By Dr. Sher Singh
Both Guru Har Gobind and Guru Gobind Singh used sword and adopted a military character. The former was a contemporary of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir and the latter of his grandson Aurangeb.
Guru Gobind Singh acquired so much attachment with the sword that sometimes his love for the weapon enters into a reverence which on occasions is not very distinguishable from worship.
It is the importance and the utility of the thing which
often leads the user to haye respect for it. Guru Gobind Singh found the people of India of his days suffering from Adlerls inferiority complex and on the other hand he felt the absence of power and manliness in the Hindu mind. Both these qualities are essential for the protection of life and virtue. Guru Gobind Singh believed in a “will to war,” “a will to power” but never a “will to overpower” “Blessed is he,” says Guru Gobind Singh, “in this world who cherishes war in his heart but at the same time does not forget God.”
Guru Gobind Singh’s recourse to the sword was not the outcome of similar persuasions which Lord Krishna makes to Arjun to enter the battlefield. Guru Gobind Singh’s predecessors had tried all possible means to eradicate evil but to no visible success, The evil was organized in the world and was spreading in the shadow of sword. To face it virtue mustbe organized and must get the help of the same sword, The organization of the Sikhs in the body of the Khalsa was the result.
Rightious To Use The Sword
The Guru equipped them with sword which became for them “an emblem of power and self-respect” for all times to come. In his letter to Aurangzeb, written in Persian, the Guru says, “When affairs have gone beyond all means, it is virtuous to take a sword in hand. I have been forced to come to arms and to enter a battlefield.”
The purpose for which Guru Gobind Singh took to arms was nonviolence. In the philosophy of the Guru the action of a man would be violent if after realizing that he cannot face evil by so-called nonviolent means he chooses either to submit passively to it or to tolerate it in any form. The sword of a reformer is a surgeon’s knife. If he can cure an abscess by an internal medicine so much the better. The next course will be to use an ointment for an external application, failing both, the knife is the only remedy.
The Gurus had tried the experiment of persuations and counsel of passively, sacrificing the lives of their ‘own, of those of their families and children and of their followers. The sword remained to be put to test.
Soul is indestructible and one life is only one phase of it. It is better to end an irremediable vicious life than to let it spread the infection of vice. The end will bring a new opportunity for improvement.
Last Alternative
We should reform ourselves by thought, word and deed and after that we should reform others by thought, word and deed. The use of sword is also a form of deed. It is the last alternative. Weak or strong, that is the defense of the Guru for the use of sword.
Now Guru Gobind Singh had a great task before him. He could not wreck the empire, which he discovered, was based on tyranny injustice and intolerance, singlehanded. He wanted an army. He could not expect many Muhammadans to join it, although those Muslims who realized the truth of his mission did join him. He thus mainly depended on the Hindus, Sikhs were not many in number. The Hindu mind which had lost its manly character in the Punjab had become submissive and was largely dominated by the satyik brahmin with ahimsa parmo dharma his highest religion. The very sight of a sword terrified him. Something spectacular and miraculous was needed. He wanted to change the pictures in men’s minds and wanted to revolutionize their thoughts and wills.
Just as the brahmins had implored his father to save their faith by sacrificing his life so it was now his turn to ask them and their followers to join his defensive army. The brahmins wanted to put him off by saying that only if the goddess Durga could be propitiated and made visible, as she was made by him or Arjun etc., could the success of Guru’s mission could be ensured. But the Guru unshethed his sword and addressing the gathering said: “Here is the real goddess; she will perform all the deeds which the brahmins attribute to Durga.” He raised his sword and appealed to those present to test the efficacy of that symbol of sakti (power) and to join his armies.
“It must not be imagined, because he was a fine warrior he was spiritual or less religious than his predecessors. He made the religious fervor the backbone of his warlike doctrines. He united practical skill with mystical mediation; the results speak for themselves.”
To Nulify Bhramanism
This was to nullify the brahminical superstition, to disillusion and purge the Hindu mind; but something positive was needed which would really make them feel that they were changed and that they were no longer the old weak and meek people. He thought of amrit (baptism). The idea might have come to him from some external source or it was possibly the more dignified form of pahul.
There is no baptism in Islam. The Christian ceremony of baptism has got something in common with amrit but the rudiments of the ceremony were not entirely foreign to the Indian mind. The Hindus especially in the Southern India haye got some baptismal element in their sacred thread ceremony. Anyhow amrit became a ceremony of entering into the Brotherhood of Khalsa the soldier saints. The way in which it was prepared and administered contained such a new and invigorating element that it really revolutionized the whole outlook of the initiated. Its result on the parish were little short of miraculous. By its power men who had hitherto been regarded as unclean and polluted from birth, were changed into exceptionally fine warriors, Before the time
of the Sikh Gurus, no general could have dreamed of raising an army from such outcastes; and this metamorphosis was accomplished despite the hide bound prejudices and innate conservatism of the Hindus.”
Sword Not Used In Anger
Thus Guru Gobind Singh turned his disciples into “heroes who could dare the lion in his own den and challenge the dreadful Aurangzeb in his own court. The lowest were equal with the highest all became one and the four castes began to eat as one race out of one vessel.
‘A few words about the nature of wars fought by the two warriors Gurus Mohsan Fani, a contemporary of the Sixth Sikh Guru, says in his Dabistan that, “Har Gobind never used his sword in anger.”
Both the Gurus often declared that their sword shall always be used for defense; nor was it drawn against anybody out of revenge. The ward were not communal. Both Hindus and Muhammadans enlisted themselves in the Gurus armies and fought for him. The Guru fought against oppressors of both the communities Hindu and Muhammadan. None of the two Gurus acquired an inch of land as a result of their conquests and other military tactics. Hence it is wrong to give any political or communal coloring to the armament policy of the Gurus. The tenth Guru definitely says, “I fight out of eagerness for protecting virtue dharam yukdh ke chao.”
There was religion not any particular organized religion but the religion at the back of his wars; and “it must not be imagined,” writes Dorothy Field, “that because he was a fine warrior he was spiritual or less religious than his predecessors. He made the religious fervor the backbone of his warlike doctrines. He united practical skill with mystical meditation; the results speak for themselves.”
As a result of his military operations no mosque or temple was demolished and no forcible conversion was effected. The Muhammadan or Hindu victims of the battlefield were buried or cremated according to their rites. His volunteers used to supply water to the wounded without any distinction of friend or foe. In fact what he believed in theory was not lost sight of even in war. In his writings we find:
Oneness Of Mankind
The temple or the mosque are the same, the Hindu worship or the Muslim prayer are the same ; all men are the same ; it is through erroneous judgment they appear different. Deites, demons, yakshas heavenly singers, Mousalmans and Hindus adopt the customary dress of their different countries. All men have the same eyes the same ears, the same body, the same built a compound of earth, air, fire and water Allah and Abhekh are the same the Puranas and the Quran are the same; they are all alike, it is the one God who created all The Hindu God and the Muhammadan God (karata Karim razakrahim) is the same; let no man even by mistake suppose there is difference.
In the face of these teachings and practices, facts and principles I wonder how some writers could say that the beauty of Sikhism of tolerating and respecting all religions and their worship was lost in the days of Guru Gobind Singh ?
Article extracted from this publication >> May 26, 1989
