Khalsa, the brotherhood of the Gurmukhs
By S.S. Dhanoa

THE order of the Khalsa shall be 300 years old on Baisakhi. The Baisakhi,as per the Christian calendar that is followed all over the world, has made the Khalsa tercentenary fall on the April 14, 1999. The Khalsa was the end product of the mission of Guru Nanak spanning more than two centuries and nine successor Gurus. The eternal Guru, who took birth as Guru Nanak (1466-1539A.D.) passed on his jyoti through nine successor Gurus to the Khalsa.

The Khalsa, an armed brotherhood of equal human beings, with distinct physical appearance and a worldview to further the cause of righteousness in human society was designed to assume a role of leadership in society which got demonstrated and vindicated during the lifetime of the first generation baptised Singhs. Bhai Gurdas Singh, who wrote his Var towards the middle of the 18th century, bears testimony to the tremendous impact that the Khalsa made on the history and society in the north of India. Kazi Noor Muhammad, who had come with the invading army of Ahmed Shah Abdali, admired their valour in fighting and their character of truthful living, chivalry and respect for the women in the battlefield and outside. He also recognised that the Singhs were not from the Hindus. According to him, the Singhs has a separate religion of their own.

The Khalsa, as a democratic order, got undermined when they permitted the Misldars and Sardars to usurp the fruits of victory. Maharaja Ranjit Singh consolidated his power and empire and expanded the area under his suzerainity at the cost of the Misls and others. He successfully ruled his empire by invoking the name of the Khalsa, preferring for himself a title of Singh Saheb, accepting punishment at the hands of Akali Phoola Singh recognised as the Jathedar of the Akal Takht for transgressing the Sikh code of conduct and other visible acts of loyalty and devotion to the Khalsa. The rise of a leader like Ranjit Singh had been predicted by George Forster, a visitor to Punjab, in 1785 A.D. in a letter addressed to the Governor General of India.

"From the observations which I have made of the Seiques (Sikhs) they would appear to be a haughty and a high spirited people. Once I travelled in the company of a ‘Seick’ (Sikh) horseman for some days, and though I made to him several tenders of my acquaintance, he treated them all with great reserve, and a covert sort of disdain. There was no reason to be particularly offended in his hauteur towards me, for he regarded every other person in the same manner. His answer , when I asked him very respectfully in whose service he was retained, seemed strikingly characteristic of what I conceive to be the disposition of the nation. He said in a tone of voice and with a countenance which glowed with and was keenly animated by the warm spirit of liberty and independence, that he disclaimed an earthly master, and that he was the servant only of his prophet (Guru).

"In the defence and recovery of their country, the Sicques (Sikhs) displayed a courage of the most obstinate kind and manifested a perseverance, under the pressure of calamities, when the common danger roused them to action, and gave out one impulse to their spirit. Should any future cause call forth the combined efforts of the Sicques (Sikhs) to maintain the existence of empire and religion, we may see some ambitious chief led on by his genius and success, and absorbing the power of his associates, display, from the ruins of their commonwealth, the standard of monarchy. The pages of history are filled with like effects, springing from like causes . Under such a form of government, I have little hesitation in saying that the Seiques (Sikhs) would be soon advanced to first rank among the native princes of Hindostan; and would become a terror to the surrounding states."

When the British confronted the Khalsa, Punjabis had lived under the Khalsa hegemony for about a century. The Khalsa in Punjabi mind was a force blessed by Guru Gobind Singh and as such invincible. The polity in Punjab invoked the Khalsa for solving any problem that they had. Dogra Hira Singh harangued the soldiers in the name of the Khalsa to fight the Saudhawalia Sardars. Shah Muhammed writing about the Anglo-Sikh war of 1845 described as to how the Khalsa challenged the British to come out and face the Khalsa Panth who had just returned triumphantly after vanquishing Jammu, and he boldly stated that ultimately what would prevail would be as the Khalsa Panth decided. His description of the Anglo-Sikh war made out that the defeat of Punjabi armies was due to the treachery and inadequacy of the leadership. Baba Ram Singh, the Namdhari guru, was convinced that the Khalsa could never be defeated and if it had happened, like a true Sikh, one must look inwards to understand its causes. J.D. Cunningham, who wrote the History of Sikhs, coinciding with the annexation of Punjab by the British, wrote:

