Chapter 12

 

British and the Singh Sabha Reform Movement

Did British Try to Hinduize Sikhs?

 

 

 

Professor Jakobsh tells us:

 

For the British as the self-defined ‘keepers of the Sikh faith’, Sikh womanhood steeped in Hinduized practices, constituted an unwelcome impediment to the purification project of Sikhism. … The Sikh intelligentsia, carefully moulded and educated to conform to British political designs, benefited greatly from the politics of similarity that had progressed under the tutelage of the Raj. …  Enthused by the Victorian customs and ethos of the British, these reformers also adopted, and in some cases modified, the prevailing gender constructions of the Raj. The ramifications of the melding of Victorian gender constructs with hypermasculine Sikh ethos of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries through the newly forged Sikh elite were profound and far-reaching.¹

 

British influence on the Singh Sabha movement is undeniable, particularly in light of the preferential treatment given the Sikhs by the Raj. Correspondingly, the Singh Sabha leaders exhibited admiration and unequivocal support towards their rulers.²    

 

These statements had their beginnings in the 1870s from the pages of Hindu propaganda against the Sikhs and, this nefarious propaganda is in full force these days. In addition we find similar statements on other pages of her book. One of the prominent features of Jakobsh’s work is her consistent and persistent self-contradiction. She uses the same information to argue contradictory views. First, let me point out her statements that contradict the above outlined malicious propaganda:

 

The members of the Amritsar Sabha tended to be conservative, holding fast to assumptions and privileges of the upper and respected religious classes. This group was representative of what Harjot Oberoi has labelled Sanatan Sikhs. Sanatan Sikhs had little use for a monolithic and closed understanding of what it meant to be Sikh; the Khalsa ideal initiated by Guru Gobind Singh was for them simply one of many Sikh identities. … This fluid understanding of Sikh identity was challenged by the Lahore Singh Sabha, which was composed of what Bruce Lawrence calls the ‘elite consumers of new knowledge’. The new knowledge was based on Western enlightenment ideals and incorporated into the teachings of their British educators (Lawrence 1889: 98). The consumers of these ideals were professionals, many from lower castes, who had risen in status due to opportunities offered by the British educational system. … Dit Singh, who though a Mazhbi (low) caste, had become a potent force in Sikh reformative circles due to his education. As a result he became a veritable force in the castigation of the Amritsar Singh Sabha and of Sanatan Sikhs in general. Another powerful Lahore leader was Gurmukh Singh, who had risen to prominence as the first professor of Punjabi at Oriental College.³

 

In other words, the Sikh intelligentsia “carefully moulded and educated to conform to British political designs,” who ran the Lahore Singh Sabha, did not “admire or gave unequivocal support to the rulers” because they relentlessly exposed the hypocrisy and un-Sikh practices of the Amritsar Singh Sabha, which was made up of British toadies¾aristocrats and the so-called Sanatan Sikhs. Further she contradicts herself again when she says:

 

Whereas the pujaris of Golden temple had issued hukamnama (letter of command) in 1879 urging all Sikhs to join the Singh Sabha, by 1883 an official hukamnama from Akal Takhat decried the activities of the Lahore leadres as being injurious to Sikh interests (Bhatia 1987:153). Nonetheless, given the wider appeal of the Lahore Sabha’s initiatives, most other Singh Sabhas too severed their ties with the Amritsar group.⁴

 

Here again she is saying that the Lahore Sabha exposed and discredited the Amritsar Sabha in the eyes of the Sikh masses. Baba Sir Khem Singh Bedi, the leader of the Amritsar group made up of British “toadies”¾ aristocrats and “Sanatan Sikhs”⁵¾families of guru lineages, mahants, pujaris and other heterodox groups, found himself isolated and humiliated in the eyes of Sikh masses. He had supported the British in the 1857 mutiny by raising troops for them.⁶ He was aspiring to become the thirteenth Nanak with the help of his British masters.⁷

 

On the other hand, despite the formidable obstacles created by the British through toddies and parasites¾families of guru lineages, mahants, pujaris and other heterodox groups, the leaders of Lahore Singh Sabha (Tat Khalsa) awakened the Sikh masses about their “real heritage”¾the teachings of Gurus enshrined in the Aad Guru Garnth Sahib. Furthermore, they turned the tide against the designs of Christian missionaries, Arya Samajists, “Sanatan Sikhs,” and Ahmadiyas. Most importantly, the Lahore Singh Sabha through its tireless campaign of preaching and writings awakened the Sikh masses. Thus it provided a platform to rally and foster resistance against the British. This account, which Jakobsh has completely ignored intentionally, is discussed later in this chapter.

