Empire of the Sikhs (5 page)

Har Rai, who succeeded his grandfather at the age of fourteen, was scholarly, meditative and immersed in the scriptures. But he had a core of steel as well. This man of peace took an inflexible stand against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who would soon bring the entire Indian subcontinent under his rule.

Aurangzeb was a cruel, iron-fisted man, incapable of forgiveness. To secure the throne for himself, he showed no compunction in finishing off his own brothers and imprisoning his father Emperor Shah Jahan. He was pursuing his brother Dara Shikoh to eliminate him as a contestant to the imperial throne. The Guru, who liked Dara for his liberalism and philosophic bent, sent a Sikh contingent to divert the imperial troops so that Dara could escape – which he did; although he was captured soon afterwards and put to death.

An irate Aurangzeb, now securely installed on the throne, summoned Har Rai to his presence. Har Rai replied: ‘I am not a King who payeth thee tribute, nor do I desire to receive anything from thee, nor do we stand in the relation of priest and disciple to each other, so wherefor hast thou summoned me?'
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Rather than go himself, he sent his son Ram Rai to meet Aurangzeb. When reading a passage from the Guru Granth Sahib to the emperor, Ram Rai knowingly misinterpreted a passage he felt would be seen as derogatory to Islam. When his father learnt of this, he refused to see his son again for his temerity in altering a verse by Guru Nanak. Even though Ram Rai was his eldest son, Guru Har Rai chose his youngest, Har Krishan, aged five, to succeed him when he died at Kiratpur in 1661. Har Krishan died himself three years later.

The ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur who now succeeded Har Krishan, born in 1621, was the youngest of Guru Hargobind's five sons. Although he had retired to lead a mystic's life, he had impressed his father with his conduct in the Battle of Kartarpur. He was an inveterate traveller in the cause of rallying people to the Sikh faith. It was in the easterly town of Patna that his son Gobind – the tenth and last Guru – was born. His return to Chak Nanaki in Punjab in 1672 saw the end of his travels. Chak Nanaki later earned renown at Anandpur after he built a redoubtable stronghold there on a high promontory in the foothills of the state of Bilaspur. But by then the outlines of a major tragedy were beginning to emerge, fuelled by the religious intolerance of Aurangzeb.

In April 1669 the emperor had ordered the governors of all the Mughal provinces to stamp out the practice of any religions other than Islam.
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In Kashmir this foolhardy policy was carried out with exceptional cruelty by the governor of that province, Iftikhar Khan. The persecuted pandits sent a delegation to Tegh Bahadur in Anandpur to ask his help to save the Hindu religion in Kashmir. After long and careful thought, Guru Tegh Bahadur offered to
inform the emperor that if he could make him convert to Islam the Kashmiri pandits, too, would convert. He explained to the pandits that it was necessary to bring home to bigoted heads of state the inherent right of citizens to practise their faith despite the vagaries of wilful rulers.

Aurangzeb, incensed, ordered the Lahore governor to fetter and detain the Guru. Tegh Bahadur had already left for Delhi of his own free will but was arrested near Ropar and brought to Delhi in an iron cage on 5 November 1675. His message to the Mughal did little to calm him: ‘The Prophet of Mecca who founded your Religion could not impose one religion on the world, so how can you? It is not God's will.'
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Aurangzeb responded by ordering that for the next five days Guru Tegh Bahadur's treatment should alternate between inducement to convert to Islam and torture if he refused. The Guru's three close companions were put to death in his presence: one was sawn in two, one placed in a cauldron and boiled to death and the third burnt alive. Since Guru Tegh Bahadur was unmoving in his stand, he was publicly beheaded the same day. On the very spot of his beheading the Sikhs, when they captured Delhi a century later, built Gurdwara Sis Ganj to commemorate his sacrifice. It stands today, in the heart of the Delhi built by Shah Jahan.

During the night that followed the beheading a loyal follower, Bhai Jaita, recovered the Guru's head and carried it all the way to Anandpur where his nine-year-old son Gobind received it. It was cremated on a sandalwood pyre before an assembly of Sikhs. In Delhi on the very same night, a man called Lakhi Shah Lubana, with his companions, carried off the Guru's body and cremated it in Rakabganj on the outskirts of the city. But because an open-air cremation would have invited suspicion Lakhi Shah placed the body in his own house and set it on fire. On this site the gurdwara of Rakabganj Sahib was later built.

His father's sacrifice for the upholding of religious freedom would indicate the direction of Guru Gobind Singh's own life over the next thirty-three years. His ode to the sword left no doubt about how he would deal with the perpetrators of the atrocities to his father and great-grandfather:

The sword which smites in a flash,

Which scatters the armies of the wicked

In the great battlefield;

You symbol of the brave.

Your arm is irresistible, your brightness shines forth,

The blaze of the splendour dazzling like the sun,

O Sword, you are the protector of saints,

You are the scourge of the wicked;

Scatterer of Sinners I seek your protection.

Hail to the world's creator,

Hail to the saviour of creation,

Hail to you O sword supreme.