" The last apostle of the Sikhs did not live to see his own ends accomplished, but effectually roused the dormant energies of a vanquished people, and filled them with a lofty, although fitful, longing for social freedom and national ascendancy, the proper adjuncts of that purity of worship which had been preached by Nanak. A living spirit possesses the whole Sikh people, and the impress of Gobind had not only elevated and altered the constitution of their minds, but has operated materially and given amplitude to their physical frames. The features and external form of a whole people have been modified".

One has to accept that the Khalsa went into decline after defeat of the Khalsa Darbar armies. Sant Maharaj Singh, Baba Ram Singh, Baba Dyalji of the Nirankari movement in their own way tried to reverse the decline and to bring the Khalsa back to Charhdi Kalan and Raj Karega Khalsa but the mainstream of the Khalsa got reconciled to the role of ‘subordinate patriotism’ under the British. The British recognising the merit in the Khalsa form made Amrit Chhakna or baptism as Khalsa compulsory for the Sikh soldiers in the British Indian army. The Khalsa soldiers in the British Indian army made a mark for themselves and won encomiums from the British. The Khalsa accounted for 20 to 30 per cent in the Indian army. The British took special care to see that the Khalsa had no cause for grievance against the British. An elaborate system of canals for irrigation was developed in Punjab and in the new areas opened up, liberal allotment of lands were made to the farmers in areas from where recruitment of the Sikh soldiers was made by the British. This was the period when apocryphal stories like the prediction of Guru Tegh Bahadur about ‘hat wearing’ Sikhs coming from across the ocean to take over Delhi were spread. The Singh Sabha in trying to revive and rejuvenate the Sikh movement scrupulously avoided making any assertion challenging the British power in India. It was something on which the Ghadrites in Canadian Gurdwaras were taunted by revolutionaries like Rash Behari Bose.

However, the spread of literacy among the Sikhs, the compulsory adherence to the Khalsa way of life in the army and the challenge posed by the Christian missionaries and the Arya Samaj produced a ferment and a sense of lost glory among the Sikhs, which gave birth to the gurdwara reform movement. The British initially had to come in defence of the status quo and with Gandhi’s endeavour to channelise all regional and sectarian movements into a broad national freedom movement, the gurdwara reform movement acquired strong anti-British overtones. The Sikhs joined the national freedom movement in large numbers. The gurdwara reform movement had given birth to the Shiromani Akali Dal as the political party claiming to represent the Khalsa. The Shiromani Akali Dal made a commendable contribution to the national freedom struggle.

The Khalsa is a brotherhood of the Gurmukhs, i.e the Guru centered ones. The perception of the reality by a Gurmukh is very different from the perceptions of manmukhs i.e the self-centered ones, whatever wisdom and far-sightedness they may claim or display. A glimpse of perception of the reality can be had from Babarvani verses in Guru Granth Saheb, Bachittar Natak or Zafarnamah. All these and Gurbani makes it clear that the world around us reflects the will and order of the Almighty. A Gurmukh is someone who can perceive the order and will of God. He does not waste his energy in remorse or blaming others for what came to prevail. The author is not aware of anyone who has been or who is being perceived as the leader of the Khalsa, speaking the language of a Gurmukh . If the justification for the decisions taken is the worldly wisdom and cleverness of mind, one has to conclude that in public affairs the Khalsa has allowed itself to be led by Manmukhs. Unless the situation changes, the greatness of the Khalsa will remain something that has happened in the past but not likely to be repeated in the near future.