Evolution of the Sikh Identity

Acknowledgement

This work draws heavily from “A History of the Sikhs — Vol. 1 and 2” by (Late) S. Khushwant Singh, which is a comprehensive work on the Sikh history.

Introduction

Sikhism, one of the youngest religions in the world, is an Indic faith which began in the late 15th century and is currently the world’s fifth-largest organized religion. It interested me to find out how Sikhism grew as a religion, or to say, how a Sikh identity evolved over the years. This article attempts to cover this evolution, starting from the times of Guru Nanak, the founder, in the late 15th century, to the Akali movement of the early 20th century, which shaped the Sikh identity in its present form.

The evolution of Sikh identity can be divided into 2 broad categories — Socio-religious identity and Political identity.

Socio-religious Identity

The first Sikh guru was Guru Nanak Dev, a Khatri-Hindu. Guru Nanak blended the Islamic concept of ‘Universal Brotherhood’ with the Hindu concept of ‘Karma’¹, and like the other Bhakti saints of his time, denounced meaningless rituals and caste divisions. He started ‘langar’ or community kitchen — where everyone was treated as equal. His successor, Guru Angad Dev (originally ‘Bhai Lehna’) invented Gurumukhi and broke the Brahmin monopoly over religion due to the use of Sanskrit hitherto. Guru Amar Das’ innovations tended to break the close affiliations of the Hindus with the Sikhs. He fixed the first day of the month of Baisakh² as the annual day of gathering for the Sikhs, made amends in the birth and death ceremonials, where Gurbani hymns were now recited instead of the ‘Sanskrit shlokas’, and advocated monogamy, widow remarriage and inter-caste alliances, while forbidding social evils like sati and the purdah system³.

Guru Ram Das established the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. His son, Guru Arjan Dev composed Adi Granth (later, Guru Granth Sahib), the sacred Sikh text, and got Harmandir⁴ constructed in Amritsar.

Guru Gobind Singh, the last Sikh Guru, found the militant creed of Sikhism — the ‘Khalsa Panth’ — in 1699, induction into which involved a baptism ceremony⁵. Khalsa was to be devoid of any forms of casteism and was formed mainly as a response to the looming Mughal threat.

After the death of Guru Gobind, there were two major kinds of Sikhs — kesadharis and sahajdharis (Sikhs who follow the tenets of Granth Sahib but haven’t entered the Khalsa fold). Udasis were an ascetic sect, established by Sri Chand (son of Guru Nanak), who controlled the Sikh shrines. Visibly, it wasn’t possible to distinguish a Hindu from a Sahajdhari Sikh; so, only the Khalsa Sikhs were targeted by the Mughals following Banda Bahadur’s exploits (discussed later). Sahajdharis didn’t give up their alliance with Hindus, and eventually, the social evils of Hindu society, like idolatry, casteism, sati and female infanticide, crept into Sikhism. The Sikhs had started looking up to the Bedi descendants of Guru Nanak Dev as the living gurus⁶, as opposed to Guru Gobind Singh’s diktat to have no more living gurus. The Khalsa Sikhs, on the other hand were living a life of the outlaws and didn’t have much control over the religious affairs.

By the time Punjab was annexed by the British in 1849, there wasn’t much difference between a Hindu and a Sikh except the physical appearance — the ones who kept unshaved hair and beard were considered Sikhs, and the ones who didn’t were Hindus. Consequently, with the end of Khalsa raj, Sikh following declined, as many Keshdharis shaved their hair and beards, and reverted back to orthodox Hinduism⁷.

The decline in the original Sikh principles led to some reform movements within Sikhism. Three prominent sects were Nirankari, Radha Soami and Namdhari.

Religious movements

The Nirankari movement was started by Dyal Das in 1851. Nirankaris standardized the rituals associated with births, marriages, and deaths, and based them on Granth Sahib, marking a departure from the Hindu-texts⁸. They believed in a living guru, as opposed to the orthodox Sikhs, and despised the militant Khalsa.

The Radha soami sect was more inclined towards spiritualism and believed in living gurus. Radha-soamis practised vegetarianism, abstinence from alcoholism, and satsang⁹. They, too, rejected militant Khalsa, and served as an intersection between Hinduism and Sikhism.

Namdhari was yet another sect whose main contribution was the curbing of female infanticide¹⁰.It mainly comprised Sikhs from lower castes. Namdharis were aggressive gau-rakshaks (cow-protectors), and were reduced to fringes when they attacked Malerkotla, in 1872, over the suspicion that cows were being slaughtered by the Muslims there. The British executed many Namdharis and detained their leaders, Ram Singh. Interestingly, the Namdharis were anti-British, and for this reason, the orthodox Sikhs dissociated themselves from them¹¹.

