pakistan after the partition in 1947. He was born at a time when the sword of Islamic invaders had already swept over the length and breadth of India and done immeasurable damage not only to the shrines and symbols of Hinduism but also to the self-confidence of Hindus. The Punjab alongwith North-West Frontier and Sindh had suffered more heavily than elsewhere. Many Hindus in these provinces had been converted to Islam by force. The rest had been reduced to second class citizens who could not practise their religion publicly without inviting persecution at the hands of Muslim theologians and tyrants. It was in this atmosphere that Guru Nank asserted the superiority of his ancestral spirituality as against Islamic monotheism which had divided mankind into hostile camps 4 HINDU-SIKH RELATIONSHIP and set children of the same Divinity at each otherís throats. This was an act of great courage because Islam prescribed the penalty of death for anyone who said that Hinduism was a religion as good as Islam, not to speak of saying that Hinduism was superior. Many Hindus had been put to death for uttering such a ìblasphemy.î What Guru Nanak had proclaimed was, however, a part of the Hindu response to the Islamic onslaught. The response was two-pronged. While Hindu warriors fought against Islamic invaders on many a battlefield all over the country, Hindu saints and sages created a country-wide spiritual upsurge which came to be known as the Bhakti Movement. The massage of this Movement was the same everywhere, based as it was on the Vedas, the Itihasa- Purana and the Dharma-Shastras. The only variation on the central theme was that while most schools of Bhakti deepened the spirit behind outer forms of worship, some others laid greater emphasis on advaitic mysticism as expounded in the Upanishads and the various traditions of Yoga. The latter schools alone could flourish in the Punjab and the rest of the North-West which had been denuded of Hindu temples and where ritual practices were forbidden by the Muslim rulers. It was natural for Guru Nanak to be drawn towards this school in the course of his spiritual seeking and sing its typical strains in his own local language. The Bhakti Movement produced many saints in different parts of the country, North and South, East and West. They spoke and sang in several languages and idioms suited to several regions. It was inevitable that their message should go forth from as many seats and centres. Guru Nanak established one such seat in the Punjab. Those who responded to his call became known as Sikhs (Sk. Shisyas, disciples). The fourth Guru, Ram Das (1574-1581 A.D.), excavated a tank which subsequently became known as Amritsar (pool of nectar) and gave its name to the city that grew around it. In due course, a splendid edifice, Harimandir SIKH SPIRITUALITY TERMS OF THE DEBATE / 55 (temple of Hari), rose in the middle of this tank and became the supreme centre of the Sikh sect. Its sanctum sanctorum came to house the Adi Granth containing compositions of Sikh Gurus and a score of other Hindu saints from different parts of the country. The songs of a few Muslim sufis who had been influenced by advaita were also included in it. The compilation of the Adi Granth was started by the fifth Guru, Arjun Dev (1581-1606 A.D), and completed by the tenth Guru, Govind Singh. There is not a single line in the Adi Granth which sounds discordant with the spirituality of Hinduism. All strands of Hinduism may not be reflected in Sikhism. But there is nothing in Sikhism ó its diction, its imagery, its idiom, its cosmogony, its mythology, its stories of saints and sages and heroes, its metaphysics, its ethics, its methods of meditation, its rituals ó which is not derived from the scriptures of Hinduism. The ragas to which the hymns and songs of the Adi Granth were set by the Gurus are based on classical Hindu music. The parikrama (perambulation) performed by Sikhs round every Gurudwara, the dhoop (incense), deep (lamp), naivaidya (offerings) presented by the devotees inside every Sikh shrine, and the prasadam (sanctified food) distributed by Sikh priests resemble similar rites in every other Hindu place of worship. A dip in the tank attached to the Harimandir is regarded as holy by Hindus in general and Sikhs in particular as a dip in the Ganga or the Godavari. It is this sharing of a common spirituality which has led many Hindus to worship at Sikh Gurudwaras as if they were their own temples. Hindus in the Punjab regard the Adi Granth as the sixth Veda, in direct succession to the Rik, the Sama, the Yajus, the Atharva and the Mahabharata. A Hindu does not have to be a Sikh in order to do homage to the Adi Granth and participate in Sikh religious rites. Similarly, till recently Sikhs visited temples of various other Hindu sects, went to Hindu places of pilgrimage and cherished the cow together with many other symbols of Hinduism. Religion has 6 HINDU-SIKH RELATIONSHIP never been a cause of conflict between Sikh and non-Sikh Hindus. Sikh History Guru Nanakís message came like a breath of fresh breeze to Hindus in the Punjab who had been lying prostrate under Muslim oppression for well-nigh five centuries. They flocked to the feet of the Sikh Gurus and many of them became initiated in the Sikh sect. The sect continued to grow till it spread to several parts of the Punjab, Sindh and the North-West Frontier. Gurudwaras sprang up in many places. The non-Sikh Hindus whose temples had been