Chapter 4

 

What Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh Thought of McLeod?

 

 

J.S. Tiwana claims:

 

Prof. Pritam Singh was my main source. He told me that when McLeod was working on his doctorate on Guru Nanak, he came several times to interview his next door neighbor, the celebrated historian, Dr. Ganda Singh, and also interviewed him (Pritam Singh). Dr. Ganda Singh found McLeod absolutely sincere and earnest. Pritam Singh said that as long as Ganda Singh was alive, his critics did not have the courage to attack McLeod. Ganda Singh stood too tall and well respected in the profession.  He wrote an article in defense of McLeod in a journal, The Punjab, Past and Present, which he edited. It was a befitting reply to some critics of McLeod. Later I obtained a copy of the article; perhaps I may still have it. Who knows better how to read research and write history than Ganda Singh?

 

Harbans Singh has included several well-researched articles of McLeod in Encyclopedia of Sikhism. A scholar who comes recommended by such fine minds as Ganda Singh, Harbans Singh, Khushwant Singh and J.S. Grewal has to be accepted and respected. I made my decision.

 

Instead of relying on what Pritam Singh told Tiwana about Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh’s opinion of McLeod, let us examine what McLeod says about them. Further, to understand Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh’s attitude towards McLeod, Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion and the date of its release are very crucial.

 

The University of London accepted McLeod’s thesis for the award of PhD in July 19651 but he kept the contents of the thesis out of the public view including his friends Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh2 who had offered assistance in his work until November 19683 when “Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion” was released upon which McLeod was “widely known as being among the foremost scholars of Sikh studies in the world”. Now why did McLeod keep his thesis out of public view for more than three years? One reasonable explanation is that McLeod wanted to grab attention by releasing it in a book form close to the quincentenary of Guru Nanak’s birthday in 1969 hoping that Sikhs would embrace him as another Max. A. Mcauliffe.

 

Commenting on the glowing review of his book McLeod exclaimed, “Professor Zaehner could have never known what joy he created.”3 “The date of publication at the end of 1968 also told heavily in favor of the book, for had it not been published around that time I would have to wait 500 years for another date of equal importance. The book was published on the threshold of the quincentenary of Guru Nanak’s birthday in 1469.”3

 

When McLeod arrived in India, he was warmly received both by Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh and that is how McLeod recollects his interaction with them.

 

The second reason was the fact that it became generally known among Sikh scholars in the universities that my subject was Sikh history and religion and consequently they began to take interest in me. … Dr. Ganda Singh was particularly attentive towards me and I owe a considerable debt to him for his cordial and continuing assistance. … In all respects he proved more than willing to assist me. His only fault was that if one lent him a book which referred to the Punjab the chances of it being returned, if it bore any reference to the Punjab were absolutely nil. I lost two books in this manner.4

 

Others to proffer assistance included Hrabans Singh, the first Registrar of the new Punjabi University. The contents of my PhD were still not known in Punjab, but even then if they had been known the sympathetic help which I received from both Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh would have continued. It was only when I was on the point of departure from Punjab that the contents became widely known and caused much offence to some influential members of the Panth. The offence certainly was not intended, but it nevertheless occurred and this made my task considerably more difficult, as may well be imagined. In spite of this reaction both Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh remained friendly and helpful to me. To both of them I owe considerable debt of gratitude.5

 

Further McLeod says that his book The Sikh of the Punjab received a friendly review from Dr. Ganda Singh in The Panjab Past and Present.6 However, McLeod’s interpretation of the friendly review makes Ganda Singh look like a shallow person hungry for flattery.                       

 

“The friendly nature of the review may perhaps have owed something to the fact that it contained a photo of Dr. Ganda Singh, describing him as ‘eminent Sikh historian’.”6

 

Here, McLeod attributes his own character flaws consciously or subconsciously to Ganda Singh. Moreover, this shows how McLeod has used manipulation/deception to promote himself.

 

Now let us examine Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh’s reaction to Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. McLeod wants the reader to believe that Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion was well received by both Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh in spite of the offence it caused to some influential members of the Sikh community.

 

The contents of my PhD were still not known in Punjab, but even then if they had been known the sympathetic help which I received from both Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh would have continued. … It was only when I was on the point of departure from Punjab that the contents became widely known and caused much offence to some influential members of the Panth. The offence certainly was not intended, but it nevertheless occurred and this made my task considerably more difficult, as may well be imagined. In spite pf this reaction both Ganda Singh and Harbans Singh remained friendly and helpful to me.7

 

Copies of Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion arrived shortly before we left Punjab for England and I was able to present one to Dr. Ganda Singh at the Punjab Historical Association Conference in 1969. He carried it round under his arm, with the title prominently displayed for all to see.8

 

Again, McLeod depicts Ganda Singh as a shallow person of pretentious nature whose ego was inflated by the mere receipt of a book from McLeod and as an act of show-off, he carried it round under his arm, with the title prominently displayed for all to see.