 

On the other hand, like her supervisor Oberoi, Jakobsh laments at the success of Lahore Singh Sabha over the Amritsar Sabha and belittles its achievements. Her Eurocentric mind is unwilling to give it credit for its glorious success in the face of formidable obstacles. According to her, Lahore Singh Sabha’s success is due to the tactics it learned from Christian missionaries:

 

“The members of the Lahore group were certainly well-versed in tactics employed by the potent missionary machine in Panjab, especially its proclivity to spread Christian tenets through the written word, which initiated widespread Sikh participation in the prevalent print culture of the day.”⁸

 

This is preposterous because in contrast to the financially strapped Lahore Sabha, Amritsar Sabha had the backing of the British and was flush with funds provided by aristocrats, Chiefs of Phulkian States, Kapurthala and Faridkot, and cash-rich Gurdwaras (Sikh places of worship) controlled by the British. Thus the Amritsar Sabha had much more powerful press to carry out its propaganda. So the victory of the Lahore Singh Sabha was mainly due its campaign based on “Nanakian philosophy (Gurmat)” whereas the Amritsar Sabha was fighting from a platform of “falsehood and distortion” of the Nanakian philosophy.

 

Now let us examine her other absurd and irrational assertion that the Sikh intelligentsia was enthused by “Victorian customs and the British ethos” and the Singh Sabha leaders exhibited “admiration and unequivocal support towards their rulers.” Generally, some people in the subjugated community (conquered, colonised) do copy and imitate their subjugators, but that happens only after centuries of subjugation. In contrast, the Sikh reform movements started less than 25 years after the conquest of Punjab. Surely, the Sikh aristocracy and Oberoi’s “Sanatan Sikh” danced to the tunes of their new masters but for the vast majority of Sikhs the colonists were devil incarnate. They regarded them as deceitful and morally depraved monkeys. Even when I was growing up in my village in the 1940s, people used the epithets, bandar (male monkey) and bandri (female monkey) for the British men and women, respectively. I still vividly remember an entertainer coming to our village with a pair of red-faced male and female monkeys wearing pants, skirt and English hats. The male was called sahib and the female mem. They used to perform various tricks to entertain people, especially children.

 

Recounting the horrible situation under “martial law” imposed by the British after the cold-blooded and calculated murder of innocent Punjabis by General Dyer in Jallianwala Bagh (somewhat adjacent to the Golden Temple) in Amritsar on the Baisakhi day, April 13, 1919, Giani Kartar Singh⁹ says: “People used to refer to white people (British) as monkeys. Please be careful, there may be a monkey with a gun behind the bush.” According to official report 379 unarmed people were killed and over 2,000 were wounded.¹⁰ Jakobsh makes no mention of this heinous crime as it belies her lies: The British were protector of Sikhs and Sikh faith and Sikhs were their most favoured subjects! Could it be that most of the victims of the massacre were Sikhs as Baisakhi is one of most sacred day for the Sikhs? Every year thousands of Sikhs come to Darbar Sahib (Golden temple) in Amritsar on this day to celebrate the creation of Khalsa on the Baisakhi day of 1699.

 

Moreover, the British were unable to pacify the Sikhs. Within ten years after the annexation of Punjab, Baba Ram Singh launched a movement (Kuka movement) against everything the British stood for. The British authorities with the help of toadies and the clergy (mahants and pujaris) sabotaged the movement and ruthlessly suppressed it by bodily blowing 75 Kukas with cannons without trial. Hundreds went to jails and, Baba Ram Singh was exiled in 1872 to Rangoon, Burma where he died in 1880.^{11, 12}

 

In spite of the allure of high recruitment in the army and land grants in the Canal Colonies in Western Punjab, the free spirited Sikhs felt the insults unbearable. For them the oppression of colonists, their control of gurdwaras and the desecration therein, their treachery and moral depravity was too much for them to keep silent. The yearning for freedom was like smouldering lava, which kept erupting again and again.

