By Suriit Singh Gandhi
Before determining the pattern of Sikh Polity we will have to find answers to certain important questions: Did politics fall within the jurisdiction of Sikh religion; did the Gurus take interest in political affairs; did political power or basic moral issues form the fulcrum of the interest of the Gurus?
So far as the first question is concerned, our reply is that politics fell within the jurisdiction of the religion of the Gurus; this fact can be supported by adducing moral as well as historical arguments. The Gurus, as it is ascertained from their utterances, wanted to establish an order where goodness should prevail and unrighteousness be eliminated, and where people should have absolute faith in the oneness of God. To make the people righteous, the Gurus laid emphasis on the discipline of the individuals as also of the groups. In ‘Jap’ Guru Nanak spells out the steps which one should take to regenerate oneself? It is also mentioned that the regenerate should endeavor to make the society righteous.
The regenerate persons are variously known in Sikh religious literature. Guru Nanak calls them Gurmukhs, Guru Arjan Dev Brahms Giani and Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa. Now what is unrighteousness? The Guru, somewhere explicitly and somewhere implicitly, explains that what is not based on justice, fellow-feeling, liberty and equality is unrighteous or oppression. But how to ensure righteousness? Obviously some agency is needed and in fact since the inception of the civilized society, the need has continuously been felt
It was this need to which state and politics owe its existence. As a matter of fact, need to translate certain moral issues have always been the determinant of the nature and pattern of the political power. In tribal society the panchayats or patriarch of a tribe was the symbol of power. When the society transcended that stage, the obigarchy became the wielder of the power. Obigarchy gave place to monarchy when the former outlived its advantage. The changes in the society on moral and social planes always effected corresponding changes in the polity or the agency to wield political power.
The Sikh Gurus were committed to certain moral issues which formed the basis of the society of their concept which could not help take interest in politics. But there was not simply an expression of their anguish for the political unrighteousness but it had a moral dimension also. For a proper appreciation of Guru Nanak’s response to the events in question, the Babar Vani verses must be considered together. In these, Guru Nanak mentions the sufferings caused by war and explains that all this has happened because of the people’s blind pursuit of wealth and riches. Because of wealth, it went hard with many, wealth cannot be amassed without sins and it does not accompany the dead. Indeed, “He who is destroyed is first deprived of his virtue.”
It is thus clear that Guru Nanak’s response to war and to sufferings caused by war is not only an ample expression of his rage but also involves a moral issue, the issue of the importance of virtue in the nation’s healthy growth and stance.
Historical references in Guru Gobind Sahib also go to prove that political affairs were not alien to the Guru’s religion, Guru Nanak’s familiarity, even interest in contemporary politics may be inferred from the occurrence in his verses of the phrases: Sultan, patshah, Shah-i-Alam, takht, taj, hukm, malik, shiqder, qazi, chaudhari, mugqqaddam, raiyat. Also Guru Nanak makes use of the references such as court, palaces, royal canopy, elephants, armor, cavalry, trumpets, treasury, coins, mint salary, taxes and revenue-free land. Furthermore, in one of his hymns, Guru Nanak, in a general reference, called the Rajas as “blood sucking rajas.””
“The rajas are lions and the muqqaddams dogs;
They fall upon the Riyat day and night.
Their agents inflict wounds with claws (of power)
And the dogs lick blood and relish the liver.”
A condemnation of contemporary rule is unmistakable here. It may be pointed out, however that Guru Nanak’s attack is not directed against the rulers as “Muslims” or as “Hindus”, In fact, the bracketing of the Muqqaddams (who invariably were nonMuslims) with the rajas strongly suggests that Guru Nanak adopts the standpoint of common people the Riyat, as against the rulers and their subordinates or agents. In another verse, Guru Nanak appears to assume a close connection. Between the holders of political power and the respective professions of their faith; he notices also a “discrimination” against those who do not belong to his faith.
Guru Nanak says:
“The ad Purkh is called Allah, Now that the turn of the Shaikhs has come;
The gods and their temples are taxed
Such is now the custom.”
The successors of Nanak also had full knowledge of contemporary political affairs. As Guru Arjan assumed pontificate and took some steps to consolidate Sikhism, Jahangir began to view him with suspicion. Guru Anjan was also responsive to the political stands of the state. Perceiving the reaction that his activities had evoked in the Government circles the Guru embarked upon the course of preparing his people to face the challenges, polemic as well as physical, with determination and wisdom.
On the eve of his departure to Lahore in response to the summons of Jahangir, Guru Arjan left a message for his son Guru Hargobind that he should sit manfully on the throne and maintains as much army as he could afford. The message was an epitome of the active interest of fifth Guru in politics. A little earlier than the moment referred to above, the fifth Guru advised Bidhi Chand and Pairana to join the personal staff of Hargobind and hinted that their martial qualities would be utilized fully in the period of his son, Guru Hargobind whose policy of Miri and Piri left absolutely no doubt that the political affairs were not extraneous to the teachings of the Sikh Gurus. So is the case of Guru Harkrishan and Guru Har Rai. Guru Har Rai’s keen interest in the welfare of Dara bears out our aforesaid assertion. Guru Tegh Bahadur’s execution and Guru Gobind Singh’s wars against the Mughals and hill rajas also point to the conclusion that the Gurus were as much alive to the contemporary political happenings as to their moral and spiritual objectives. In Bachittar Natak XIII, 9-10, Guru Gobind Singh writes:
“They who fail to render that what is due to the (house of) Baba
The minions of Babar seize them and make exactions upon them And inflict severe punishments upon such defaulter;
In addition, their worldly goods and property are looted and taken away.”
In these lines the Guru says in unambiguous terms that there are two forces which claim allegiance of men-utilitarianism and secular politics. The primary allegiance of man is to truth and morality and those who fail in this allegiance suffer under the subjugation of worldly state, unnourished by the courage and hope which is boom through un-swerving adherence to the primary allegiance and he who. Does so, does it at his own peril, for by doing so, he helps give birth to times in which everything is force, politics utility and poverty. The Guru does not assert that the perpetual dichotomy and antagonism of the church and the state must be resolved, or even that it is capable of being resolved, by the ‘Suppression or subjugation of the ‘one by the other; rather, he appears to recognize their eternal antagonism and character and in this antagonism sees the hope and glory of man, the social and political context in which the Sikh way of life is to be practiced. The church must perpetually correct and influence the state without aiming to destroy or absorb it, as the History shows the attempt of the one to oust the other meets with no lasting success and each of the two antagonist entities arise again after being crushed in vain and both appear as if bound together. This is what the Guru means, when he declares those who repudiate their allegiance to the House of Nanak suffer grievously without hope at the hands of the state. Obviously the Guru’s corpus of thought includes also the matter which is essentially political.
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the World, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
Victor Hugo
Article extracted from this publication >> November 25, 1988
