BACK
THE
KHALSA IN HINDU PERCEPTION
Prithipal Singh*
The Hindus have always constituted bulk of the population
of India. Hinduism, the religion that these people profess,
embraces the whole stream of the Indian thought sources
which go back to very ancient and primitive level of belief.
It is in this context that Hinduism has often been described
as sanatana, ancient or eternal. Two characteristics of
Hinduism, viz., comprehensiveness and unceasing growth,
have earned it the name of medley of faiths mostly linked
with the same pantheon. Such a basis has enabled Hinduism
to develop a limitless capacity for absorbing every kind
of belief, howsoever incongruous. This has given rise to
various sampardayas within Hinduism. Each sampardaya constitutes
a group of persons who believe in a set of traditional doctrines
originated by a teacher and have a tendency to develop into
a sect or sub-sect. Many of such sects follow even mutually
contradictory modes of worship.1 This special feature has
enabled Hinduism to lay its claim on any religious system
or thought originating in India as having emanated from
the ancient concept of dharma and dharam yudh as explained
in the Hindu epics.2
Having failed to come to terms with the onslaught of Islam
and lost quite a sizeable number of low-caste followers
to conqueror faith, a wave to look within overtook all those
well-meaning religious people who felt concerned about the
fate of dharma in the subcontinent. They brought forth what
has been described as Bhakti cult with emphasis on denunciation
of caste system. Although the pioneers of Bhakti were Brahmins
yet most of the later and popular exponents hailed from
amongst the section of society what has since then come
to be called dalit. Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev, Dhanna, et al
were such powerful preachers of Bhakti. All of them condemned
caste system, ritualism, preached unity of God and accepted
the theory of incarnation for Bhakti. But they did not move
away from the path of asceticism and practice of austerities
to attain liberation. It was left to Nanak from Punjab to
present an autonomous doctrine that essentially attended
to the concerns of human life in its totality – the
spiritual and the mundane. His denunciation of caste and
renunciation in unequivocal terms attracted people from
amongst all sections of society. Himself hailing from a
Khatri family, he shed all inhibitions of the high and the
low. His nine successors had to level the ground for religio-social
interaction in the Punjab where the establishment and consolidation
of an alien political authority, a fierce proselytizing
campaign had left most of the people hapless and made them
confine themselves to seek shelter as ascetics of various
orders or practise ritualism in its most rigid form. In
fact, Punjab remained in a particular category where the
Hindu society was existing under a terrific shock which
stunned both the mind and spirit.
The Hindu mind looked askance towards the Sikh religious
system from the very outset as it reflected continuation
of neither the Bhakti nor the Sant tradition.3 Two hundred
fifty years of the life and teachings of the Gurus witnessed
considerable changes taking place in political and social
spheres. The Gurus also had the feel of the response of
Hindu orthodoxy towards the emerging shape of Sikhism. The
Sikh Gurus showed special inclination towards social concerns
and insisted that theirs was a path meant to be treaded
by the householders whose final goal was sahaj. This distinctly
formed the basis of a new dispensation. The temporary reprieve
that Brahminism got during Akbar’s reign on account
of his having followed a policy of liberalism did show strains
on the emerging Sikh society. But the Gurus had developed
the institutions like langar, pangat and sangat to enable
the Sikh society to escape from the grip of Brahminism and
its caste rigour. Ideologically, the Sikh Gurus remained
faithful and steadfast to the gospel of Guru Nanak and several
Muslims were attracted to the faith.4 This fact kept the
Brahmins at a distance from Sikhism. But, after Akbar, when
the Sunni orthodoxy under the influence of Sheikh Ahmad
Sirhindi Mujahid Alif Sani came to exercise influence on
the Emperor and the Mughal court, Guru Arjun became the
first victim of this resurgence of Muslim orthodoxy. It
was during Guru Arjun’s pontificate that the ranks
of the Sikhs had begun to swell phenomenally. Guru Hargobind’s
resolve to prepare for defence against repression brought
the Hindu masses closer to the Sikh ethos. They came to
believe that the Sikh Gurus had launched a new programme
to offer armed resistance to oppression. This, in Hindu
perception, came to be looked upon as dharam yudh. Guru
Hargobind’s rapprochement with the Udasi order of
Sri Chand strengthened this belief. The Rajput princes also
began to look to the Sikh Gurus as saviours of the Hindus.