 

The deteriorating economic conditions, higher farm taxes and water charges coupled with oppressive regulations and Bills adopted by the Punjab Government, led to widespread peasant resentment against the government. Ajit Singh and his elder brother Kishen Singh and a trusted colleague Ghasita Ram led the agitation against the government and it received enthusiastic response from the people. Ajit Singh described the farmers as “the real owners of the country” but at the same time the most exploited and deprived of the fruits of their blood and sweat. Singh exhorted them to take hold of the situation by his forceful oratory of Banke Bihari’s famous and popular song: Pagri Samal O’Jatta (O farmer, take care of your turban¾protect your honour). This became the rallying call of the farmers in Punjab. The authorities saw the growing dangers as the agitators were from the most educated section of the peasantry characterised by Jakobsh as the “Sikh intelligentsia, carefully moulded and educated to conform to British political designs.” Most of the farmers were retired army men. The Government responded to the agitation with panic. Terrified Lord Kitchner, C-in-C of Royal Indian Army, wrote to the British Government at home, that he would not be responsible for the loyalty of native troops if the proposed legislation were not withdrawn.^{13, 14, 15}   Also alarming to the authorities was the demonstration by students of Khalsa College in Amritsar, the strong hold of Sikh middle class.¹⁶

 

Oddly, in her convoluted reasoning, Doris Jakobsh gives the credit to Arya Samaj for the success of farmer’s agitation:

 

Ultimately, the Arya Samaj was blamed for the political turmoil. Ibbetson had earlier warned his officials against the employment of Aryas because of their seditious nature and had urged them to dismiss Arya employees ‘at the least sign of disloyalty’. … Further, officials arrested leaders such as Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh, among others, some were subsequently deported to Burma. … In the cities, members of Arya Samaj left with the full weight of government apprehension about them as the apparent organisers of the disturbances. … Leaders of the Samaj hastened to make amends; the hostile world of British mistrust and discrimination was simply too problematical. A delegation met with Denzil Ibbetson acknowledging that while some ‘extremists’ had taken part in the agitation ‘the Arya Samajists as a body had nothing to do with the later disturbances, that the Samaj was an organisation which had for its sole object the religious educational advancement of its members.’¹⁷

 

It is farfetched that Arya Samajists took part in the farmers’ agitation to help the farmers, as generally, they were/are the worst enemy of the farming community. If they did participate then their motive must have been to harm the Sikh farmers by bringing about bloody conflicts between the Sikh farmers and the British authorities, as Sikh farmers were in the forefront of the agitation. The Arya Samajists were well aware of how their ancestors benefited from the bloody conflicts between Sikhs and Mughals. Although, she points out that Arya Samaj leaders went out of their way to placate and assure the British authorities of their loyalty, she makes no mention of what happened to Lala Lajpat Rai.

 

The government arrested Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh and deported them to Mandalay where they were locked separately. Understandably, Lala Lajpat Rai developed second thoughts about his role in the agitation. He asked for pardon in a memorandum to the Secretary of State on September 22, 1907, pleading his innocence.¹⁸ Later on Rai turned Gandhite and started receiving Rs. 5,000 per month from the munificent of Seth Jugal Kishore Birla for thwarting the conversion of untouchables to Christianity. In May 1914, he left the country to comply with his pardon commitments:¹⁹

 

Under the darkening shadow of World War First (1914-18) Lala Ji left for abroad in May 1914 on a self-chosen exile as per commitment given vide para 9 of his memorial submitted from Mandalay. He returned to India in Feburary 1920. He passed those six years mostly in U. S. A., received generous donations from Indians settled there for cause of independence of motherland, but kept at a safe distance from the Ghadar Party and on return spent those huge collections for purposes other than the political, as accused by Kirti (Punjabi magazine) in its various issues.¹⁹

