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Raj Karega Khalsa Sirdar Kapur Singh On the 20th July,1975, Government sponsored, All Comunities Convention was held at Patiala to chalk out a programme for the ter-centenary celebrations of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur, addressing which the nonagerian venerable Sardar Bahadur, Bhai Jodh, ex-Vice Chancellor of the Patiala University, exhorted the audience as the Daily Tribune, Chandigarh of the next morning tells us that:
1. This declaration of Bhai Jodh Singh was apparently somewhat irrelevant for the occasion but not so is its underwater iceberg which is always much more substantial and dangerous than the visible apex. 2. It is not generally appreciated that, Bhai Jodh Singh has been an active politician during the British as well as the post-British period under the guise of the religious man and he has never deemed it fit to insulate his own politics from his own religion, with the result that grateful and appreciative foreign rulers conferred upon him the high distinction and title of Sardar Bahadur in addition to other tokens of favour, and in the post-British period also he has been in much demand by those in political power. A clear-headed person that Bhai Jodh Singh is, he did not say, in so many words that, ‘insulation of politics from a religion’ is a definite Sikh doctrine; he merely proffers it as his own piece of secular and pagan wisdom, for he is aware that Sikh doctrine and tradition both hold politics as isolated from religion as pedagogy, opportunism and unprincipled trickery. Only by implication and through insinuation he desires that the Sikhs should accept the views of those whose voice he is that, such, indeed, is the true Sikh doctrine. The British who subjugated the Sikhs and throughout remained in terror of them as well as held them in Manly admiration, secretly desired that the Sikhs should remain somewhat obscure about the true Sikh doctrine embodied in their shrill historical and fundamental cry of ‘liberty or death’ – Raj Karain ikke mar hain (unexpurgated, Prancin Panth parkash), and there can be no doubt that, by them Bhai Jodh Singh was found as a useful ally. The current rulers of India even have not made any secret of their desire and determination to wean the Sikhs away from the core-teachings of their Gurus that, the Sikhs cannot fulfil their divine spiritual and social assignments without their own base of political power and that for a Sikh to insulate politics from religion is an unutterably abominable degradation and fall from grace. 3. It is in this background that the Patiala performance of Bhai Jodh Singh has to be critically examined. 4. Bhai Jodh Singh's singularly unfortunate Patiala utterances, namely, that,
5. The Sikh position on the all-time tantalising questions of
Raj Karega Khalsa aki rahe na koi. Khwar hoe sabh milenge bache saran jo hoe. (The Sikh people shall remain free and sovereign, always, non challenging this position. All, every one, must eventually accept this position no matter how unpalatable and bitter it, to them, be. And, behold, peace and safety is in such a concession, or submission). 6. This startlingly tall and audacious claim has been publicly proclaimed by the Sikh people during the last three centuries, firmly and defiantly and it has moved many to sheer ridicule, others to fright, still others to resentment and boiling-heat anger, many Sikhs themselves to chicken-hearted craven. fear or shameless apologia and the political Hindus of the post-1947 euphoria, it has, almost invariably moved to greater contempt for those whom they see as already in their last death-throes. 7. Be that as it may, it is legitimate to examine as to whether the Sikh doctrine itself is devoid of historical perceptiveness and realistic out-look, and whether it stands the test of scientific scrutiny. Thus alone its intrinsic validity can be judged, however, unpalatable or prima-facie impracticable it might otherwise appear in the case of present day Sikh people, politically subjugated, culturally submerged, intellectually confused and barren, morally decayed, economically deprived and plundered through the Partition of India and religiously profaned. It can not be, off-hand asserted or insinuated that this Sikh doctrine is prima-facie ill-conceived or stupid or unsustainable. 