True Nirankaris

In the late twenties and early thirties of the nineteenth century. there arose and flourished a Sikh puritanical movement in the north western provinces of the Sikh Commonwealth, the Sarkar-i-Khalsa, the adherents of which movement called themselves nirankaris, following the first description that Guru Nanak gave of himself, "Nanak, the nirankari": " I am Nanak, the worshipper of the Form-less God." This movement is not a separate sect of Sikhism; they practise the principles with unwavering devotion and without laxity.

After the expulsion of the Sikhs from what is now Pakistan, the headquarters of these true nirankari Sikhs shifted from Rawalpindi to Chandigarh, and they now live in the Indian Punjab and the rest of India, hard working and prosperous, indistinguishable from the general mass of the Sikh community, except by their marked piety and devotion to religion. Their basic slogan is: dhann nirankar, deh dhari sabh khwar, that is, 'All praise to the Formless God; all forms are perishable'. In the second part of this slogan, the students of comparative religions will detect the echo of the basic Buddhist 'noble truth', sab anitta, or an affirmation of the last words on earth of Gautam, the Buddha, vyadhamma sankhara: 'all aggregates must disintegrate', which is also the true Sikh doctrine. The first part of this slogan is the common ground between all higher religions, the Vedic religion, Brahminism, Islam and Judaism, including Sikhism.

The first part of this slogan, dhann nirankar, however, has also been adopted by the Sikh-baiters and pseudo-nirankaris, with the tongue in cheek, for they supplement this slogan by adding: aiya guru bachan avtar, sare jag da palan har, "God has descended in human form as Gurbachan Singh, the Light and Guide of mankind, and verily, he is the Sustainer of the entire Universe." A few words are necessary about the genesis, the doctrines and practices of this 'Sustainer of the entire Universe', Gurbachan Singh, the Chief of the Sikh-killers at Amritsar, and his followers.