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A History of Agriculture in India v2.c87: Chapter 35. Rise of Sikhism

A History of Agriculture in India v2.c87

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English

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Chapter 35. Rise of Sikhism

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MARTYRDOM OF GURU ARJAN, SIKHS BECOME MILITANT ROLE OF KHATRIS AND JATS IN SIKHISM, MARTYRDOM OF GURU TEGH BAHADUR GURU GOBIND SINGH AND THE CREATION OF THE KHALSA REVOLT OF BANDA BAHADUR AND HIS LAND REFORMS IN THE EAST PUNJAB GUERRILLA WARFARE AND THE RAKHI SYSTEM

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GURU NANAK’S religion was not a system of philosophy, but a way of life. According to Guru Nanak, meditation should be combined with manual work. He condemned idleness and exhorted his followers to engage themselves in productive work. Apart from this, he gave women a new status and dignity as mothers, and equal partners in life with their husbands. Guru Angad (1539-1552), the second Guru, earned his living by rope-making. The third Guru, Amar Das (1552-1574), ordered that the Udasis, the celibate ascetics, who did not follow a productive avocation, were to be excluded from the new faith. He himself earned his living as a small tradesman. Guru Ram Das (1574-1581), the fourth Guru, on a site granted by Akbar, restored an old tank which he called Amritsar. He made Amritsar the centre of the new faith. Guru Arjan (1581-1606) constructed the temple of Hari Mandir in the middle of the tank. He also founded the towns of Kartarpur and Tarn Taran, and built temples at these places. A characteristic of these temples is that they have doors on all sides, indicating that they are open to members of all castes and creeds. He also compiled the Adi Granth, the scripture of the Sikhs, which included the hymns of his predecessors and himself as well as of the bhaktas.

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Guru Arjan was a poet and mystic and also a great organizer. He fostered trade and industry among the Sikhs. He encouraged his followers to trade in horses from Central Asia. He also set up a machinery for collecting tithes from his followers by appointing masands. The masands collected contributions from the Sikhs in areas assigned to them. The funds collected were deposited in the Guru’s treasury and spent in providing free meals to all who came to hear the discourses of the Guru.

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With the death of Akbar on 17 October 1605, the liberal phase of the Mughal Empire came to a close. In April 1606, Khusru, the elder son of Jahangir, rebelled against his father and fled to the Punjab. He met Guru Arjan at Tarn Taran and sought his help. The Guru gave him 5,000 rupees out of compassion. When the news reached Jahangir, he summoned the Guru, and after hearing his dignified reply, fined him two lacs of rupees.

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The Guru refused to pay the fine which was unjustly imposed. The Mughals savagely tortured the Guru for five days at Lahore until he died. This was the first martyrdom in the history of Sikhism.

Guru Hargobind (1595-1644)

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Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru, was only eleven years old when his father was martyred. He realized that military power alone could provide protection to the Sikhs against the Mughal tyranny. When he was installed as Guru he wore two swords, representing his spiritual and temporal leadership. In front of the Hari Mandir, the Sikh temple at Amritsar, he raised another building, the Akal Takht, the seat of temporal power. He also asked every Sikh to keep a sword and maintain a horse. He also raised a small army. In the plains of the Punjab, he fought successfully six battles against the Mughals.

Role of Khatris and Jats in Sikhism

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In the growth of Sikhism, two castes have played an important role, viz. the Khatris and Jats. The Khatris were a mercantile community and trade and shop-keeping was their occupation. Some of them were also employed as clerks and accountants by the Mughal Government. They were the intellectual elite of the period in the Punjab. All the Sikh Gurus were Khatris belonging to Bedi, Bhalla, Trehan and Sodhi subcastes (gotras). On the other hand, the followers were mostly Jats, the cultivators. The Jats, who are known for their democratic and egalitarian traditions, were drawn in large numbers by the new faith which denounced the caste system and gave equality to all its followers. Majha, the central Punjab, the cradle of Sikhism, had a high proportion of Jat population. Farming is their traditional occupation and fighting their popular pastime. When they have a common enemy they are united and fight him with unparalleled courage. Thus it was not merely the martyrdom of Guru Arjan, which spurred Guru Hargobind towards militancy. McLeod believes, ‘The growth of militancy within the Panth must be traced primarily to the impact of Jat cultural patterns and to economic problems which prompted a militant response.’¹

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¹ McLeod, W.H. *The Evolution of the Sikh Community*, p. 12

Sanctuary in the Siwalik Hills

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Below the outer Himalayas are the Siwalik Hills, covered with scrub forest, the haunt of the leopards and the wild boar. While Majha was the cradle of Sikhism, its further growth took place in the Siwaliks. In 1634 Guru Hargobind settled at Kiratpur. His successor Guru Har Rai (1644-1661), the seventh guru, also lived at Kiratpur, where he maintained a small army.