 

In November 1927, about two-dozen Punjabi revolutionaries led by Kedar Nath Sehgal criticised Lala Lajpat Rai for his anti-revolutionary activities and for aggravating Hindu-Muslim tension.²⁰ He died of heart disease on November 17, 1928.²¹

 

On the other hand, the British authorities charged Ajit Singh, his younger brother Swaran Singh and Sufi Amba Parsad for distributing seditious literature. Sawarn Singh was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment. He was released on parole due to his deteriorating health. He died in the prime of life in 1910. The other two fled to Iran incognito.²² After spending many years in foreign jails, Ajit Singh was allowed to return to India shortly before the British left India, and he died in 1947.

 

The Ghadar Movement (1913-1915)

 

The Sikh migrants in Canada and America who faced enormous racial discrimination and immigration restrictions started the Ghadar movement to end the British rule in India. In February 1913, the United India League and the Khalsa Diwan Society sent a delegation to the Colonial Secretary and the Governor General of India to present the case of Indian emigrants against the legal disabilities and statutory discrimination imposed on them by the various governmental agencies in Canada. This delegation was well received by the Press in Punjab, but the Lieutenant Governor merely warned its members against inflammatory speeches; Lord Harding expressed his inability to help them, and the Colonial Secretary in London refused to meet them.

 

Across the border in United States, the Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan built a Gurdwara in Stockton in 1912, which was the main centre of social activities of the Indian community. A sister political organisation, Hindi Association of Pacific Coast was also founded and most of its founding members were Sikhs--Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna being its first president. In its first weekly issue, The Ghadar, Har Dayal gave the association the popular name Ghadar Party.

 

In May 1914, the Japanese steamer Komagata Maru reached Vancouver in Canada with 376 emigrants, mostly Sikhs. New immigration laws barred their entry, forcing the Komagata Maru to return. The steamer was on high seas when the First World War broke out. Not one passenger was allowed to disembark before it reached Calcutta. There, at Budge Budge, the passengers refused to be shipped straight to Punjab and eighteen of them were killed when the troops opened fire. The first batch of Ghadrites had already left America. The Komagata Maru affair appeared to merge into the revolutionary programme of the Ghadar Party. Soon batches of Ghadarites started coming to India from Canada, America, Hong Kong and Shanghai, including their president Sohan Singh Bhakna. Of over 3,000 returning emigrants, 190 were interned and more than 700 were restricted to their villages. Those who escaped the British dragnet started exhorting the people to rise against the British. They addressed Sikh gatherings at various places.

 

The leaders of Chief Khalsa Diwan (British toadies) looked upon them as dupes and Zaildars and Lambardars (touts) in the villages were ready to inform the police against them. There was no response to the Ghadrites from any national organisation except a few revolutionaries like Rash Bihari Bose who had any sympathy for them. Disillusioned, in 1915, the revolutionaries turned their attention to the army and they were able to contact a number of regiments, particularly, the 23rd Cavalry at Lahore, the 28th Punjabis at Ferozepur, 28th Pioneer and the 12th Cavalary at Meerut. They were optimistic about the response; February 21 was fixed as the date of general uprising but changed to February 19 in view of the suspected leakage. This date too was leaked to the authority. The disaffected regiments were disarmed; suspects were court-martialled and executed. Then attempts of the revolutionaries to capture arms from arsenals at Lahore and Ferozepur and the police station at Sirhali in Amritsar district proved abortive. The revolutionaries blamed the informers and the loyalist supporters of the administration for this fiasco and killed few of them. By the middle of 1915 the hope of a popular rising was dashed. All that was left of the Ghadar was a series of conspiracy trials in which forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death, 114 were transported for life and ninety-three were given long or short imprisonment. A few of them left a legend behind like the young Kartar Singh Sarabha, who had gone about seducing the soldiers with astounding audacity and faced the trial with cool courage, ready to lay down his life in “the struggle for India’s freedom.” The Ghadrites were overwhelmingly Sikhs who were inspired and fired with zeal by the novels of Bhai Vir Singh and the Panth Parkash of Giani Gian Singh to live or die heroically.²³