8. Let us glance through the world history, ever since well-defined and locatable civilizations have emerged and we find that there have always been, at any given period, one or two nations peoples, which were leading raj-jati, characterised by the ethos of, Raj Karega Khalsa, or nations or peoples who were admired and were tacitly imitated by others. There is no exception known to this rule. 9. This phase of leadership political or moral or both has passed from one nation to another in rotation, and, in historical times, no nation has yet enjoyed it twice. Whether such is some hard and fast law of History cannot be asserted. 10. By way of illustration, might be mentioned, the early Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians under Achaemenid dynasty from 550 B. C. to 330 B.C, But the Greeks are the earliest who still seem to live in the thoughts of the Western man to day, just as the Confucian China does in its "barbarian" periphery and the Hindu in the Buddhist for East and Southeast Asia. A remarkable aspect of the Greek leadership was that it never took the political form of a single empire except for a very few years in the life-time of Alexander of Macedon. Owing to a variety of circumstances, local and accidental the empire broke up at his death, but Greek dynasties, Greek thought and Greek methods of war, nevertheless, dominated a large part of the world for three centuries and more. 11. Greek eminence gave way to Roman. Roman ideas, Roman fashions and Roman armies held undisputed leadership for some four centuries. Roman concepts of imperial domination and organisation and Roman ethos of social insularity were strictly observed and practised by the British rulers of India. Up to the end of Nehru regime even in a free India, these Roman concepts held sway in our governmental atmosphere, through WOGS-Westernised Oriental Gentlemen, the 1. C. S. men and Nehruite politicians. 12. After about two centuries of confusion. Arabs appeared on the world-stage as the International leaders, sustaining the most powerful empire of their time from A.D. 650 to A.D. 850. After the commencement of their political decline they remained the leaders in thought and Science for five hundred years more. 13. When the Arabic-speaking people fell behind, they had already passed on the torch of art, learning, Science and Industry to Western Europe. Here the lead was first assumed by the holy Roman Empire then by Spain, France and Britain in that order. 14. In our own lifetime, we have witnessed the leadership moving to the United States of America and Russia. 15. Certain general laws as operative in the field of international leadership, are clearly seen to emerge. 16. Firstly, there is always an element of strength involved. Whether or not the great nation imposes its military rule by Military conquest and occupation, it is always power that produces imitation. France did not conquer a vast territory in the 17th and 18th centuries, yet French become the diplomatic language of the world, French instructors were engaged to train the armies of other nations as in the case of the Sikhs in the first half of the l9th century, and French furniture, French literature and the French cooking were everywhere supreme. 17. In our own lifetime, the U. S. A. has not imposed military occupation on many nations yet American slang, American clothes, American music, the horribly noisy concupiscent jazz, the American architecture of crazy skyscrapers have spread all over the world. Herein lies the true explanation of over 90% Sikh migrants to the U. S. A., Canada, British Isles and Western Europe, unashamedly falling in for the ugly unaesthetic, barbarous fashion of clean-shaven faces and the pernicious, unclean habit of smoking while the Sikh migrants to the African continent and the Southeast Asian regions have retained their Sikh dignity of uncut hair and sensible abhorrence of smoking uptil recent times. We can scarcelyclaim that this is due to the fact that they, the U.S.A. culture-patterns are intrinsically better than anything which could be produced anywhere else. 18. There is obviously something in human nature which causes us to immitate the thought and mannerisms of those who are physically strong and it was to this secret that Guru Gobind Singh drew mankind’s attention when he declared that, "in this world of phenomenon, everything is covered and controlled by the Time-sword, and men tend to lean on the mightiest": ‘ya jag main sobh kal-kirpan ke bahri bhujan kau bhari bhroso.’ - Akalustat 19. How else can we explain the back-sliding of almost 80 lacs of Sikhs in 1849, to a mere 18 lacs in the Census of 1862? What explains, if not decay of political power and might of the Sikhs in 1850, the conversion of Raja Sri Harnam Singh and Sadhu Sunder Singh to Christianity, the conversion to Islam of the learned ulema, Obeidullah Sindhi, and the father and family of internationally famous jurist, Sir Mohd. Zaffer-Ullah Khan? What made the scion of the martyr Bhai Mati Dass, the late Bhai Parmanand, his son and son-in-law, and the uniquely vital offspring of a devout sahajdhari Sikh family, Dr. Sir Gokal Chand Narang break away from the gravitational orbit of Sikhism and stray into the barren wastelands of Arya Samaj? Again, during the short historical span of their existence, the Sikhs have seen much misunderstanding and malice, prejudice and persecution, fierce onslaughts and genocide programs, victory and glory, power and prosperity, defeat and deprivation, and yet throughout these vicissitudes, neither friend nor foe, neither neighbour nor stranger, through ill-will or ignorance has ever dasred or cared to belittle or denigrate the great Sikh Prophets, the Gurus, in respect of their thoughts, words or deeds, universally holding them in highest estimation, as men, leaders of men and religious Prophets. Malcolm McGregor, Cunningham, Dorothy Field, Toynbee, Sujan Rai, Khuswaqt Rai, Daulat Ram, Mohammad Latif display unanimity here though much multinimiety elsewhere, while writing on Sikhs and Sikhism. But, for the first time when the Sikhs missed the bus in 1947 and became what they now have become, and even when they succeeded, in the changed circumstances, in establishing a University of Sikh Culture called the Punjabi University at patiala, and a University at Amritsar, "Sikh" professors in these Universities boldly surfaced to proclaim and argue that Guru Tegh Bahadur was a robber-chief, in the habit of providing succour and incitement to likeminded lawless elements, which misdeeds of his brought upon the nemesis of the Mughal law leading to his public decapitation as a criminal at Delhi, of which just punishment, the Great Mughal Aurangzeb was altogether innocent and ignorant, that the main and original grievance of Guru Gobind Singh against the good Mughal Government was that land revenue and State taxes were demanded of him, according to law which he was reluctant to pay, and that he met defeat after defeat in his conflicts with the State forces owing to his poor knowledge of field-strategy. Has the current political status of Sikh people nothing to do with this disgusting phenomenon? Delhi-based pseudo-Nirankaris are not being discussed here for obvious reasons. 20. These are only few instances of the operative and decisive role which political power and prestige play in relation to acceptability and prevalence of a religion and this law of History, the basic pattern of human behaviour and tendency of human nature is more pertinent in the case of Sikhs and Sikhism, for, Sikhism, unlike most other world-religions is not merely a Church of social policy also, and as soon as the Sikh people are separated from and deprived of political sovereignty and power, Sikhism becomes eviscerated of its slan and true ethos. It is for this reason that the ambition, the claim and the destiny, adumberated and proclaimed in the litany : Raj Karega Khalsa is basic to Sikh religion and the assignees of its social commitments, the Sikh people and the second homistisch of this litany: aki rahe na koi is merely complementary to the first. Both being obverse and reverse sides of the same medal. 21. The shantimayi, satyagrah, ahimsa of the twenties and thirties of this century in India were merely subtle shiboleths and Hindus’ political gadgets to vex and exasperate the oxbridgian ruling Englishman, and Lord Wavell the Viceroy of India has rightly recorded (The Viceroy’s Journal, London, 1973, p.238), and in this subtle political game the simplistic Sikhs became its first and most willing sacrificial victims, by voluntarily twisting the very fundamentals of their own religion by declaring that Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur were embodiments, "avtars", of shantimayi and ahimsa. Not long ago, in a faked, All World Sikh Conference at Amritsar during the hegemony of the two late lamented sants in Sikh politics, the main ‘resolution’ adopted specifically named these two Gurus as the Sikh’s only models and guides, thus repudiating, what they heretically believed to be, "the other and different" eight Gurus. A doctrine destructive of the very roots of Sikhism. Has not Guru Gobind Singh unambiguously declared that he who deems understands one Sikh Guru as different from the others, is no Sikh"? "The essence of Sikhism is to know and believe all ten Gurus as one continuous unbroken Spirit and a failure to understand and accept this is a failure to adopt true Sikhism"- jini jania tinu hi sidhi pai, binu samje siddhi hathu na ai. We must ever remember that the general disapproval of conquest, U.N.O. hotchpotch, "territorial integrity", "non-interference in internal affairs", non-alignment, the Pancashil, etc. etc. is a temporary phenomenon. 