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Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621-1675)

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The ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, shifted from Baba Bakala to Kiratpur and from there he moved on to a site near the village of Makhowal and laid the foundation of a new town, which he named Anandpur. Harassed by his jealous kinsmen, he left Anandpur and travelled east, visiting Agra, Allahabad, Benares and Gaya. He settled for a while at Patna, where his son Gobind Rai was born. After touring Bengal and Assam, he returned to Anandpur. At that time Aurangzeb was at the peak of his power, and proselytism to Islam was taking place on a massive scale in the Kashmir valley and other places. A deputation of Kashmiri Brahmans approached the Guru for advice and help. The Guru advised them to inform the Mughal authorities at Delhi that if he, their Guru, accepted Islam, they would follow suit. The Guru was summoned up to Delhi and on his refusal to embrace Islam he was beheaded.

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Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708)

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Gobind Rai, as he was known in his early years, was nine years old when his father, Tegh Bahadur, was martyred at Chandni Chowk, Delhi. He spent his early years at Paunta on the Jumna, learning Sanskrit and Persian, riding and hunting and practising the use of arms. He also pondered deeply on the contemporary problems, the tyranny of the Mughals who denied freedom of worship to the Hindus, and the malaise of Hinduism, its caste system and empty rituals, taboos and superstitions.

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In 1686 came his first test when he fought the Hindu Hill Rajas at Bhangani, six miles (9.6 km) from Paunta, and defeated them. This victory gave him confidence to return to Anandpur. Anandpur was fortified, and he taught his Sikhs the techniques of warfare. The Guru was also a poet and scholar. He had fifty-two bards at his court, and heroic poetry was encouraged to enthuse his followers.

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When the Guru was organizing the Sikhs to fight the Mughal oppression, he was advised by Kesho Das, a Brahman priest, who had come from Benares, to perform a yajna to Nainadevi, the goddess of power. The yajna was carried on for many days but the goddess did not appear. The Guru realized that the main weakness of the Hindus was their belief in supernatural powers rather than in their own strength. In utter disgust, he threw the ghee, incense, and other paraphernalia into the sacrificial fire, and there was an enormous blaze visible for miles. The credulous believed that the goddess had appeared. When asked whether he had seen the goddess, the Guru unsheathed his sword and said, 'This is the goddess.' He told them that the goddess is the power which is always in us. It is the conscience of man which refuses to bow before evil. It is the anger which the righteous and truthful men feel when faced with oppression and falsehood. The Guru asked his followers to take up the sword and fight evil.

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On the Baisakhi of 1699 he convened an assembly of his followers at Anandpur and created the Khalsa. He declared at a congregation that he wanted to sacrifice a man. At his call five men volunteered. They belonged to different castes and were from different parts of India, viz. Daya Ram, a Khatri from Lahore; Dharam Das, a Jat from Rohtak; Mohkam Chand, a washerman from Dwaraka in Gujarat; Himmat, a water-carrier from Jagannath Puri in Orissa; and Sahib Chand, a barber from Bidar in Deccan. The Guru baptised them with water stirred with a sword. They were told to renounce their ancestral occupations, family ties, old religious beliefs, rituals and customs. Thus a casteless society, the Khalsa, was created. As Cunningham observed, "through his baptism of the sword, Gobind roused the dormant energies of a vanquished people and filled them with a lofty, although fitful, longing for social freedom and national ascendancy, the proper adjuncts of that purity of worship which had been preached by Nanak. Gobind saw what was yet vital and he relumed it with Promethean fire."² It was thus that the timid Hindus riven by caste dissensions were transformed into warriors who suffered fearsome persecutions and ultimately overthrew the tyrannical government of the Mughals.

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² Cunningham, J.D., *A history of the Sikhs*, p. 75

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Guru Gobind Singh gave a distinctive form to his Singhs by prescribing five symbols, viz. unshorn hair, a sword, a steel bangle on the right wrist, a comb to keep the hair clean, and a knee-length *kachh* or shorts. Smoking of tobacco was forbidden. This ban promoted physical fitness, as tobacco is an insidious poison, which contributed significantly to the deterioration of the physique and stamina of the Mughal soldiers, the adversaries of the Singhs. As the bulk of the converts were the Jats of the Punjab, this ban added to their efficiency as farmers and soldiers.