 

But soon McLeod found out that his assumption was wrong. He complains bitterly that in September 1969 an invitation by the Punjabi University for the international seminar in honor of Guru Nanak’s five hundredth birthday celebration did not include travel expenses, which made it impossible for him to attend. Moreover, he is disappointed and frustrated and cannot understand why his work was not discussed at the seminar and, why the book display which included a wide selection of manuscripts and seemingly every book published on Guru Nanak, but not his Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion and Archer’s The Sikhs. “Both books were nowhere to be seen.”8

 

McLeod does not reflect even for a moment on why the invitation did not include travel expenses, why his book was missing in the book display and why was there no reference to it at the seminar? He was fully aware that his friends Prof. Ganda Singh and Prof. Harbans Singh arranged an international seminar on the academic appraisal of Guru Nanak. It does not cross his mind that this may have something to do with his book whose main agenda was to undermine the originality and uniqueness of Nanakian philosophy (Gurmat). Instead of using this incident to verify the contents of his book, McLeod kept producing more absurd publications on Sikhism based on spurious literature and wild speculations.

    

McLeod uses the late Ganda Singh as an alibi to support his argument that Guru Nanak did not visit Baghdad. After consulting Dr. V.L. Menage to decipher the inscription about Guru Nanak’s visit to Baghdad he concludes:
 

“The janam-sakhi traditions offer insufficient evidence and the support hitherto claimed on the basis of the inscription must be withdrawn. Although, there remains a possibility that Guru Nanak visited Baghdad, we are now compelled to regard it as an unsubstantiated possibility.” 9

 

This conclusion drew the following befitting response from Sangat Singh:

 

Dr. V.L. Menage, Reader in Turkish at [the] School of Oriental and African Studies, London, who was commissioned by McLeod, admits his lack of knowledge of the Turkman language used in the inscription. Nonetheless he proceeds to translate the same. He concedes that [the] first six or seven syllables in the second line read Baba Nanak Fakir or Baba Nanak-i-Fakir but says that this does not fit into the meter and should be ignored. That suited very well McLeod’s thesis that Guru Nanak did not travel outside his surroundings. To ignore the inscription because it does not fit into one’s contrived thesis, amounts to intellectual dishonesty.10

 

Stung by Sangat Singh’s criticism, McLeod defended himself by claiming that Ganda Singh, who died many years ago, informed him in a private conversation that Sikh soldiers who discovered the inscription doctored it in order to make it clear that it referred to Baba Nanak.11

 

“Dr. Ganda Singh was well aware of the problem posed by the inscription and describes it in The Panjab Past and Present editorial to which reference has already been made. … In this editorial Dr Ganda Singh was treading very carefully.”12

     

First, Ganda Singh makes no mention of this information in the editorial cited by McLeod, but McLeod has no compunction in making Ganda Singh a partner in his fraudulent enterprise? Since Ganda Singh didn’t mention it to anybody else of what McLeod attributes to him, I believe McLeod concocted an alibi in a dead man.

 

Second, could any reasonable person believe that semiliterate Sikh soldiers with no knowledge of Arabic or Turkish doctored an inscription in Ottoman Turkish, which Dr. Menage, an expert in the Turkish language, according to McLeod, could not decipher?

 

Third, during Guru Nanak’s time Ottoman Turkish was the official language of Baghdad, but not the language of the populace, as Persian was the official language in the Punjab but not the language of the populace during Muslim rule.

 

Fourth, Guru Nanak did not go to Baghdad on an official visit. He traveled to Baghdad and other Islamic centers to meet religious leaders and common people. So the inscription in his memory must be in Arabic spoken by the people at that time. The Sikh soldiers who were in Baghdad (1916-1918) must have learned from local people about the inscription describing Guru Nanak’s visit, otherwise how could the soldiers find the inscription on their own?

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

1. W.H. McLeod. Discovering the Sikhs: Autobiography of a Historian. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004, p. 39-40.

2. Ibid., p. 46-47, 63.

3. Ibid., p. 62.

4. Ibid., p. 46.

5. Ibid., p. 46-47.

6. Ibid., p. 137.

7. Ibid., p. 46-47.

8. Ibid., p. 63.

9. W.H. McLeod. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 132.

10. W.H. McLeod. Discovering the Sikhs: Autobiography of a Historian. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004, p. 143.

11. Ibid., p. 143.

12. Ibid., p. 143.

 


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