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Devoted to the common good

The life of Guru Nanak, who is credited with initiating the Sikh religion, straddled some of the most troubled years for the people of Hindustan.

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M Rajivlochan

The life of Guru Nanak, who is credited with initiating the Sikh religion, straddled some of the most troubled years for the people of Hindustan. He was born at a time when the Afghans were the rulers. He founded the Sikh faith around the time Sultan Babur conquered Hindustan. He died just before the turbulent rule of Babur’s son Humayun was about to end. Local, smaller sardars in India had grown powerful enough during this time to challenge the sovereign. In the ensuing conflicts, it was the common people who suffered the most since the funds for these military conflicts of the Afghan elite were extracted from the commoners.

The wealth of Hindustan had Sultan Babur, then based in the salubrious city of Kabul, salivating. He had already conducted a number of small looting raids. “My desire for Hindustan had been constant,” he would write in his memoir. After spending over two decades ruling over the small kingdom of Kabul, he felt himself ready to launch a larger raid into the depths of Hindustan. This resulted in the fabled first battle of Panipat in which the Afghan sultan was defeated. Babur decided to stay put in Hindustan even while his military commanders complained of the heat and dust of the north Indian plains. Once again, the greatest price to be paid for the doings of these military adventurers was by the people, especially those who lived in the region between the right bank of the Yamuna river and the foothills of the northern mountains. In the 16th century, this region would be given the name with which it is best identified today: ‘Punjab’.

This was not one of the most prosperous regions of those times. But it was the region that had to bear the brunt of the adventurers who came to loot India from the north. This was also the time when a large number of religious leaders, none of them from the twice-born castes, were gaining popularity among the people. Their teachings advocated equality among all, advised their followers to practise a simple life, have simpler religious practices and shun the gaudy paraphernalia of the then dominant religions. Historians, eager to honour social rebels, liked to call such teachings as indicators of ‘social protest’.

The most important part of the teachings of these new religious leaders was their insistence on total submission and devotion to the divine. Latter-day historians would club such religious leaders within a single category called the ‘Bhakti tradition’. What makes people follow such religious leaders is not known, at least not through any data-based inquiry. What is certainly known through observing the changes happening over time is that most of such religious leaders never achieve any sizeable set of followers nor do the followers remain consistent to the teachings of their guru. Above all, most of them gradually merge back into the larger traditions of their society, unless of course they do not fade out of existence.

One religious leader who did not fit in with this general paradigm was Nanak of Punjab. His later followers addressed him reverentially as ‘Guru Nanak’. His moorings in society were different from that of others. He came from a well-off family. Was one of the twice-born caste groups. Was educated. Worked for the imperial sovereign’s revenue office, on a post that would have eventually given him, had he continued in service, considerable power, pelf and respectability. Was married at the age of 18 to the daughter of the town’s tax collector. He is said to have insisted on keeping the wedding ceremony simple and ignored various superstitious rituals that preceded a marriage. The couple was soon blessed with two sons. However, job, marriage, family, did not deter him from wondering about the world and finding ways to make it a better place. Eventually, at the ripe age of 27, he decided to give it all up and went off on lengthy travels across India and neighbouring regions. Effectively, he travelled to all important religious places for three decades.

His discussions with those who accompanied him, and his hymns, gave shape to a distinct religious tradition. “There is no Hindu, there is no Musalman” was one of the most important pieces of wisdom that he suggested. Coming at a time when the Muslim Sultan of Hindustan was insistent on establishing the primacy of Islam over the land, by force, if necessary, this was indeed a revolutionary view to propagate. Latter-day biographies, written by admiring followers, by way of recording the deeds and teachings of the great Guru, would say that even when he was a student, he had begun to play with the idea of there being one god who is for all. The practice of penning biographies of the Guru itself was a revolutionary deviation from the relatively lazy oral traditions that mark other Indian religions and belief systems. It would help maintain detailed memories of the times, give them a life that was far more sturdy. It would also provide for an opportunity for those who are curious about the past to examine it without bowing to the diktats of the political and religious leaders who currently dominate the faith.

Even more revolutionary was the idea of Guru Nanak that male and female both were equally important for society. In a society which reported among the highest rates of female infanticide, then and now, this advocacy of the importance of women was important. But the most revolutionary of all was his insistence on breaking the then prevalent caste-based distinctions on eating food. Eating together, from the same pot, the food cooked over a common fire would undercut one of the most powerful manifestations of the discriminatory jati-vyavastha, the caste system of India. The complex rituals for the rites of passage of an individual were given up, thus undercutting the power of the priestly class over people.

By the 1520s, those who followed him around, lived with him and tried to obey his injunctions on how to be a good human being came to be known as ‘Sikh’, a natural derivative of the word referring to the student/seeker. A good life, Nanak insisted, was one that was normal and did not follow the path of asceticism so popular in India’s cultural traditions. His Sikhs did not have to turn ascetic or renounce anything other than bad habits in order to do good for the world. Goodness, in his teachings, lay in helping others, helping the larger community, rather than doing good only for oneself. Such a focus on the collective good made the Sikhs stand out even in the earliest days. Help those in need, make an honest living, and meditate on God’s name, became the core components of his teachings. A Guru would help in providing correct guidance. Before his death, he even set in place a mechanism to provide for a successor Guru, thus ensuring that the traditions he had set up would continue even after he passed away.

The Sikhs remained small in number but a very distinct group. Over the years, they evolved a distinct set of values that would set them apart from the rest of the population of India. By the 18th century, the officers of the East India Company could report to their masters in London of the Sikhs being an important group in India with distinct religious and social practices.

Professor, History, Panjab University, Chandigarh

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