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Apprehensive of the rising power of the Guru, Aurangzeb ordered the governors of Sarhind and Lahore to invest Anandpur. The Guru, confronted by a force vastly superior in numbers, was forced to leave Anandpur. At Chamkaur, his two elder sons—Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh—died fighting the Mughals. His remaining two sons—Zorawar Singh, aged nine, and Fateh Singh, aged seven—were walled alive at Sarhind. The Guru’s mother who had accompanied them, unable to bear the shock, also died at Sarhind. The Guru took shelter in the scrub jungle of Malwa and at the village of Talwandi Sabo, now called Damdama Sahib. He collected his writings, and compiled the *Dasam Granth*.

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Guru Gobind Singh abolished the institution of Gurudom. He vested the spiritual leadership in the *Guru Granth*, and temporal leadership of the community in Khalsa Brotherhood. He placed a revolutionary ideal before his followers, viz. of the Raj Khalsa or the people’s democracy. This ideal opened the prospects of worldly power and prosperity to the men of the lowest castes of the Hindu society, who hitherto were doomed to poverty and perpetual subjugation.

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Passing through Rajasthan, the Guru came to Agra. In the mean time Aurangzeb died and Bahadur Shah succeeded him. The Guru ultimately settled for a while at Nander on the Godavari in the Deccan. Here he was assassinated in 1708 by two Pathans, who had been deputed by Wazir Khan, Governor of Sarhind.

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The sacrifices of Guru Gobind Singh are unparalleled in history. He exhorted his father to sacrifice his life for freedom of worship. He lost his mother and four sons. His courage and sacrifices thrilled the peasantry of East Punjab and they embraced Sikhism in large numbers.

Banda Bahadur (1708-1716)—His Land Reforms

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Lachhman Das, who came to be known as Banda Bahadur, was a Dogra Rajput. He was born on 27 October 1670 at Rajori, a village in the Poonch District of Jammu and Kashmir. His father, Ram Dev, was a cultivator. Stricken with remorse on the death of a pregnant doe he had shot, he became a Bairagi, assumed the name of Madho Das, and wandered about in the Deccan. After a stay at Nasik, he shifted to Nander. It was here that he met Guru Gobind Singh in 1708. He was so impressed by the Guru's personality that he declared himself as his *banda* or slave. The Guru gave him a sword and five arrows, a drum and a banner. The Guru also gave him *hukamnamas*, letters of authority, addressed to the Sikhs of the Punjab, exhorting them to rally round his banner and avenge the death of his father and his innocent children.

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As Banda Bahadur entered Haryana, the Sikhs joined him in large numbers. He looted Sonepat, Kaithal, Samana, Ghuram, Shahabad, Mustafabad, Kapuri and Sadhaura. In the mean time, the armed peasants from the central districts of the Punjab converged towards Sarhind. On 24 May 1710 Sarhind was sacked and thus the murder of Guru Gobind Singh's sons avenged. By the autumn of 1710 the whole of Jalandhar Doab was liberated by Banda's followers. The peasant revolt then spread from Doaba to Majha, the central Punjab.

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One of the greatest achievements of Banda Bahadur was the abolition of the *zamindari* system in East Punjab. The *zamindars* (landlords) were mostly government officials responsible for paying to the Mughal Government fixed land revenue of the villages entrusted to them. They had arrogated to themselves the position of absolute proprietors who could turn out the actual cultivators at their sweet will. The Mughal authorities did not interfere in their internal arrangements so long as they paid their dues. They were free to extort any amount from the peasants who were practically reduced to the position of serfs. 'Once, says a local tradition, people from the neighbourhood of Sadhaura came to Banda complaining of the iniquities practised by their landlords. He ordered Baj Singh to open fire on them. They were astonished at the strange reply to their representation, and asked him what it meant. He told them that they deserved no better treatment when being thousands in number they still allowed themselves to be cowed down by a handful of zamindars. "Why should not the Khalsa of the Guru feel strong enough to redress his own wrongs?" The remedy suggested was successfully applied.³

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³ Teja Singh and Ganda Singh: *A Short History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, 1469-1765, pp. 87, 88

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'The revolt spread across the Sutlej over the whole of the Majha country,' states Khushwant Singh. 'Starting from Amritsar, the peasant armies marched northwards towards the hills, taking Kalanaur, Batala, and Pathankot. Then they overran the tract between the Sutlej and the Ravi. The Punjab became like a surging sea of free peasantry with only two small islands of Mughal authority in its midst—the capital city of Lahore and the Afghan town of Kasur. From the Jumna to the Ravi and beyond, the only person who mattered was Banda, and the only power that commanded respect was that of the peasant armies.'⁴

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⁴ Khushwant Singh, *A History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, 1469-1839, p. 109

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It was a true peasant revolt led by Banda Bahadur, who himself came from a poor peasant family. His army was mostly composed of cultivators. This revolt had a far-reaching impact on the socio-economic life of East Punjab. It became a land of yeomen who owned their lands and became the best farmers of India.

