This Above all
Punjab may go the Bihar way
KHUSHWANT SINGH

Punjab was for many years much the most prosperous state of India. It is no longer so. There are reasons to fear it will go further down the list of prosperity and vie with Bihar for the lowest position. The causes of its downgrading should be a salutary lesson for other states. The recent confrontation between the Akalis who rule and followers of Dera Sacha Sauda created turbulence across the whole of northern India because Sikhs were led to believe that the head of the dera had tried to pose as Guru Gobind Singh. Let us get the picture in the correct perspective.

I have seen and heard the dera head on TV and read the advertisement he put out in the papers. He calls himself Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. The point he wishes to make in assuming a Sikh, Hindu and Muslim name is the word he has used as his takhulus Insaan — a human being. What he preaches is insaniyaat (humanism). The first of his new code of ethics is to abstain from using castes as surnames e.g. Sharma, Kapoor, Mahajan etc. which indicate caste affiliations because we are born equals. This is precisely what Guru Gobind Singh prescribed: maanas ki jaat sab ek he pehchaanbo — regard all mankind as of one caste; it is the Sikh counterpart of Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam.

He goes on to exhort people to abstain from alcoholic drinks. That, too, makes sense in a rustic society in which men drink like thirsty donkeys, get drunk and make asses of themselves. They don’t know the art of civilised drinking (saleeqa). Again he asks people to abstain from eating meat and eggs. He insists that his disciples do not take drugs. There is nothing wrong in preaching vegetarianism though Guru Gobind Singh was not a vegetarian. The rest of his edicts are equally harmless: don’t lie, don’t blaspheme, don’t use foul language, etc. It is altogether a simle, unsophisticated code of ethics meant for unsophisticated people which offends no one.

What the orthodox Khalsas got so angry about is the dera chief posing as Guru Gobind Singh at a ceremony like the Guru conducted on Baisakhi day 1699 when he inaugurated the Khalsa Panth. No one knows what the Guru looked like because no contemporary picture exists. The earliest depictions made over a hundred years later are in Mughal style which show him as a Mughal prince, very much like Farrukhsiyar. Later, Sikh artists, chiefly those who tried to capture the scene of the first baptism at Anandpur, show him in a long robe stirring a cauldron to prepare amrit. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has resemblance to those portraying the Guru. He should have known that it would not go well with the orthodox Khalsas. It did not. Unlike Hindus who do not mind humans portraying as gods and goddesses at Ram Lilas, Sikhs take the Sunni Muslim attitude that a human portraying himself as the Prophet commits blasphemy. The dera chief should have known this.

There is more behind the upsurge of protests than the offending similarity of the dera head with that of the last Guru. Deras which proliferate all over Punjab draw an increasing number of devotees and with them their offerings than the temples and gurdwaras. No one can object to that; every person has the freedom to choose his or her place of worship. But deras must not meddle with politics. Dera Sacha Sauda did it and paid the price. In this context, Hindu-Sikh relations should also be kept in mind.

The dividing line between the Hindus and Sikhs has always been blurred. Millions of Punjabis and Sindhi Hindus subscribe to Sikhism. Inter-marriages between the Sikhs and the Hindus are common. An increasing number of young Khalsa are giving up growing long hair and beards. Most Hindus regard Sikhs as an integral part of the Hindu mainstream. Sikh-Khalsa identity separate from the Hindu has always been under a challenge. Bhindranwala tried to assert it by preaching hatred against the Hindus and taking on a dissident sect, the Nirankaris. For a while he succeeded in arresting Sikh relapse into Hindu fold. Deras pose a more serious challenge. All are headed by Sikhs who like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh conform to Khalsa traditions. Their following is both among Sikhs and Hindus, and their teachings emphasise what is common to all religions and not exclusive to the Khalsa. This the Jathedars of the SGPC find unpalatable and unacceptable. The recent outburst of Khalsa rage brandishing kirpans and yelling slogans was another manifestation of its determination to assert "We are not Hindus".

Daman’s epitaph

Chiragh Deen Ustad Daman was a Punjabi poet of recent times. He never accepted the Partition of India, nor made his peace with Pakistan. The lines which first attracted me to him were about what happened on August 15, 1947:

The redness in your eyes tells me/you have been
crying;

We too have cried.

His another couplet summed up military rule in Pakistan:

Pakistan is having a wonderful time

Everywhere there are soldiers and the army.

There are other verses he wrote in the same strain. Inevitably he landed himself in trouble and was jailed. He became a hero of Pakistani Punjabis and exclaimed as a Sufi saint. When he died, in accordance with his wish, he was buried in a courtyard of the tombs of the two Sufi saints, Madho Lal and Hussain, near Shalimar Garden. On my last visit to Lahore I visited his grave to strew rose petals on it. His tombstone bore an epitaph composed by himself.

A cursory glance at the world I took/I shuffled pages of life story then shut the book/Daman found no friend to accompany him on his final journey/he slung his shroud across his shoulders/and the world forsook.

HOME