22. Let us hearken to one who, by the test laid down by Guru Gobind Singh, is "verily a true man" for, he says what he has in mind and there is no disparity between his intentions and his spoken word": humun mard bayed shavad sukhanwar, na shikme digar dar dahane digar - Zafarnama he is, by no means an insignificant person in the contemporary world. Mao Tse Tung says: "Wherever the army of Chinese Communist Party goes, it creates Marxism-Leninism, it creates a Communist Party and Communist Government. Only guns and cannons create a Party, a culture, even a world" -(Problems of the Chinese Revolution, Yenan, December 1939) "Whoever has an army has power, for, war, war settles everything" -(Problems of War and Srtategy, November 6, 1936) "Everything grows out of the barrel of a gun" -(Selected Work, Vol.II. New York, International Publishers,1954 p.272) There is no doubt whatsoever that throughout History, military conquest and balance –of-terror Principle have been the principle means by which the torch of leadership has been passed on. The conquest of Alexander the Great, spread Greek thought over Middle East. The military empire of Rome gave civilisation to innumerable backward areas and races. When Rome collapsed Arabs were just in time to snatch the fallen torch. The immediate result of Arab ascendancy was to plunge the West once more into barbarism by isolating it from Asia, but before the Arabs fell, or as the famous Ibni-Khaidun (1332-1406) puts it, in his, Muqaddameh the Arabs lost their a'sbiyyeh , basic elan, they handed back the trust to Europe with interest. 24. Secondly the mantle of leadership frequently falls on the shoulders of a colony of its predecessor. The Arabs derived much of their knowledge frorn Syria, Egypt and North Africa, hitherto colonies of Rome. Spain conquered by the Arabs was to succeed them as a great empire and the U. S. A. began as a British colony. 25. It therefore, follows that the Sikh claim and doctrine
26. When the Sikhs say that politics and religion must not be separated, that is not to claim that the Sikhs have a direct hot line to the deity. It merely means that a man's public, private and spiritual life are inseparable and that the most fruitful and secure is the synergical culture wherein the religion, and the social order facilitate the individual, by the same act and at the same line, to serve his own advantage and that of the group. 27. Sardar Bahadur, Bhai Jodh Singh's gratuitous exhortation to the Sikhs at Patiala is a clear negation of the Sikh doctrine, the lessons of Sikh history and the unambiguous and uncompromisingly clear teachings of the Sikh Gurus. 28. We must now consider whether the discoveries of Modern Science and the insights they provide and the guidance they suggest for understanding human nature and planning of human society, also called, 'Social Engineering ' by those who must put old wine in new bottles before tasting it, agree with or militate against the basic Sikh doctrine enshrined in the litany : Raj Karega Khalsa. 29. The latest scientific discipline is Ethnology, founded by three winners of the 1973 award of Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine, which has gone to Kari von Frisch, Nikolas Tinbegen and Konrad Lorenz. The latter wrote his prize-winning dissertation as early as 1966, On Aggression, in which book he has advanced and established the thesis that man is not only an innately aggressive animal and a hostile one at that, but that the principle of aggressiveness in his instinctual structure, demonstrates and establishes the inevitability of war. He further demonstrates the utility and necessity of aggressiveness for human life and he concludes that aggression is a vital dimension of human nature. For these fundamental discoveries in the Science of Physiology he has been awarded the Nobel Prize, with two others, as co-laureates, seven years ago. 30. In 1974, Desmond Morris, an erstwhile pupil of our Nobel Prize laureate, Nikolas Tinbergen, at Oxford, supported Lorenz's theory as one of the naked truths of his book : Naked Ape in which, in prosaic scientific terminology, he has paraphrased. so to speak, the prophetic wisdom of Guru Gobind Singh : ‘Aggression and Destruction is primary and Genesis is secondary", prithame khanda sai kai sabh sansar upaiya - Var Sri Bhagauti Ji Ki 31. In the sphere of literary fiction, William Golding, in his novel, Lord of the Flies, has demonstrated existence of the aggressive instinct, in his powerful literary style. He portrays in his nook, the story of young children, stranded on an island, who revert to savagery, once all restraint of civilisation are removed and withdrawn. 