This paper presents a critique of the essentialist notions of any community as a pacifist or militant community by examining the long history of the cycles of violence and non-violence in the evolution of the Sikh community
in the Indian subcontinent. The theoretical premise of the paper is that com-munities’ resort to violence and non-violence is determined by their strategic perspectives to achieve their politico-economic goals and not from any doctrinal adherence to violence or non-violence. The paper attempts a panoramic view of over 500 years of Sikh history (1469 – 2006) and offers a reinterpretation of that history by locating cycles of violence and non-violence in their historical context. It then provides a politico-economic perspective on violence and non-violence in their struggle for identity and political power. It focuses more on an analysis of the recent political conflict between Sikh militants and the Indian state, and concludes by drawing out the policy implications of that analysis for the politics of the modern Indian state regarding the Sikhs of Punjab. It identifies federal arrangements and human rights as issues of key importance in the political economy of this relationship.
The Sikhs of Punjab have witnessed alternating periods of non-violent and violent forms of struggle in their quest for identity, survival and political power from the founding of their faith in the 15th century by Guru Nanak (1469 – 1539) until today. Though a global community through migration, the Sikhs are mainly concentrated in the Punjab state in India. While they are only 1.9% of India’s population, they comprise nearly 60% of Punjab’s population. Indeed, 73.24% of India’s total Sikh population of about 20 million (2001 census) is settled in Punjab.
Emeritus Professor of Economics
Within that overview, I intend to discuss in relatively greater detail the rise and fall of the Sikh armed resistance against the Indian state in the 1980s and the 1990s. Through this narrative I hope to challenge representations of the Sikh community as a community of pacifists or as one essentially prone to violence.Uberoi, by focusing on the 1920s phase of the Sikhs’ struggle for control
over their religious institutions, attempts to portray a similarity between the Sikh vision of martyrdom and the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence.In sharp contrast, Juergensmeyer attempts to portray the Sikhs’ resort to violence as a logical culmination of the valorisation of religious violence in Sikh theology, by focusing on the 1980s Sikh militant movement.
Both these scholarly attempts are imaginative and are not without merit. However, by picking up one phase of political practice for examination, as Uberoi and Juergensmeyer have done, one risks the danger of over-generalisation. I have, therefore, attempted a longer historical overview. I have also attempted a politico-economic approach in this overview. By adopting such an approach,
I hope that my analysis offers an understanding of Sikh history and politics which avoids the polarity of violence and non-violence. I have tried to demonstrate that the choice between violent and non-violent forms of struggle which the Sikhs have made at different points in their history has been determined largely by the response of the existing state power to their political aspirations. I have looked at three forms of state power the Sikhs have had to deal with in their history: the Moghul monarchical state, the British colonial state and the Indian nationalist state. I have concluded by drawing out the implications of my analysis for the policy of the current Indian nationalist state regarding the Sikhs. I believe that the policy implications I have drawn for the central state in India have relevance for other regional nationalisms in India, eg Kashmiri, Naga, Mizo and Assamese struggles, which have gone through similar cycles of violence and non-violence in their quest for autonomy and self-determination.
The foundation of the Sikh faith grew out of Nanak’s critique of the socially oppressive practices of the orthodox Brahminical Hindu religion in India and of the politically oppressive policies of the then Muslim Moghul regime. His egalitarian teachings through the medium of the Punjabi language attracted a significant following mainly from the Punjabi lower castes. After Guru
Nanak there were nine other gurus who provided spiritual and political leadership to the Sikh community. The Sikh faith remained a deeply pacifist faith until the period of the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev (1563 – 1606). He compiled the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth (later known as Guru Granth Sahib). In compiling the Adi Granth, Guru Arjan showed a remarkable commitment to
pluralism. He included in the Adi Granth not only the teachings and writings of all the five Sikh gurus but also the contributions made between the 12th and 16th centuries by many Hindu Bhaktas (devotees of God) and Muslim Guru Arjan’s other major contribution to the consolidation of self-identity among the Sikhs as a community was the construction of the Harimandar Sahib (later known more popularly as Golden Temple) in Amritsar.
To project the pluralism and the openness of the holiest Sikh shrine, Guru Arjan invited a revered Muslim sufi, saint Mian Mir, to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple.Guru Arjan came into conflict with the Moghul emperor Jehangir in Delhi because he gave blessings to a rebel of the Moghul court who had come to the Guru seeking his blessings. This was the first conflict in the subsequent long history of the Punjab-based Sikhs’ conflict with the state power based in Delhi. It ended in tragedy. Guru Arjan was tortured to death in 1606 by the Moghul emperor, thus becoming the first martyr of the Sikhs.
His son Hargobind (1595 – 1644), who became the sixth Guru, broke the earlier pacificist tradition of the Sikh community and waged an armed war against the Moghul rulers. He also introduced the theory and practice of the marriage between religion and politics by wearing two swords, one symbolising spiritual power and the other temporal power, and by constructing the Akal
Takhat (the throne of Timeless God) across the Harimandar. At the Akal Takhat, he sat on a throne like an emperor and held court.
The guruships of the seventh guru, Har Rai (1630 – 61), and the eighth,Har Krishan (1656 – 64), were periods of quiet organisation of the Sikh community. The ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur (1621 – 75), came into conflict with the Moghul emperor because he defended the religious rights of the Brahmin Hindu community, which was being targeted for persecution by the Moghul ruler Aurangzeb. Tegh Bahadur was tortured to death along with his three associates in Delhi on 11 November 1675.
His son, Gobind Singh (1666 – 1708), became the tenth and last guru of the Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh made the most original and imaginative contribution in transforming the Sikh community into a community of ‘Saint-Soldiers’, ie a community of people who were inspired by a moral – religious vision of righteousness to take up arms against oppressive rulers. In the history of the
evolution of the distinct identity of the Sikhs, the creation of the Khalsa (the community of the pure) in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh remains the most defining moment. The Sikhs had acquired by then an almost complete package of their distinct identity—a holy book, Guru Granth Sahib; a holy city, Amritsar; a holy religious centre, the Harimandar (Golden Temple); a centre for taking political decisions, the Akal Takhat at Amritsar and a distinctive physical appearance with uncut hair. The only element missing in this package was the control of state power, which Sikhs were to acquire through armed might later, in 1799, when a Sikh chieftain, Ranjit Singh,became the ruler of Punjab. His death on 27 June 1839 resulted in a bloody succession war and eventually in the British annexation of Punjab Contd…………..