Their reverence for the Gurus is borne out by accounts available
in the Sikh tradition wherein we find the eighth Guru, Guru
Harkrishan staying at Mirza Raja Jai Singh’s bungalow
during his sojourn at Delhi. When Aurangzeb’s determination
to turn the land or Dar-ul-Harb (the land inhabited by non-believers)
into Dar-ul-Islam (the land inhabited by the Muslims) began
to put its full weight, close vigil began to be kept on
the activities of Guru Tegh Bahadur. Earlier, he is believed
to have served a term in confinement on a complaint lodged
by Ram Rai5 and was released at the intercession of Raja
Ram Singh, son of Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Amber. The Guru
visited the Hindu places of pilgrimage and saw for himself
the mass destruction of temples and the oppression let loose
by the imperial agents to secure forcible conversions. The
Guru visited Agra, Mathura and Allahabad and gave the message
to the people “fear not, frighten not” and “man
devoid of devotion to the Name Divine is gripped by suffering.”6
Thereafter, the Guru accompanied Mirza Raja Ram Singh to
Dhubri (Assam) to which place he was sent (as a punishment)
ostensibly for the conquest of Assam. While the Guru was
still there, disturbing news from the Punjab reached him.
He rushed back where he found the Hindu population being
terrorised by the Mughal officials. “Hundred of Brahmins
had been thrown into jail in the hope that if they embraced
the religion of the prophet, the rest of the Hindus would
readily follow the example.”
To restore confidence among his followers and the Hindus
who had begun to look upon him as their saviour, he intensively
toured the Malwa area of the Punjab and addressed people
in huge congregations. This was bound to attract the ire
of the Emperor Aurangzeb. Soon after his return to Chak
Nanaki (Anandpur Sahib), the Guru received a deputation
of the Kashmiri Pandits. They are believed to have faced
severe persecution at the hands of Iftikhar Khan, the Kashmir
Governor. Some of them with spiritual disposition met and
decided to go on a pilgrimage to Amar Nath and invoke the
mercy of god Shiva to seek deliverance from the tyrannies
and save their faith. At Amar Nath, one of the Brahmins
experienced a vision of Shiva who told him to approach Guru
Tegh Bahadur in Punjab and ask for his help to save the
Hindu religion. A deputation led by Pandit Kirpa Ram Datt
of Mattan came to Anandpur to relate their woes to the Guru.
The Guru listened to them rapt, in thought. At this moment,
young Gobind came and enquired from his father as to why
he was so engrossed in a pensive mood. Guru Tegh Bahadur
mentioned about the fate of the Pandits of Kashmir and said
that their distress could be removed only if some worthy
person sacrificed his head. Young Gobind said innocently:
‘None could be more worthy than yourself.’ This
was a brave answer. Guru Tegh Bahadur asked the Kashmiri
Pandits to convey to the emperor that if the Sikh Guru (Tegh
Bahadur) got converted, they would voluntarily accept Islam.
The dye was thus cast.
Guru
Tegh Bahadur started from Anandpur, was subsequently arrested
and taken to Delhi where he was beheaded in the Chandni
Chowk. He gave his head at the altar of dharma. Therefore,
all the people of religious disposition exclaimed Guru Tegh
Bahadur as dharam di chaddar. Guru Gobind Singh himself
wrote in his Bachitra Natak:
He protected their frontal mark and the sacred thread
In this Kali age he performed a grand deed
He made the supreme sacrifice for the men of faith.
He gave his head, but uttered not a groan.
This martyrdom he endured to uphold righteousness.7
The martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur had a deep impress on
the Hindu mind. The Rajputs, who highly revered him, were
dumb-founded. Awe-stricken Hindus as a whole hailed Guru
Tegh Bahadur as saviour of the country (hind-di-chaddar).
Some would even wish to address him as protector of the
universe (jag chaddar). It was a martyrdom that symbolized
the spirit of sacrifice for an ideal. In this case, the
ideal was the freedom of conscience and this was what the
Hindus of north India had never witnessed earlier. Since
then, the Hindus of India “have looked upon Guru Tegh
Bahadur’s sacrifice as a bold act for the defence
of their faith and traditions. They have never been in doubt
about the great debt they owe to Guru Tegh Bahadur."8
They have ever believed that Guru Tegh Bahadur had given
a parting message to Guru Gobind Singh to fight for the
protection of Hindu dharma till the last breath of life
since the Kshatryas and the Rajputs, the traditional defenders
of Hindu faith, had fallen from grace: Guru Gobind Singh
created the order of the Khalsa for the defence and protection
of Hindu dharma.9
An enlightened average Hindu began to find in the teachings
of the Sikh Gurus most of the lofty ideals which the sages
of India had preached from ancient times. He also found
the vocabulary and terminology used by Sikh Gurus overwhelmingly
Hindu. But to the Brahmin, Sikhism presented a new dynamic
view of life, which was revolutionary in its implications.
It repudiated asceticism and hit at untouchability in particular.
