Religion matters everywhere in the world including in the West where over the past four centuries science and technology have promoted a secular approach to life. Inevitably it matters all the more in India which has not witnessed any comparable revolution. So it is only right that we take it for granted that the Sikhs are influenced by their view of their faith.
Living faiths are also not static. They change according to the exigencies of the situation. The cost of the change differs from case to case and from time to time. But the change itself is unavoidable. We may deceive ourselves into believing that only the external forms change and that a religion, especially our own, contains a central core which like the human soul is eternal and unchanging. This is not so. The connection between the body and the soul of a religion, as a human being, is intimate and one must change with the other.
These observations apply as much to Sikhs as to others. And certain conclusions follow. It is, for example, pointless now to debate whether or not Guru Nanak and the faith he founded were part of the larger Bhakti movement which sprang up in our land in the eight century, that is long before Islam reached us in a meaningful sense. Most Sikhs see themselves as a separate community and that is what matters.
The point has often been made, including by some other writers in these columns, that the British were the architects of the misleading and mischievous proposition that Sikhs are different from Hindus. But this is only part of the truth. For the search for identity itself is a modern phenomenon. In India the British presence and its other consequences were more responsible for the rise of this phenomenon that the policy of divide and rule, though that too was a fact. Indeed, the policy could not have succeeded without significant social and economic changes. Indian nationalism was as much a product of these changes as Muslim communalism leading to partition and Sikh communalism leading to the current turmoil.
Unpleasant Fact
It may be unpleasant to admit that we could not have produced and sustained Indian nationalism without producing Muslim and Sikh communalism. But it is a fact. Similarly, it is not generally realized that Hindus have rallied to the nationalist banner primarily because the process of modernization fragmented them along caste lines so thoroughly that a communal platform was not viable for them.
This is not to deny the overwhelming importance and relevance of the nationalist platform. Without it India will fall apart with disastrous consequences for all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians alike. My intention is to suggest that we look at the reality as it is and not allow the universe of our discourse to be dominated by moral posturing.
In any discussion of the Sikhs, another point which is generally ignored appears to me of supreme importance – the appropriation of the Sikhs faith by Jats. As Joyce Pettigrew puts it in her authoritative Robber Noblemen: “When the sixth guru had succeeded in building up an army the recruits had been drawn from the Jats. Similarly, Govind’s (Guru Govind Singh) attempt to turn a small band of religious believers into a political community coincided with a large influx of the Jats of the Majha (the area between the Ravi and Beas) into the Khalsa. The essentially mystic and non-sectarian religion of Nanak … was appropriated by a defined social category with a distinct historical identity and became an effective medium through which their opposition to Rajput landlords and Muslims rulers alike was expressed and unified. The rise of militant Sikhism in Punjab was, in fact, the rise of the Jats. The ranks and leadership of the Khalsa, from this period onwards until the nineteenth century, was predominantly Jat.” (brackets and emphasis provided)
If this is so, as it unquestionably is, an attempt to analyze the Sikh problem calls for an understanding of the Jat history and personality which, needless to say, is sadly lacking even among those who have taken it upon themselves to play a leading role in the attempt to solve it. The result of this ignorance is there for anyone to see.
Acute disorientation
I am drawing attention to the Jat dominance over the Sikh community for another reason as well. As I see it, the modernization process has posed for them problems which they are not able to cope with. The problems affect all Jats whether Hindus or Sikhs. Only in the case of Hindu Jats it has taken a non-religious turn for the simple reason that it has not been open to them to talk of their religion and culture being in danger.
Jat Sikhs, as is well known, have lived by soldiering and agriculture. Again as is well known, with the modernization of equipment which is becoming more and more sophisticated by the day if not by the hour, the requirements of defence services have changed. Whether or not there was merit in the British division of Indians into martial and non-martial communities, it is a distinction of steadily diminishing importance.
With the passage of time the strategic importance of Punjab where around 80 per cent of Sikhs are concentrated must also decline. In a physical sense Indian and Pakistan armies will doubtless continue to confront each other across the plains of Punjab. But India’s defence must increasingly rest on its air force and navy regardless of whether or not the country decides to go in for nuclear weapons. A continued turmoil in Punjab which is not unlikely might persuade Indian policy-makers finally to take the plunge so that the country’s security comes to rest on a deterrent which no government in Islamabad can easily ignore. But that will be like buying a double insurance.
As for agriculture, it is not a profession which commends itself to educated Indians. This reality has been obscured by the talk of gentlemen farmers. But that is a very limited phenomenon. Sons and daughters of well-to-do farmers do not wish to live in villages, however comfortable their life there. The very fact of education disorients them. And they feel lost when they come to towns. Their personality is basically not attuned to commerce and industry. They look to openings in the administration which in the nature of things are limited and involve stiff competition from communities which they have despised. It is not an accident that the vast majority in Bhindranwale’s killer gangs were such disoriented Jat Sikh youth.
Shameful Commentary
On the face of it, the Sikhs’ has been a success story in the post-independence period. Of course, it has been. But there has been a dark side to the Sikh moon if we took at it from the Jat Sikh side and point of view. Modernizing India has not provided scope which given their history and psychology they could consider expansive enough for them. They have not been discriminated against but they have genuinely felt discriminated against. They have not invented this grievance. They have been convinced of it. Other Sikhs have come to share this belief as a result of the minority complex which they have been busy developing as part of their search for identity. That is where religion comes in.
It is an irony of history that the Sikh search for identify should have coincided with India’s search for effective integration through extension of communications and administration up to the level of the smallest hamlet in the remotest part of the country and the establishment of a national market. The resulting conflict could have been better managed if the guardians of the Indians state were more competent and farsighted than they have been. But it could not have been avoided.
Though most of us do not recognise it, the fact remains that the upheaval in Punjab is an unpleasant confirmation of the success of the Indian enterprise. Sikhs especially Jat Sikhs, feel that they are at bay precisely because they are now called upon to articulate their aspirations not within the confines of a shrunken Punjab but of all India. They cannot opt out of this all-India dialogue and they cannot determine its terms. Incidentally, democracy denies them dominance even within Punjab. Despite all that has happened, Akalis, a political expression of Jat Sikhs, are not likely to win a fair and free election in Punjab.
A Jat Sikh is nothing if he is not proud whatever his status in economic and educational terms. For him power and honour are interchangeable terms. His self-esteem has been greatly reinforced by the Hindu interpretation of history casting him in the role of the defender of Hinduism. This has remained his self-image even as he has sought to distance himself from Hindus and to give himself a separate identity. Operation Bluestar was an assault on this complex self-image. It hurt most because it exposed his vulnerability. The post-Indira-assassination riots deepened and widened the wound. These were an even more brutal demonstration of his vulnerability. They were also a shameful commentary on the rest of us. They showed how shallow is our veneer of decency and humanity.
The Times of India, 1 May 1985