 

A few Akalis and Ghadrites reacted sharply to the cold-blooded murder of a large number of Sikh reformers at Nankana Sahib in February 1921. A few militants decided to take revenge against persons who were seen as responsible for this massacre. Before the end of May 1921, an unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of G.M. Bowring, the Superintendent of Police and Sunder Singh Majithia, leader of Chief Khalsa Diwan. Police arrested some conspirators while others absconded, including Mota Singh and Kishan Singh popularly known as Gargaj. The Babar Akalis addressed the demobilised soldiers, as well as Sikh reformers and, they invited Hindus and Muslims too, for eliminating the British officials and their Indian and Punjabi supporters. They brought out fifteen issues of the Babar Akali Doaba from August 1922 to May 1923, from a press that moved from place to place to propagate their ideas in the districts of Jallandhar and Hoshiarpur. As a consequence the Babar Akali Jatha was declared an unlawful association. In less than a year then, almost all the important Babar Akalis were either eliminated or arrested. They were tried in courts and in the verdict given in February 1925, it was imputed that their aim was to gain independence in India and a Sikh rule in the Punjab. Six Babars were hanged a year later in February 1926. Many a poet glorified their martyrdom.²⁴

 

Bhagat Singh, a nephew of Ajit Singh, the legendary peasant leader, founded the Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Young Men Indian Association), which organised public meetings in Lahore from March 1926 to April 1927. The declared aim of the Sabha was to organize labourers and peasants for establishing an independent Republic of India with all its inhabitants forming a united Indian nation. Bhagat Singh and his associates subscribed to the idea that “a single deed makes more propaganda in a few days than thousands pamphlets.” Their approach was militant as they regarded the civil disobedience movement as a failure. In their “philosophy of bomb,” it was legitimate to make a “loud noise to make the deaf ear hear.” The two best-known incidents in which the leaders of this association took part was the assassination of J.P. Saunders, a British official, and throwing of a bomb in the Legislative Assembly in New Delhi on April 8, 1929. The execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru on March 23, 1932, marked the end of this revolutionary national movement.²⁵

 

Gurdwara Reform Movement (1914-1925)

 

In the entire British Indian Empire, the British controlled not a single mosque or temple. However, after annexing Punjab, they immediately took control of major Sikh centres. They used mahants, pujaris and bhais (clergy), Sikh Sardars (aristocrats), rulers of Phulkian States and “Sanatan Sikhs” to maintain their effective control over Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) and the institutions in its precincts:

 

A committee headed by Raja Tej Singh was formed to advise Sardar Jodh Singh who was appointed as an Extra Assistant Commissioner at Amritsar to manage the affairs of Golden Temple complex. Through an administrative manual (dastur al-aml), signed by a large number of Sardars and the functionaries of the Golden temple in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner in 1859, its management was transformed into ‘simple magisterial and political control’ to maintain influence over the ‘high spirited and excitable Khalsa’.²⁶

 

With the advent of the British Government in the Panjab a new source of danger arose to Sikhism. Many of the priests (bhais, mahants, pujaris) did not strictly observe the tenants of the faith and not a few of them led an unclean life. Unfortunately, the new laws made them the virtual proprietors of Gurdwaras with all their offerings and the landed endowments attached to them. The law courts did not provide sufficient protection to the Sangats (congregations) who had previously exercised effective control over the administration of their places of worship. Early in the present century a wave of purification agitation swept over the length and breadth of the province, which naturally brought the whole Sikh community into clash with the powerful British officialdom.²⁷

 

The priests allowed the display of Hindu idols inside the precincts of Golden Temple and other Gurdwaras. They denounced both the Sikh revolutionaries and the enlightened Sikhs who challenged the un-Sikh practices prevalent in Gurdwaras. The British control over Gurdwaras not only subverted Sikh theology and history but also played with the emotional sentiments of the Sikhs. Arur Singh, manager of Golden Temple and the head priests conferred a robe of honour on General Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh, who had killed 379 and wounded over 2,000 unarmed persons, on the Baisakhi day of April 13, 1919. As a token of more humiliation, General Dyer and Captain Briggs were initiated into the Khalsa brotherhood without the requirement of five Ks, thus making a mockery of “Khande Di Pahul.”²⁸

