The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s14: The Sikhs
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s14
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The Sikhs
c7.s14.1
Finally remain to be listed the Kingdoms of the Sikhs in the Punjab (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).⁴⁵ Like the Marathas the Sikhs also rose as the champions of Hindu sovereignty against the Moghuls and had contact with the Europeans.
c7.s14.2
⁴⁵ M. A. Maculiffe: *Sikh Religion* (Oxford 1909), 6 vols, J. D. Cunningham: *History of the Sikhs* (London 1918), L. Griffin: *Ranjit Singh* (Oxford 1898), H. K. Trevaskis: *The Land of the Five Rivers* (Oxford 1928), K. Singh: *History and Philosophy of the Sikh Religion* (Lahore 1914), Part I.
c7.s14.3
In the Deccan the bulwark of Hindu independence was built up by Śivāji the Great (1627-1680), the Frederick the Great of India, in his empire of the Marathas. This was continued during the eighteenth century under the Peshwas or ministers (1714-1818). Fragments of Maratha states still exist more or less as "feudatories" of Great Britain. The second great reaction against political Islam manifested itself almost simultaneously in the militant nationalism of the Sikhs in the Punjab. From Guru Govind (1675-1708), organizer of the Khalsa polity, down to Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), monarch of a united Punjab including Kāśmīr, nay, down to 1849, it was the Hindus (Sikhs) who held Northern and North-western India. It is worth while to emphasise that Ranjit Singh, the contemporary of the Bengali Rammohun Roy (1772-1833), was the sovereign ruler of a powerful state.
c7.s14.4
From the Bengali and the South Indian angles of vision the lower terminus of political sovereignty exercised by the Hindu races is likely to be somewhat distorted. It is therefore very necessary to observe that Hindu states were enjoying independence down to the middle of the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century of Indian political history was dominated by the Hindus.
c7.s14.5
With the annexation of the Punjab by Raghunath (Raghoba) in 1758 during the Peshwaship of Balaji Baji Rao (1740-1761) the Maratha Empire extended from the Himalayas in the North to the southern extremity of the Indian Peninsula. The Peshwa's power endured as a sovereign authority,—although territorially much reduced,—down to 1818.
c7.s14.6
Ranjit Singh, the "lion of the Punjab," was a contemporary of Rammohun, it is worth while to repeat. The entire Punjab (including Kāśmīr and Jammu) was ruled by him as an independent Hindu state. It was not until 1849 that the Punjabis lost their independence.
c7.s14.7
The administrative genius of Ranjit Singh preserved in the Punjab during the early nineteenth century the tradition of Indian positivism. He was thus a great contemporary, junior of course, rather a distinguished successor, of the Marathas of the Deccan and Tipu Sultan of Mysore. He was already imbued with the modern spirit in so far as the translation of French and English works into Punjabi found in him a thoughtful patron. In this he was but carrying out the same principles as inspired his contemporary Rammohun (1772-1833) in Bengal who had to live under different political conditions. Among Ranjit's political achievements is to be named his resuscitation of the institutions of rural democracy.⁴⁶
c7.s14.8
⁴⁶ Lectures at the Ranjit Singh Birth Anniversary, Lahore (November, 1935) by Sardar Sewa Ram Singh, Sardar Man Singh, Sardar Kissen Singh Thapar and others, reported in the *People* (Lahore).