We think of India as an overpopulated country with its some 700 million people living in poverty as a result of ignorance, superstition, disease and natural disasters. That stereotype is wrong in just about every respect.
Recent events in India and the confusion and misunderstanding about them are only one example of the ignorance about Asia in general and India in particular.
India is a country but the Word, “country” 46 imprecise. The definition of country” that best applies to India is “a region distinct in language, institutions and history.” That definition is crucial to understanding India.
Although the nation of India was formed in 1947, it was welded out of many countries which have their own language, literature, dance, art, music, cultural institutions and history.
It is not at all comparable to Canada or the United States which is fairly homogenized societies divided into convenient political units of provinces or states under a central government.
India is more analogous to Europe, which is a group of separate countries having related but distinctly different language, cuisine, art, literature, history and other identifying features.
The Tamils of Madras are as different from the Bengalis of Calcutta as Spaniards are from Germans. The population of Kerala (25 million) is equivalent to that of Canada or Argentina, but its recorded history is more extensive than both countries put together. The contribution of Kerala in philosophy, literature, religion or even dance, towers over anything that Canada has produced.
One could go on discussing each of the 22 states (more properly countries) of India with their separate cultural institutions, history, ruling dynasties, literature and major contributions to world civilization. They are not now, nor were they ever, a homogeneous cultural unit even remotely resembling the situation in North America.
Even though Europe occupies a single continent, it is not, practically speaking a country. From Greece to Finland, from Iceland to Portugal, the differences and separate identities are substantial.
If all the countries of Europe were formed into a single nation with a central government in Rome, Berlin or London, that would be close to the situation which exists in India. No one has had the arrogance to suggest that this ought to be the case with Europe although many wars have been fought in attempts by one region or country to establish dominion. Indeed, the countries of Europe today spend billions in massive armaments to retain their separate identities and individual sovereignty.
To understand the situation in India we must examine it in historical perspective. After 200 years of European exploitation and British colonialism, the countries of India were sufficiently weakened to be forged into a one nation state. But not quite. The Moslems, concentrated in the northwest of the subcontinent, demanded their own nation in Pakistan was created, It has since split and there is now Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Other countries of India held out for their own identity and sovereignty as well. The boundaries of Kashmir have been in dispute since the British left in 1947. An independence movement started in Kerala at the southern tip of India, but it was unsuccessful. When Hyderabad showed reluctance to join, the Indian Army troops cemented annexation.
The new form of government had little in common with the long-established political systems of the people of India. The ruling urban elite, many with western educations, borrowed instead from the British parliamentary structure, modifying it here and there. Mahatma Gandhi strongly objected but to no avail.
The Sikhs also expressed their concerns about the new Union. Would their special identity be respected? Could they be assured that majority communities would not discriminate against them? Would the integrity of their religious ideas and institutions be safeguarded? Could they maintain their economic and political dignity?
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Jawaharial Nehru and the mew government leaders. But the government needed time to sort things out and asked the Sikhs to be patient and loyal. They were.
‘The Punjab in northwest India has been the homeland of the Sikhs for 500 years. The Sikh population of 12 million is greater than the populations of Israel, Dominican Republic and Ireland combined.
Punjab is a key geographical region, a buffer state between India and Pakistan and for centuries the gateway to the subcontinent.
The people of Punjab have one of the longest recorded histories of any country in the world. In 3000 B.C. it was the seat of the Indus Valley Civilization. This culture extended for nearly a thousand tiles, traded with Mesopotamia and Sumeria and profoundly influenced later India.
Their agriculture contributions to the world include the first use of cotton and extensive cultivation of wheat, some of which was stored for the times of need in large granaries. Even today the off Punjab is preeminent in all of India for wheat production,
Just as most of Europe is Christian, most of India is Hindu. But the Christianity of Europe is not uniform. There are significant differences practiced in alyermany by Lutherans or England by the members of the Church of England. So too the features of Hinduism in India are different. in Gunarat, Tamil Nadu or Kerala,
There are communities of Jews in Spain, England or Germany, there are, as a result of invasions and conversions, large communities of Moslems and other religions in various areas of North and South India. There are Zoroastrians originating from Persia in Bombay. There are Christians in Goa and in Kerala where they constitute 20 percent of the population.