 

Professor Gurmukh Singh, one of the most erudite Sikh scholars, earned the hostility of pujaris (priests) by his writings in July and August of 1886 against the idolatry and other Brahmanical practices at Golden Temple. In response, Baba Khem Singh Bedi and his other Bedi, Bawa, Bhalla and Sodhi proteges and pujaris launched a vicious campaign against him charging him and his close associates with:

 

1.      That Gurmukh Singh showed disrespect towards guru-ansh (descendants of Gurus)- Bedis, Bhallas, Bawas and Sodhis.

2.      That he showed disrespect towards the pictures of 24 Avatars of the Hindu pantheism in one of the Singh Sabha diwans (meetings) in Lahore.

3.      That the Lahore Singh Sabha assimilated a Muslim into Sikh sangat (congregation) after “Khande Di Pahul” administration.

4.      That the low caste sweepers, cobblers, and Muslims were made to sip amrit (consecrated water used during the “Khade Di Pahul” ceremony) from the same bata (steel bowl).

5.      That they did not bow before the Guru Granth Sahib when there was no sewadar (a lay Sikh devotee) or granthi (reader of AGGS) in attendance.

 

A hukamnama (edict), obtained from the Akal Takhat, Amritsar, on March 18, 1887, excommunicated Gurmukh Singh from the Panth.²⁹ After studying the implications in the excommunication edict against Professor Gurmukh Singh, only Jakobsh in her “right mind” would say:

 

British administration, which admired the martial resonance of Khalsa ideology, turned to the tents of Guru Gobind Singh for guidance and took upon themselves to stem the tide of the Hinduization of Sikhism through the recruitment tactics. Sikhs who were not of the Khlasa faith were characreteized as already desecrated by the menacing arm of Hinduism. … Recruits into the army were required to undergo Sikh initiation rites before becoming members of the Indian army (Griffin et al. 1940). … In insisting that recruits undergo initiation rites before entering the British military system, the British considered themselves to be the protector of the faith, alone responsible for the continuance of the true martial Sikh spirit in Punjab.³⁰

 

For the British as the self-defined ‘keepers of the Sikh faith’, Sikh womenhood, steeped in Hinduized practices, constituted an unwelcome impediment in the purification project of Sikhism.³¹ For the British, a ‘purified’ Sikh identity was pivotal in checking absorption of Sikhism into wider Hindu fold.³²

 

It is abundantly clear from the edict against Professor Gurmukh Singh that the British did everything they could do against the fundamental principles of Nanakian philosophy: They supported and strengthened the observance of Brahmanical practices at Darbar Sahib. They revived the caste system in the Sikh community. They distorted the “Khande Di Pahul” ceremony for the Khalsa. They imposed on the Sikh community “parasites”¾ guru-ansh (descendants of Gurus)- Bedis, Bhallas, Bawas and Sodhis, who never played any positive role within the Sikh movement; as a matter of fact they sided with the enemies of the Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh issued edicts to Sikhs against any social ties with such elements.³³ Moreover, the British authorities banned the singing of a popular couplet “raj krega khalsa aaki rahe na koe: “Ultimately the Khalsa shall triumph and no one shall be able to defy” at Darbar Sahib. It was composed in the early eighteenth century when the Mughals put a price on the heads of Sikhs and, bounty hunter Hindus were bringing cart-loads of heads of Sikhs to Lahore.

 

The exposition of the sacred hymns of Aad Guru Granth Sahib was also banned at Darbar Sahib, so that Sikhs may not learn that Guru Nanak’s denunciation of Mughal rulers as “man eaters, or “hungry lions” and their administrators as “wild dogs,” and Brahman priests, mullahs and qazis as (carrion eaters), is equally applicable to the British rulers and their henchmen and, the mahants and pujaris. Not satisfied with these restrictions, the British manipulated the clergy at the Golden Temple to recite Guru Nanak’s composition, Asa Di Var, which is very critical of the rulers and the clergy, only very early in the morning hours when there are only a few people in the congregation and not attentive enough to understand the hymns. And they exploited the institution of Akal Takhat to denounce Sikhs who were against the British or their toadies.