Political Identity

The fifth Sikh guru, Arjan Dev, became the first Sikh martyr when he was executed by Jahangir who suspected him of colluding with Jahangir’s rebellious son, Khusrau¹². This made the Sikhs hostile towards the Mughals, and the 6th guru, Hargobind, started maintaining an army. He set up Akal Takht, the Sikh temporal seat, beside the Harmandir, the spiritual seat , and gave the concept of Miri-Piri¹³. The ninth guru, Teg Bahadur, was executed by Aurangzeb for refusing to embrace Islam¹⁴. This brought his son, Guru Gobind, into conflict with the Mughals, and he established Khalsa — the militant creed of Sikhism. His younger sons, aged 7 and 9, were bricked alive by Wazir Khan, the governor of Sirhind, when they refused to embrace Islam.

Guru Gobind, in his last years, ordered his follower, Banda Bahadur, to avenge the death of Chhote Saahibzaade . Banda came to Punjab to wreak havoc on Sirhind, the territory of Wazir Khan. In the process, he brought peasantry (Jats) into his fold by instigating them against their landlords, who were predominantly Muslim, and freeing their lands. Sikhism spread rapidly, as the Sikh forces were hostile towards non-Sikhs. Sikhism had hitherto been confined mostly to Khatris. His forces killed a large number of Muslim officials and landlords, which alienated Muslims who came to view the Khalsa army as their enemies. He was eventually captured by the Mughal forces and executed in 1716.

From Persian and Afghan Invasions to consolidation of Sikh power:

Following the execution of Banda Bahadur, the Mughals grew hostile towards Sikhs with an intention to exterminate them. This led a large number of people to convert to either Hinduism or Islam. This also led the devout Sikhs to live their lives hiding in forests. The only way of survival for them was living the way of outlaws, and they started plundering the state treasury and the homes of the rich. The Mughal policy of repression uprooted the peasantry and turned them into professional soldiers, with strong religious devotion¹⁵. In the absence of a leader, the Sikhs decided to hold biennial meetings to decide matters concerning the community, and organized assemblies known as ‘Sarbat Khalsa’. ‘Jathedars’ were chosen as the heads of the ‘jathas’ or groups.

When Nadir Shah invaded Delhi in 1739, the Sikhs looted his army carrying back the plundered riches. Zakarya Khan, the governor of Lahore, had become offensive against the Sikhs and made head-hunting a profitable business¹⁶. This further strengthened the Sikh unity.

Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded Punjab nine times. Sikhs followed the same pattern of looting his returning army. Abdali was hostile towards the Sikhs, but his contribution to the rise of Sikh power was immense — He weakened the Mughal empire in Punjab, and pushed Marathas to the south, creating a power void in Punjab, which was eventually filled by the Sikhs¹⁷.

The misldari system and the rise of Ranjit Singh

In a meeting of Sarbat Khalsa after the first Afghan invasion of 1747–8, a decision was made to merge all the independent jathas into a single army, the Dal Khalsa, with Jassa Singh Ahluwalia as its supreme commander. Dal Khalsa was divided into 11 misls . Phoolkia, the 12th misl, wasn’t a part of the Dal Khalsa¹⁸. These misls occupied independent territories but joined hands against any external aggressor (like a federal country).

Punjab, in the 1790s, was in political turmoil, with Afghans, Sikhs and Marathas trying to rule it. When Shah Zaman, the grandson of Abdali, tried to invade Punjab, Ranjit Singh, from Sukerchakia misl, rose to prominence by motivating the Sikhs to fight against him. Shah Zaman didn’t succeed and was forced to retreat.

In 1799, Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, and in 1801, was proclaimed the Maharajah of Punjab¹⁹. It was the fulfilment of the Sikh prophecy — “Raj Karega Khalsa” (Khalsa shall rule). He signed the Treaty of Amritsar with the British in 1809, by which river Sutlej was recognized as his empire’s boundary (and NOT the whole of pre-partition Punjab, as claimed by Khalistan idealogues). Maharaja’s rule was fairly secular, and he treated everyone equally — and had nobility comprising Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.

The British Rule

The British were instrumental in providing a legal framework for a distinct Sikh identity. In the sepoy mutiny of 1857, the Sikhs sided with the British to crush the rebellion. This was due to the following factors:

• The Sikhs lacked a leader who could inspire them to revolt against the British
• The Sikhs hated the Hindustani sepoys, who had helped the British in conquering the Sikh territory, and who refused to mix with the Sikhs, regarding them as men of lower castes.
• The British didn’t interfere with the Sikh sentiments — they were allowed to keep their religious symbols, and did development work in Punjab, a land where people’s experience at the hands of foreign invaders was that of getting their resources plundered and people massacred.
• The leaders of 1857 revolt established Bahadur Shah Zafar as the nominal head of the revolt, while the Sikhs were historically antagonistic to the Mughals.