32. Robert Andrey, a prestigious dramatist turned anthropologist in three successive successful bestsellers- African Genesis, The Territorial Imperative and The Social Contract has accumulated classified and interpreted adequate material to explode once and for all the thesis and fallacy that man is a pacifist being, that ahimsa is his core-essence or that non-violent satyagraha is a basic technic of human existence, survival and progress. 33. All these influential theorists have come to their opinions via Ethnology, the study of behaviour from the zoological view-point . Ethnology involves systematic study of the evolution of human traits through observation of non-human behaviour. 34. Karl von Frisch, our Nobel Prize Laureate of 1973 spent his time with birds, fish and bees; Lorenz with grey geese, rats and fighting fish’ Tingbergen with birds, and Morris with apes in the London Zoo. 35. Lorenz sees "aggression, far from being a destructive principle, as one of the life-preserving functions of the basic instincts". He considers the pertinent question: Will not in-group aggression extinguish the group and ultimately the species? His reply is in the negative, for, the strong, he says, learn not to destroy the weak. The Evolution Process is responsible not only for aggression, but also for the phenomenon of inherited patterns of restraint that control and regulate aggression. 36. These patterns display in the submission of the weaker to the stronger: the defeated one of the subordinated ally is never killed and destroyed. This is the true exegesis of the Sikh litany: bache saran jo hoe. Thus the instinct to dominate and destroy: Raj karega Khalsa aki rahe nakoe, can be and is modified if and when the inferior and the weaker can learn abasement, submission and the survival-value of alliance- khwar hoe sabh milange. In his analogy between man and bird, Lorenz sees the basic secret of survival and evolution embedded in Nature-qudret of Sikh philosophical concepts- that if the powerful will learn not to resist but to submit, all strife, wars and revolutions will come to an end and man will no longer have to concern himself with problems of survival. It is full awareness of this secret of Nature which is evidenced in the Sikh War Ethics and practices testified to by the enemy-chronicles Qazi Nur Muhammed, in his Jangnameh (1765) that the sikhs "never kill in battle those who lay down arms or otherwise refuse to resist or fight," kih nakushand namrd ra hic-gah-fararenden ra ham na girand rah". 37. The disturbing truth is there that the man shares this gruesome propensity with the dove, including Picasso’s dove adopted by Russians as the emblem of their variety of "Peace". In his well-known book, King Solomon’s Ring, Lorenz, in the Chapter entitled, "Morels and Weapons" shares with us one of his most disquieting discoveries by telling the reader, how the dove, while by reputation one of the most peaceful birds, is in reality one of the cruellest, and it will mutilate and destroy members of its own species without a qualm. On the other hand, contrary to the popular belief and the notion, a wolf will not finally kill another wolf in battle if the loser asks clemency by baring its neck. Here is material for thought for him who deludes himself with the escapists hope that there is greater safety with the ahimsa-peddler than with the other who declares, "get converted or be killed" a stupid notion that bedevilled the Sikh leadership in 1947. And rendered them incapable of comprehending the true significance and implications of the British withdrawal from India and the consequences thereof for the Sikhs. 38. The patterns of behaviour in the present still have roots in those of the past and thus to understand man one must understand his past, that is, an analysis of animals and man, particularly those who deem themselves as so clever, as competent to find their way in life without taking refuge in the revealed guidance, that is the Guru: Nanak guru na chetani man apne suchet - Asa di Var: 1 as the Sikh Scripture puts it. 39. Raj karega Khalsa aki rahe na koe, khwar hoe sab milenge bache saran jo hoe, is not only a divinely revealed truth but a well-established scientific fact. Lorenz, Andrey and Morris have not picked up their theories from the air. They belong to an insistent, prestigious tradition of western speculation and Scientific inquiries that stretches back to Sigmund Freud through Spangler to Thomas Hobbs. Spangler is his Magnum Opus: Decline of the West, has been virulent about his claims about aggressiveness. "The beast of prey", he says, "is the highest form of active life. the human race ranks highly because it belongs to the class of beasts of prey. Man lives engaged in aggression, killing, annihilating. Man is a beast of prey. I shall say it again and again. The traders in virtue, the champions of social ethics are but beasts of prey with their teeth broken." Spangler’s contribution to Nazi ideology was not insignificant. 