 

The British colonists hired a German Indologist, Ernest Trump³⁴ to translate Aad Guru Granth Sahib with the purpose of distorting its teachings to conform to the British interest. His odious translation was published in 1877 and the Christian missionaries utilized it to the fullest extent thereby distorting Nanakian philosophy. David Petrie, the British intelligence officer, in a 1911 report remarked: The neo-Sikhs are the source of disaffection among Sikhs:

 

The neo-Sikhs were equated by him with the tat-Khalsa or Singh reformers. The activities even of Chief Khalsa Diwan and its leading light, Sunder Singh Majithia, appeared to him to be potentially subversive. In any case, he saw a political dimension in the program of suddhi because representations, and consequently power was expected to flow from numerical strength. Furthermore, he disliked the loose talk among Singh Sabha reformers about the fallen estate of the Sikhs because it carried the implication that it was due to their loss of power. Their wretched condition under the Mughals was obliquely suggestive of their miserable plight under the British. Finally the past was invoked to carry implications for the present; what the sword of Guru Gobind Singh did to the empire of Aurngjeb, the mighty Khalsa could do now to the British, empire. Seditious ideas were expressed through quotations from Sikh scriptures: ‘the brave is he who fights in the cause of religion; the rulers are lions and muqaddams (administrators) are dogs; the times are a dagger and the rulers are butchers. Petrie was inclined to attribute this new mood to the increasing number and influence of the Singh Sabha reformers.³⁵

 

It was the demeaning and humiliating conditions imposed by the colonists that forced the Sikhs to launch a campaign to liberate the Gurdwaras from their clutches. In 1913, the outer wall of the Rakabgunj Gurdwara in Delhi was dismantled to construct a road through its estate to the Viceregal Lodge. When the Sikhs came to know of this plan, they sent telegrams, petitions and memorandums to the Viceroy, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, the Commander-in-Chief and the commissioner.^{36, 37} This was the start of a long struggle, which brought out the true spirit of the Khalsa to face the depraved and ruthless foe. For sake of brevity, few of the episodes from this struggle are outlined below. 

 

On February 20, 1921, a jatha (batch) of 150 reformers led by Bhai Lakshman Singh visited Gurdwara Janam Asthan for religious services. Mahant Narain Das and his men opened fire on them killing most of them. Their bodies were burnt. The Deputy Commissioner who was camping only 12 miles away was very slow to respond, most probably he was the real culprit because the British had informers in every village. Mahant Narain Das had been collecting weapons for some time and had hired 28 criminals and mercenary Pathans. The government first gave figures of dead as 20, then 67 and finally 130 on the bases of skulls collected. The actual figure could be another 20 or so.³⁸

 

Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, the grandfather of our current Captain Arminder Singh, and Sir Khem Singh Bedi’s son Kartar Singh Bedi supported Mahant Narain Das in this dastardly and heinous act. While Maharaja was already known by so many derogatory epithets like “pig’s penis,” Kartar Singh Bedi earned the nickname Kartaru Bedin (Kartaru, the apostate).³⁹ The Mahant went scot-free as whatever he did was with the connivance of British authorities.

 

In this peaceful struggle to liberate Gurdwaras, Sikhs suffered unspeakable punishment at the hands of British administrators and their henchmen. C.F. Andrews (1871-1940), who visited Guru Ka Bagh in September 1922 was shocked by the brutality and inhumanity of the British administrators and their henchmen, but admired the Akalis for their patient suffering without any sign of fear. In his eyes the Guru Ka Bagh morcha (morcha means action or agitation) was a “new lesson in moral warfare.”⁴⁰ His description of the equipoise with which the Akali volunteers bore, what he termed, the most cowardly and foul blows needs to be recalled: “The vow of non-violence they had made to God was kept to the letter. I saw no act, no look, of defiance.” As to the spirit of the suffering endured, he stated, “it was very rarely that I witnessed any Akali Sikh who went forward to suffer, flinch from blow when it was struck. … The blows were received one by one without resistance and without a sign of fear.”⁴¹