Due to their loyalty during the 1857 mutiny, Sikhs were rewarded handsomely. After the mutiny, the keshdhari Sikhs were categorized as a martial race, leading to their increased recruitment in the army. This encouraged the growth of Sikhism.

The confluence of socio-religious and political identity — The Singh Sabha Movement

After Punjab’s annexation by the British, Christian missionaries became active and started gaining converts there. Initially, the conversions were from members of the lower castes — and much heed wasn’t paid²⁰. However, the missionaries soon directed their attention towards the affluent Sikhs — with Maharaja Dalip Singh (Ranjit Singh’s son) being the first prominent convert in 1853.

When in 1873, 4 young Sikh boys of the Amritsar Mission School from affluent families announced their decision to adopt Christianity, it shocked the Sikh community, and the boys were somehow persuaded to drop this idea²¹. However, this made the Sikhs worried about their identity. Consequently, the first Singh Sabha was founded in Amritsar in 1873.

Singh Sabhas’ primary aim was to educate Sikhs, make them aware of their cultural heritage and history, and eradicate the social evils that had crept into Sikhism. In the Khalsa schools and colleges set up by the Sabhas, the study of Guru Granth Sahib and Punjabi (in Gurmukhi) was compulsory²². The Sabhas included British patrons and vowed complete loyalty to the British crown. The Singh Sabha movement can be termed as Punjabi renaissance — it led to the development of modern Punjabi literature and popularisation of Sikh history, and many Punjabi magazines and newspapers²³ were started during this movement. This produced a generation of educated Sikhs, and also led to formation of a Sikh political party, the Chief Diwan Khalsa, in 1902.

Arya Samaj

The Indic Renaissance of the 19th century reached Punjab, too. Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, sought to purify Hinduism by getting rid of its meaningless rituals and caste system, and laid emphasis on infallibility of the Vedas. He denounced Guru Nanak as a man of little learning. This brought Sikhs in conflict with Arya Samajis, and led to an identity struggle. Arya Samaj stressed that Sikhism was a part of Hinduism, while the Singh Sabha strongly opposed this. It is interesting to note that while the Singh Sabha was British loyalist, the Arya Samaj was critical of the British rule.

There was a court case in 1898 regarding the application of Hindu inheritance law to the will of Dyal Singh Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and the founder of Tribune. The Punjab High Court ruled that the Sikhs were indeed Hindus²⁴. This decision irked the Sikhs, who demanded separate identity, and led to the publication of Hum Hindu Nahin by Kahn Singh Nabha, a Sikh scholar, which laid out why the Sikhs were different and not a part of Hinduism.

Later in 1905, the reformist Sikhs removed idols of Hindu Gods from the Golden temple. This irked the orthodox Hindus and led to communal disharmony between Hindus and the Sikhs. Sikhism eventually became synonymous with Khalsa.

Later Developments

In the 1890s-1910s, the British set up canal colonies in Western Punjab, where peasants (primarily Sikhs) were given large tracts of land for cultivation. Within a few years, the barren lands were converted into rich agricultural lands, and the price of lands rose. This made the Jat-Sikhs and Mazhabi-Sikhs, hitherto lower castes, rise up in the social hierarchy²⁵. That, coupled with the Sikh reservation in the army, meant that being a Sikh was economically beneficial, and saw a large conversion of Hindus into Sikhism.

The Land Alienation Act of 1900 categorized certain tribes/castes as agricultural tribes, and others as non-agricultural tribes, and forbade the selling of agricultural land to non-agricultural tribes. This Act further caused racial/caste-based separation among the Khatri Sikhs and the Jat-Sikhs. The Anand Marriage Act for Sikhs was also passed in 1909.

Sikhs faced a setback when they weren’t rewarded for their efforts in WW-I , and instead, a large number of them were massacred on April 13, 1919 at the Jallianwala Bagh, and an emergency was imposed in the state. Shockingly, the mahants of the Golden Temple honoured General Dyer²⁶, and this was the trigger point for Gurudwara Reform movement. Before the 1920s, the Sikh gurudwaras were under the control of corrupt priests or mahants of Udasi order²⁷. The Akali movement started in 1920 with the establishment of Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (S.G.P.C.), and liberated many gurdwaras. Eventually, in 1925, Sikh Gurdwaras Act was passed, which handed over the control of Sikh shrines to S.G.P.C²⁸. The Akali movement was viewed as Anti-British, and also created some rupture between the Akali Sikhs and Hindus, who supported the Udasi mahants. Nevertheless, the Akali movement helped give a distinct political power to the Sikhs, while widening the gulf between Hindus and Sikhs. It also made the Sikhs join the independence struggle.