40. Freud’s firm conviction about the aggressive instinct in man is patent in his: Civilisation and its Discontents. In it he says: "The truth is that men are not friendly, gentle creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure for aggression has to be reckoned with as a part of their instinctual endowment." 41. For Freud, man is not a rational animal but a repressed animal: "Civilisation, suppression and neurosis are inevitably associated in such a way that the more civilisation, the more neurosis, the less suppression, the less neurosis and the less civilisation." Thus, it is not in our power "to dislodge the greatest of our obstacle to civilisation which is the constitutional tendency in man to aggression." 42. He was obviously unaware of the divine guidance that is the teachings of the Guru that shows mankind the way out of this patent predicament- the practice of Nam-yoga, Nanak ihu tatu bicara, bin haribhajan nahin chutkara - Gouri Mahala 5 p.188 That human nature can be totally transmuted is a proposition not easily acceptable to western mind. 43. It is the hatred we suppress and repress with difficulty that remains the main spring of our social life. Man, the aggressive beast of prey is the core-essence of a social homo sapiens, and not the lachrymos love-sentiment and gushing pity of the Christian good, and the mercy, daya of the Hindu Parameshvar. Neitshze was making out a point when he said in his, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "God is dead, God is dead. He died of pity." It is a basic misconception of human nature to accord primacy to non-violence, ahimsa and to uphold socially uncommitted religion and secular politics, separated from religion. the Sikh idiom of thought made prevalent by Guru Gobind Singh himself to designate the elite man, as ferocious lion, Singh, the king crocodile, Nihang, the spear-hooded cobra, Bhujangi; the angry snake in the attack posture, pecidehmar, chida shud kih Chun bachagan kushtehe char. kih baqi bimand ast pachedeh mar - Zafarnama (78) enshrines the ultimate scientific truth about human nature and destiny and to confuse and mislead the Sikhs on this point as the Patiala performance of Bhai Jodh Singh seeks to do, is infamous and indefensible altogether. 44. Freud’s theories and the scientific insights now provided by Ethnology are generally accepted as supporting the scientific view that war, the highest political activity, is inevitable and necessary and desirable for human weal. Bertrand Russel gave him support by arguing that it was "only the external enemy which supplied the cohesive force of Society, so that a World-state, if it were firmly established, would have no enemies to fear and would, therefore, be in danger of breaking down through lack of cohesive force." 45. Did not Confucius declare two thousand years ago that, "a country that has no external enemies is doomed ?"(Analects) 46. Aggressiveness, war then is natural quality of human psyche and the Sikh doctrine of Raj karege Khalsa is a sane, scientific doctrine and legitimate religious aspiration and to attempt to wean the Sikhs, away from it, is a crime against sanity and Science, Religion and God. To exhort Sikhs to insulate religion from politics and to fall into the fatal error of believing in possibility of a full and genuine religious life without a base of political autonomy and a fulcrum of political power, is an utterly mean, unforgivable thing to do. 47. The Sikh doctrine of Raj karega Khalsa' is useful socially and necessary if society is to hold together. Since today war has become so dangerous to indulge in on massive scale, Lorenz speaks of how we suffer "an insufficient discharge of the aggressive drive." Desmond Morris is hopelessly pessimistic in relation to any optimism expressed as to our ability to remould our way of life:
48. There is no higher truth and mere reliable guidance available to mankind than the principles embedded in and implicated by the words, spoken by the 'blessed mouth' of Guru Gobind Singh: Raj karega Khalsa aki rahe na koe, Khwar hoe sabh milenge bache saran jo hoe. |