destroyed by the Muslims installed the images of their own gods and goddesses in many Sikh Gurudwaras. The Hindu temples which had survived welcomed the Adi Granth in their precincts. In due course, these places became community centres for Hindu society as a whole. This resurgence of Indiaís indigenous spirituality could not but disturb Muslim theologians who saw in it a menace to the further spread of Islam. The menace looked all the more serious because Sikhism was drawing back to the Hindu fold some converts on who Islam had sat lightly. The theologians raised a hue and cry which caught the ears of the fourth Mughal emperor Jahangir (1605-1627 A.D.), who had ascended the throne with the assistance of a fanatic Islamic faction. He marty red the fifth Sikh Guru, Arjun Dev, for ìspreading falsehood and tempting Muslims to apostasy.î Hindus everywhere mourned over the foul deed, while Muslim theologians thanked Allah for his ìmercy.î Guru Arjun Dev was the first martyr in Sikh history. Muslim rulers continued to shed Sikh blood till Muslim power was destroyed by resurgent Hindu heroism in the second half of the 18th Century. The sixth Sikh Guru, Har Govind (1606-1644 A.D.), took up arms and trained a small army to resist Muslim bigotry. He was successful and Sikhs escaped persecution till the time of SIKH HISTORY TERMS OF THE DEBATE / 77 the sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707 A.D.), who was a veritable fiend in a human from so far as Hindus were concerned. He summoned the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1664-1675 A.D.), to the imperial seat at Delhi and martyred him in cold blood on his refusal to embrace Islam. Some followers of the Guru who had accompanied him were subjected to inhuman torture and torn to pieces. This was as it were a final signal that there was something very hard at the heart of Islamóa heart which the Gurus had tried to soften with their teachings of humanism and universalism. Sikhism had to accept the challenge and pick up the sword in defence of its very existence. This transformation of Sikhism had been started already, though in a small way, by Guru Har Govind. The tenth Guru, Govind Singh, completed the process when he founded the Khalsa (Party of the Pure) in 1699 A.D. He was a versatile scholar who knew several languages, kept the company of learned Brahmins and composed excellent poetry on varied themes. He had been fascinated by the Puranic story of Goddess Durga particularly in her incarnation as Mahisamardini. He performed an elaborate Yajna presided over by pundits of the ancient lore and invoked the Devi for the protection of dharma. The Devi came to him in the shape of the sword which he now asked some of his followers to pick up and ply against bigotry and oppression. Those who could muster the courage and dedication to die in defence of dharma were invited by him to become members of the Khalsa by wearing the five emblems of this heroic orderóKesh (unshorn hair) Kangha (comb), Kada (steel bracelet), Kachha (shorts) and Kirpan (sword). A new style of initiation termed pahul was ordained for this new class of Sikh warriorsósipping a palmful of water sweetened with sugar and stirred by a double-edged sword. Every member of the Khalsa had to add the honorific Singh (lion) to his name so that he may be distinguished from the non-Khalsa Sikhs who could continue with their normal attire 8 HINDU-SIKH RELATIONSHIP and nomenclature. No distinction of caste or social status was to be recognised in the ranks of the Khalsa. The Khalsa was not a new religious sect. It was only a martial formation within the larger Sikh fraternity, as the Sikhs themselves were only a sect within the larger Hindu society. It was started with the specific mission of fighting against Muslim tyranny and restoring freedom for the Hindus in their ancestral homeland. Soon it became a hallowed tradition in many Hindu families, Sikh as well as non-Sikh, to dedicate their eldest sons to the Khalsa which rightly came to be regarded as the sword-arm of Hindu society. Guru Govind Singh was forced to fight against a whole Muslim army before he could consolidate the Khalsa. His two teen-aged sons courted martyrdom along with many other members of the Khalsa in a running battle with a fully equipped force in hot pursuit. His two other sons who were mere boys were captured and walled up alive by the orders of a Muslim governor after they refused to embrace Islam. The Guru himself had to go into hiding and wander from place to place till he reached Nanded town in far-off Maharashtra. He was murdered by a Muslim fanatic to whom he had granted an interview inside his own tent. But the mighty seed he had planted in the shape of the Khalsa was soon to sprout, grow speedily and attain to the full stature of a strong and well-spread-out tree. Before he died, Guru Govind Singh had commissioned Banda Bairagi, a Rajput from Jammu to go to the Punjab and punish the wrong-doers. Banda more than fulfilled his mission. He was joined by fresh formations of the Khalsa and the Hindus at large gave him succour and support. He roamed all over the Punjab, defeating one Muslim army after another in frontal fights as well as in guerilla warfare. Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singhís younger sons had been walled up, was stormed and sacked. The bullies of Islam who had walked with immense swagger till only the other day had to run for cover. Large parts of the Punjab were