The Brahmin found his special position in caste hierarchy
challenged, in unequivocal terms, besides his exclusive
prerogative as the custodian and preceptor of religion being
denounced.10 That is why the Brahmins and the Khatris opted
to stand aloof and even offered opposition when the Khalsa
was created. At that time, Guru Gobind Singh was seen as
trying to subvert the age-old basic principles on which
the Hindu society stood. The mandate that Guru Gobind Singh
got was to spread righteousness and defeat and destroy the
wicked and evil-doers everywhere. “This is qualitatively
different from the concept of dharma and adharma of Hindu
mythology because in Hinduism it is the God-incarnate himself
who fights the adharma.11 As against this, Guru Gobind Singh
clearly states:
Those who call me God will fall into the deep pit of
hell;
Take me as His servant, do not try to find anything more
than this.
I am servant of the Supreme Being and have come into this
world to see the spectacle.12
Sikhism totally rejects the theory of incarnation. The Guru
re-interpreted the heroic tales of Hindu mythology in the
light of the Sikh doctrine. These are found in the Dasam
Granth. This was done by the Guru with the purpose of stirring
heroic ardour among a people enervated by a passivist philosophy
and an unrealistic mythology. Guru Gobind Singh was a crusader,
both against the forces of status quo represented by Hindu
feudal hill chiefs as also the forces of oppression represented
by the Mughals. And to fight these, he unsheathed his sword
and created the heroic Order of the Khalsa.
In the light of the above, it is not easy to identify the
Hindu perception of the Khalsa. Sikhism did not emerge as
just another sect within Hinduism as most non-Sikh scholars
will like us to believe. It was not a restatement of some
of the doctrines and beliefs of Hinduism in simple understandable
terms nor was Nanak a Hindu reformer as some modern historians
have tried to make out. It is the dichotomy of Hindu mind
that makes it difficult for us to clearly define the Hindu
perception of the Khalsa. In popular Hindu parlance, the
Sikh movement emerged out of the Bhakti aura. Since the
impact of the teachings of the Sikh Gurus as found to be
more profound, they were accepted at a higher plane vis-a-vis
the Bhaktas. The Sikh Gurus were even accepted as incarnation
of God who appeared on this earth to emancipate the Hindu
mind from the fetters of mythology. The martyrdom of Guru
Tegh Bahadur and more than that the events preceding the
execution of the Guru at Delhi convinced the Hindu masses
that a crusade had come to be launched against the Mughal
repression. Thus, the Brahmin opposition to the egalitarian
doctrine of Sikh faith got subdued. In popular understanding,
the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur and creation of the Khalsa
by Guru Gobind Singh were the two events that made nationalism
a religion for the Hindus,14 the opposition of the Shivalik
Hindu hill chiefs notwithstanding. It is crystal clear that
Guru Gobind Singh had no selfish political motives in the
creation of the Khalsa. He only wished to build up a nation
out of the oppressed and the suppressed people. The socio-religious
integration that the Khalsa sought to bring about signalled
a danger for Mughal imperialism. This explains why Guru
Gobind Singh has been described as ‘builder par excellence’
and the one who released a new dynamic force in the arena
of Indian history. He has also been hailed as a great patriot
who shed his own blood and that of his kith and kin for
the defence of Hinduism and the country and “a hero
who emerged in the best of the traditions of Hinduism transcending
all barriers of time.” Traditionally, the Sikhs began
to be looked upon as protectors of Hinduism.15
There seem to be some peculiar historical reasons at the
back of the development of such a perception in the Hindu
mind about the Khalsa and Guru Gobind Singh himself. The
general mass of Hindus felt indebted to the Khalsa for fighting
against the Mughals and the Afghans, thereby giving them
protection against oppression and the prevailing anarchical
conditions. The Sikh literature that came to be produced
during the period (the eighteenth century) looked to the
Brahminical tradition of scholarship as model. This led
to the acceptance of mythical stories or oral devotional
accounts as source of history. The end product was mythopoetic
histories that had sufficient sprinkling and intermixture
of traditional Hindu mythological accounts. Much of the
Janam Sakhis and Gurbilas literature belongs to this genre.
The Gurbilases brought in such a myth that presented Guru
Gobind Singh as a votary of devi cult and invoking the blessings
of the devi before the creation of the Khalsa. This was
beyond doubt a result of anxiety of Brahminical scholastic
tradition to keep the Sikh Panth closer to the Hindu ethos.
We find the Gur Pratap Suraj Granth of Bhai Santokh Singh
also accepting this genre of historical writing. The Nirmala
school always remained under the influence of Vedic and
Sanskritic traditions, leading to the interpretation of
Sikh scriptures within the terms of these traditions. The
Hindu renaissance that generated in the early twentieth
century banked upon this huge mass of literature for their
understanding of Sikhism and thereby got tempted to present
Sikhism as a Hindu sect and a large number of Sikh martyrs
and the Sikh Gurus as Hindu heroes. The British writers
were also fed upon this theory. This shaped the Hindu perception
of the Khalsa.