Here are major communities of Jews on the Malabar Coast where King Solomon’s. Ships traded in Biblical times. And there are Sikhs in Punjab.
On both the continent of Europe and the subcontinent of India, majority religious groups have persecuted and discriminated against minority religions although there has been far less in India than in Europe. Indeed religious tolerance has been one of the main features of Indian society throughout most of its history. India has never seen the type of religious persecution which took place in Europe with thousands of people (mainly women) burned at the stake in the name of religion, or the massacre of the Jews by Hitler, or the continuing persecution of the Jews which takes place today in the Soviet Union.
But there were exceptions. Zealous Moslem rulers destroyed and desecrated Hindu temples in the name of God. Hindus were killed and persecuted in large numbers by the invaders in their quest for conversions. But Hinduism was too absorbent and too resilient to sway. In time, Moslems learned to live together with Hindus in reasonable harmony a condition which prevails today throughout most of India.
The Sikhs are no strangers to persecution. Their religion differs from both Hinduism and Islam. The word Sikh means disciple or learner, since they are the disciples learners of 10 spiritual teachers beginning with Guru (teacher) Nanak in the 15th century.
Sikhism rejects the teaching or the practice that women are inferior to men or must be subject to them. It rejects the idea that man is born in sin or that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. Each of us is responsible for our own goodness or evil. It is not desirable, say the Sikhs, to try to find God in monasteries, or religious austerities. God is to be found in daily life aloof from sin.
There are three commandments: One must earn one’s living through honest means and hard work; one must share the fruits of one’s earnings with the needy, and one must remain in tune with God. Sikhs must not smoke or use intoxicants or commit adultery.
The Sikhs ideal is the saint soldier. The last Sikh teacher prophet, Guru Gobind Singh, required that all Sikhs identify themselves openly by not cutting their hair and males should wear a turban. Among other signs, they should all wear a bangle and carry a sword. As saint soldiers, they are to help the needy and the weak and to fight against oppression. Said the Guru, “Blessed are those who keep God in their hearts, and a sword in their hands to fight for a noble cause. When there is no other course open to man, it is but righteous to unsheathe the sword.” Not surprisingly, the Sikhs today form 30 percent of the officers of the Indian army.
The Sikhs have never fought against any religion, but they have fought against many rulers. The history of the Sikhs is in part a history of the persecution of the Sikhs.
AI though they revere Moslem saints and includes Moslem spiritual teachings in their holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, they staunchly opposed oppression by the Moslem rulers. For that they paid dearly and their spiritual teachers were tortured and martyred by the emperors.
In December, 1710, the Mughal Emperor issued an edict that all Sikhs, wherever they were found, were to be immediately and without hesitation destroyed. Thus was unleashed 50 years of systematic extermination of the Sikhs. Even then, in their official reply, the Sikh nation said, “We do not oppose Moslems or Islam, but only tyranny and usurpation of power.”
Since 1947, the Sikhs have pressed the government of India to redeem promises that were made at that time. The government felt that circumstances had changed and the pledges were not kept. Over the last several years the Sikhs themselves have been divided on these demands relating to themselves and the Punjab. Factions developed within the Sikh community both ‘in India and abroad. As negotiations dragged on, frustrations increased and charges and countercharges became part of the dialogue. The demand for a separate Sikh state to be known as Khalistan began as a whisper, but few took it seriously. The government began to hunt down those who advocate Khalistan and as they hunted, the movement grew. Dr. J.W. Spellman is head of the Institute of Asian Cultures, University of Windsor and former director of Asian Development Programs, CUSO. He has studied and travelled in India for nearly 25 years.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 13, 1989