 

During the five years of the non-violent Akali movement 400 died, 2,000 were wounded and 30,000 men and women were jailed. The pensions and jagirs of many were withdrawn, fines were imposed and property was confiscated in the case of many others; many lost their jobs, soldiers were court-martialled for wearing kirpan or a black turban; printers, publishers and editors suffered for their sympathy with the movement. As one contemporary put it, the British authorities soon came to believe that the Gurdwara reform movement was a subversive movement aimed at overthrowing the British Raj and which therefore it was necessary to suppress.⁴²

 

When the British were forced to relinquish the control over Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple), Mahatma Gandhi sent a telegram to Akali leader, Baba Kharak Singh: “First battle for India’s freedom won. Congratulations.”⁴³ However, Jakobsh makes no mention of these movements in her entire work, except a passing reference to Gurdrawa reform movement.

 

Further, the Sikhs constituted a small minority of the population of Punjab varying from 6.5% in 1868 to 13.5% in 1940; the majority were Muslims and Hindus. There is no evidence that either the Hindus or Muslims ever organised any resistance to the British occupation of Punjab. Even when in the 1920s and 1930s protests and demonstrations became common under the leadership of Congress Party, the Sikh contribution was far greater than that of Hindus and Muslims. For example, in the Civil Disobedience Movement, Sikh contribution was the largest proportionately, as testified by Duni Chand, a Congress leader from Punjab. According to Tara Singh, out of 7,000 volunteers convicted in Punjab, 3,000 were Sikhs.⁴⁴

 

Then on what basis Jakobsh claims:

 

“British influence on the Singh Sabha movement is undeniable, particularly in light of the preferential treatment given the Sikhs by the Raj. Correspondingly, the Singh Sabha leaders exhibited admiration and unequivocal support towards their rulers.”²

 

 

References

 

1. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 2003, p. 82.

2. Ibid., pp. 121-122.

3. Ibid., p. 96-97.

4. Ibid., p. 98.

5. Ibid., p. 96.

6. Ibid., p. 85.

7. Harjot Oberoi. The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 316.

8. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. University Press, 2003, p. 98.

9. Kirpal Singh. “Oral History: Giani Kartar Singh Da Bian (Punjabi).” Abstracts of Sikh Studies, 2001, 3 (3), pp. 83-128.

10. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p. 159.

11. Ibid., pp. 135-36.

12. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 141-44.

13. Hazara Singh. Lala Lajpat Rai: An Appraisal. Ludhiana: Hazara Singh, 2003, pp. 31-35.

14. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p.154.

15. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 153.

16. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 2003, p. 172.

17. Ibid., p. 172.

18. Hazara Singh. Lala Lajpat Rai: An Appraisal. Ludhiana: Hazara Singh, 2003, p. 35.

19. Ibid., p. 39.

20. Ibid., p. 40.

21. Ibid., pp. 1-16.

22. Ibid., pp. 38-39.

23. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 153-156.

24. Ibid., pp. 163-164.

25. Ibid., pp. 164-165.

26. Ibid., p. 136.

27. Ruchi R. Sahni. Struggle For Reform In Sikh Shrines (Ganda Singh, Ed.) Amritsar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), p. i.

28. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p. 159.

29. Ibid., pp. 140-141.

30. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 63.

31. Ibid., p. 82.

32. Ibid., p. 188.

33. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 77.

34. Doris R. Jakobsh. Relocating Gender In Sikh History: Transformation, Meaning and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 88-89.

35. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 150-151.

36. Ibid., p. 157.

37. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p. 156.

38. Ibid., pp. 164-165.

39. Ruchi R. Sahni. Struggle For Reform In Sikh Shrines (Ganda Singh, Ed.). Amritsar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), p. 243.

40. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 161.

41. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p. 175.

42. J. S. Grewal. The Sikh Of The Punjab. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 162-163.

43. Sangat Singh. The Sikhs In History. New Delhi: Uncommon Books, 4th edition, 2001, p. 172.

44. Ibid., p. 198.

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