Conclusion

The Sikh history can be majorly divided into 2 parts: pre-British era, and the British era. In the pre-British time, the Sikh identity was shaped by a shared history of sacrifices and sufferings. In the British time, the Sikh loyalty to the British led to incentives promoting Sikh identity, thus saving Sikhism from relapsing into Hinduism²⁹. The resurgent Hindu movements (especially Arya Samaj) further fuelled the identity crisis³⁰, leading to the Sikh divulsion from Hinduism, and shaping the Sikh identity in its present form. Thus, in a way, the British and the Arya Samaj, aided by religious reform movements, were responsible for carving a distinct Sikh identity, which had earlier become Hindufied .

References

1. Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar (London: Pan Books, 1986), 28
2. This is one of the reasons why Baisakhi holds religious significance for the Sikhs, besides the fact that Khalsa was born on this day in 1699.
3. Khushwant Singh, A History of The Sikhs: Volume 1: 1469–1839 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), 51
4. Also known as Golden Temple (after Maharaja Ranjit Singh got it gold-plated). Its foundation stone was laid by Mian Mir, a Muslim mystic, and has gates in all 4 directions — signifying its openness to members of all 4 varnas or castes.
5. Every amritdhari (baptized) Sikh has to adopt 5 Ks — Kesh (Hair), Kachchha (boxers), Kara (steel bracelet), Kirpan (dagger), and Kangha (Comb)
6. Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs: Volume 2: 1839–1964 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1966), 136
7. Ibid., 95–96
8. Ibid., 124
9. Satsang translates to “Company of truthful people”. Ibid., 127
10. Sikhs had earlier come to be known as ‘kurimars’ (killers of girl child) .Ibid. , 129
11. This was one of the reasons behind the formation of the Singh Sabha. Sanjeev Nayyar, How the British Sowed the Seeds for Khalistani Movement Before Indians Took Over
12. Tully and Jacob, Amritsar, pp. 30
13. Miri — Worldly authority; Piri — Spiritual authority
14. Kashmiri Pandits requested him to save them from the atrocities of Aurangzeb, who was forcing them to embrace Islam or to die. He agreed to accompany them to Delhi and laid the condition that the pandits would embrace Islam if he did. He didn’t give in to the tortures and was beheaded. He is, to this day, known as ‘Hind ki Chadar’ (protector of the Hindus).
15. Singh, A History of the Sikhs- Vol 1, 116
16. Ibid., 121
17. Ibid., 161
18. Ibid, 127–128
19. Ibid., 192
20. Singh, A History- Vol 2, 138
21. Sanjeev Nayyar, How the British Sowed the Seeds
22. Tully and Jacob, Amritsar, 36
23. Khalsa Samachar, and Khalsa Akhbar were two such newspapers. Singh, A History — Vol 2, 145–46
24. Jones, Kenneth W. “Ham Hindu Nahin: Arya-Sikh Relations, 1877–1905.” The Journal of Asian Studies 32, no. 3 (1973): 467–68. Accessed October 29, 2020. doi:10.2307/2052684.
25. This is similar to the political awakening in the OBCs (Jats, Yadavs, etc.) in the 1970s after the success of the Green Revolution.
26. Tully and Jacob, Amritsar, 39
27. Singh, A History — Vol 2, 193
28. Ibid. ,211
29. Dalhousie, in his letters, noted that Sikhism was getting Hindufied with every passing year, and would get extinct/relapse into Hinduism within 50 years. Ibid. ,96
30. This identity crisis was to later (in independent India) lead to — first, the Punjabi Suba movement, and then, the Khalistan movement.

Bibliography

1. Jones, Kenneth W. “Ham Hindu Nahin: Arya-Sikh Relations, 1877–1905.” The Journal of Asian Studies 32, no. 3 (1973): 457–75. Accessed September 4, 2020. doi:10.2307/2052684.
2. Nayyar, Sanjeev. 2016. How The British Sowed the Seeds for Khalistani Movement Before Indians Took Over. E-book. Swarajya. https://swarajyamag.com/minibooks/how-the-british-sowed-the-seeds-for-khalistani-movement-before-indians-took-over-part-2.
3. Singh, Khushwant. 2011. A History of The Sikhs: Volume 1: 1469–1839. eBook. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
4. Singh, Khushwant. 1966. A History of the Sikhs: Volume 2: 1839–1964. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
5. Tully, Mark, and Satish Jacob. 1986. Amritsar. London: Pan Books.