Eminent Indian historian and biographer of Shivaji, Dr J
N Sarkar, looked at the origin and growth of the Sikh community
in a very casual manner. He struck to his averment “My
theme is the history of Delhi empire and not that of a provincial
tribe.” But when “it came to describing the
role of Guru Gobind Singh vis-a-vis the decline and fall
of the Mughal empire, Sarkar makes a reference to the creation
of the Khalsa and states:
“Guru Gobind Singh organised the sect into the most
efficient and implacable enemy of the Mughal empire and
the Muslim faith.”16 He did not care to glance at
the spiritual and social background of the Sikh movement.
This assessment about the creation of the Khalsa stands
as a class by itself. It has to be taken as an over-simplified
account of a momentous event which saw through the dissolution
of the Mughal empire in Punjab and cast its shadow on the
history of northern India for more than a century and a
half. Most of the vernacular Hindu writers on Sikh history
have paid special attention to the propitiation of devi
by Guru Gobind Singh and have perceived the creation of
the Khalsa as a consequence of the blessings of goddess
Bhavani. Some other writers have tried to make out that
creation of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh was a bold attempt
at restoring the lost Hindu glory of the days of the Vedas!
These writers harp on the story of tracing the descent of
the Sikh Gurus from Lord Rama. Such a depiction of the birth
of the Khalsa remains a confused patch-work of a few contradictory
Hindu-Sikh religious beliefs and institutions and, therefore,
suffers from an inherent dichotomy and contradiction. The
fact of the matter is that the Hindus are always prepared
to acknowledge the debt they owe to the Khalsa in alleviating
their sufferings at the hands of the Mughals, but they carry
an urge within that this happened with the miracle wrought
by a deity of the Hindu pantheon who is supposed to have
manifested through the person of Guru Gobind Singh and the
Khalsa.
In conclusion, it will be appropriate to say that whatever
the Sikh Gurus inherited or even may be said to have borrowed,
they allowed it to pass through the crucible of their own
experiences, imaginative and intellectual. And when it came
out of the crucible, it had gone through a strange alchemy.
The end-product was entirely a new thing altogether that
called for a new label.l8 In the light of this, the Hindu
mind must reassess its extant perceptions about the Khalsa
to enable it to stand the test of scientific study.
~~~
NOTES
AND REFERENCES
1. Benjamin Walker, The Hindu World, Vol. I, 445-47.
2. P. K. Nijhawan, Hinduism Re-defined, 39-48.
3. Niharanjan Ray, The Sikh Gurus and entire Sikh Society,
13 and 58-59.
4. R. C. Majumdar, Ray Chaudhri and Datta, An Advanced History
of India, 407.
5. J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, 56-57.
6. H. R. Gupta, History of the Sikh Gurus, 133; see also
the Guru Granth Sahib, IX, 830 and 1427.
7. Harbans Singh, The Heritage of the Sikhs, 81.
8. Gurbachan Singh Talib (ed.), Guru Tegh Bahadur, Background
and Supreme Sacrifice, XI.
9. Daulat Rai, Sahib-i-Kamal Guru Gobind Singh, London:
Kendri Singh Sabha, Punjabi Edition, 47. This book was first
published in 1901 in Urdu.
10. Gurbachan Singh Talib, The Impact of Guru Gobind Singh
on Indian Society, 51-53.
11. P. K. Nijhawan, Hinduism Re-deftned, 27.
12. Bachitra Natak, VI: 31-33.
Òi' jw e' gow/;[o T[fuoj?, s? ;G Bofe e[zv wfj gfo
j? .
w' e' dk; stB e ikB', ;K w? G/d[ B ozu gSkB' ..32..
w? j' gow g[oy e' dk;k, d/yfB nk:' irs swk;k .Ó
13. G. C. Narang, Transformation of Sikhism, 24; see also
I. B. Banerjee, Evolution of the Khalsa, Vol. 1,120-45.
14. Narang, Transformation of Sikhism, 80.
15. I. B. Banerjee, Evolution of the Khalsa, Vol. II, 159;
see also The Complete Works of Swami Viveka Nanda, Vol.
III, 367 & 379; P. K. Nijhawan, Hinduism Re-defined,
40; and Dipankar Gupta, The Context of Ethnicity : Sikh
Identity in a Comparative Perspective, vii.
16. A. C. Banerjee, From Guru Nanak to Gum Gobind Singh,
188.
17. Himadri Banerjee, “Creation of Khalsa, A non-Sikh
Indian Literacy Perspective” in Jasbir Singh Man,
Kharak Singh (Eds.), Recent Researches in Sikhism. 152-59.
18. Niharranjan Ray, The Sikh Gurus and entire Sikh Society,
60.
¤
©Copyright Institute of Sikh Studies,
2007, All rights reserved.