Guerrilla Warfare

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Banda was captured by the Mughals and executed in Delhi in 1716. The period 1716-1768 was a period of life-and-death struggle for the Sikhs. The Mughal Emperor's edict was to arrest every Sikh, wherever found, and if he did not accept Islam to kill him. For every Sikh head a reward was given. Faced by an organized government with a standing army, the Sikhs adopted guerilla tactics. They were expert in handling the matchlock and the sabre. They would attack the Mughal army, inflict losses on them and retreat, then attack them again. They took shelter in jungles. The Lakhi jungle situated between the Sutlej and the Beas was their base. The Siwalik hills of Jammu and Kangra, and the desert area of Malwa were their other two bases and places of refuge. Their horses were so expertly trained that they responded to their voice, touch of the hand and stroke of the heel. On receiving a stroke of the hand they would stop in full gallop. They could also swim across swollen rivers with perfect ease.

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The Sikhs deprived the Persian marauder Nadir Shah of some of his loot when he was returning to Iran through Punjab in May 1739. "Where do they live?" asked Nadir Shah of Zakriya Khan, the Governor of the Punjab. "On the saddles of their horses," replied Zakriya Khan. "Be warned, therefore," said Nadir perceptively, "for they seem to smack of sovereignty. They might occupy your lands before long."

Rakhi System

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Chaos prevailed in the Punjab in the middle of the eighteenth century. Trade was disrupted by the plundering bands, and life and property were unsafe. The Khalsa were the only organized force in this chaos. As a price for protection against robbers, the villagers, who accepted the protection of the Dal Khalsa, paid one-fifth of their income twice a year, at the end of each harvest, in May and October. This system was called *Rakhi* or price for protection. In a short time large slices of the territory in four Doabs of the Punjab were taken under their protection by the Dal Khalsa.

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In the areas under the *Rakhi* system, raids of bandits were prevented, disputes settled and rough and ready justice meted out. Thus the Sikhs took over the police functions of the State. "The people got relief and respite, and the Sikhs got an opportunity to prove that they meant to rule. Politically, the *Rakhi* system made them saviours of the people; economically it assured them of regular legal income; and militarily, it put their organization on sound footing. In terms of guerilla strategy, it meant an onslaught on the stable image of the Mughal empire and the staying power of the Afghan occupation forces."⁵

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⁵ Arjan Das Malik, *An Indian Guerilla War, the Sikh Peoples' War, 1699-1768*, p. 78

Consolidation of Guerrilla Bands into Misals

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On the Baisakhi of 1748 the Sikhs passed their first historic *Gurmata* at the Akal Takht at Amritsar. The sixty-five bands of guerillas were consolidated into twelve *misals*. During this period the Punjab was ravaged by Ahmed Shah Abadali, who slaughtered a large number of the Sikh warriors. However, he could not crush the Sikhs. He failed to consolidate his hold on the Punjab. From 1764 to 1798, the *misals* practically ruled the Punjab. Ultimately, Ranjit Singh of Sakerchakia *misal* emerged as an outstanding leader of the Sikhs. He occupied Lahore on 6 July 1799, and founded a kingdom which lasted for half a century. After a fierce struggle, it succumbed to the British, whose power was based on industrial and agricultural revolution, which were the result of the discoveries of the laws of science and their practical applications.

References

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Arjan Dass Malik, *An Indian Guerilla War, the Sikh Peoples' War, 1699-1768* New Delhi, 1975 Cunningham, J.D. *History of the Sikhs*, London, 1849

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Daljeet Singh, *Sikhism, a Comparative Study of its Theology and Mysticism*, Jullundur, 1979 Ganda Singh, *Banda Singh Bahadur*, Amritsar, 1935 Gopal Singh, *A History of the Sikh People, 1469-1978*, New Delhi, 1979 Gupta, H.R. *A History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, Simla, 1952; Vol II, Lahore, 1944 Khushwant Singh, *A History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, Princeton, 1963 McLeod, W.H. *The Evolution of the Sikh Community*, Delhi, 1975 Narang, K.S. and Gupta H.R. *History of the Punjab, 1469-1857*, New Delhi, 1973 Rawlinson, H.G. *India, a Short Cultural History*, London, 1954 Teja Singh and Ganda Singh, *A Short History of the Sikhs*, Bombay, 1950