BACHITTAR NATAK

In the Anandpur area and along the long range of the lower Himalayas the several independent hill rajas had one thing in common – their jealousy and resentment of the Sikhs' increasing military power. In the ten years of peace he was fortunate enough to get after succeeding his father, Gobind Singh worked intensively on honing the fighting skills of the Sikhs while also finding time to study Sanskrit, Braj, Persian, Arabic and Avadhi along with astronomy, geography, metaphysics and botany; and he composed a number of literary works, including the celebrated
Bachittar Nata
and
Akal Ustat.
He also completed the Granth Sahib by adding Guru Tegh Bahadur's works to it.

Three concerted attacks by the Hindu hill chieftains on the Sikhs settled in Anandpur were heavily defeated. Gobind Singh
knew that these victories would not go down well with Aurangzeb, already furious at the growing Sikh ascendance in the area, and prepared his defences by building a chain of forts around Anandpur, at Anandgarh, Lohgarh, Keshgarh and Fatehgarh. He was able to secure a further decisive victory over a combined Mughal and Hindu force in 1690 at Nadaun on the River Beas. Aurangzeb now ordered all military commanders in Punjab to prevent Guru Gobind Singh from any further assemblies of his followers.
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This was more easily said than done. Gobind Singh's response was to ask Sikh
sangats
from all over India to converge on Anandpur for Baisakhi (New Year's Day) at the end of March 1694. They were to come fully armed and with their beards uncut so that the imperial forces along the way were fully aware of their identity. When the huge gathering at Anandpur – in direct defiance of the imperial edict – was reported to the emperor, a sizeable force was immediately sent to Anandpur to take the Guru to task, but the sound of Sikh battle drums and war cries so rattled the imperial contingent during its night advance that it preferred to flee the field without joining battle. After further defeats, including one sustained by Aurangzeb's son Prince Muazzam, the imperial forces preferred to leave the Sikhs alone for the time being.

During a period of comparative peace from 1697 to 1700 Guru Gobind Singh created the fellowship of the Khalsa or ‘purified ones', giving followers of the Sikh faith a distinctiveness which followers of no other religion in India had had until then. The first requirement was baptism. The second was that members of the Khalsa should be easily identifiable through five distinctive symbols they would always wear. The baptismal ceremony was simple. To a bowl of clear water would be added some sugar and the mix stirred with a double-edged sword as passages were recited from the Granth Sahib. This mixture of sweetness and steel, which the Guru called
amrit,
would then be administered to any person wishing to belong to the Khalsa fellowship.

Each of the five personal symbols emblematic of the Sikh faith would start with the letter K:
kesh
(long hair),
kanga
(comb),
kara
(steel band around the wrist),
kachh
(short breeches) and
kirpan
(short sword).
Kesh
set the tone for the other four by making members of the Khalsa instantly recognizable. The long hair was meant to put iron in the spine. The confidence instilled in them by their appearance was vital for a people whose courage and convictions would be repeatedly tested in the battles ahead. The
kanga
emphasized the importance of cleanliness. The
kachh
stressed the need for continence and moral restraint. The
kara
safeguarded the wrist that wielded the sword, while the
kirpan
symbolized the Khalsa's commitment to giving wrong-doers short shrift. To convey the psychological purpose of these symbols still further, the
pagdi
or turban – six yards of muslin tied around the head in an impressive manner – would set Sikh men apart from all others. Finally, each man without exception would use the surname Singh (Lion), while women would have the surname Kaur (Princess).

The creation and baptism of the Khalsa on Baisakhi Day, 1699, taking place against the backdrop of Keshgarh fort and the soaring mountain ranges, was attended by over 80,000 Sikhs. Gobind Singh, standing on high ground, drew his sword and demanded of the stunned audience that one of them step forward to prove his willingness to sacrifice his head for his faith. Some quietly slipped away, but one individual stood up and walked up to the Guru who led him into a tent and emerged a few minutes later with his sword dripping blood. The same exercise was repeated with more volunteers, from whom Gobind Singh selected four, and each time the Guru emerged from the tent with still more blood on his sword.

The terrible suspense ended when the Guru walked out of the tent with the five Sikhs, each now attired in saffron-coloured robes and turbans. Lamb's blood had served to drive home the point that what the Guru had been testing was the courage and resoluteness
of the assembled Sikhs, which he had found lacking in those who had fled in fear. The new martial community which emerged that day on India's multi-religious landscape would be a race apart, sustained by its religious faith, its strong convictions and its fearlessness. The bedrock of its beliefs would be equality among all and an unbreakable commitment to the secular principles defined by the nine Sikh Gurus who had preceded Gobind Singh.
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The tenth Guru's message to the assembled Sikhs was: ‘You will love man as man, making no distinction of caste or creed … you will never worship stock, stone, idol or tomb … In each of you the whole brotherhood shall be reincarnated. You are my sons, both in flesh and spirit.'
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The proof of Gobind Singh's own commitment to ‘making no distinction of caste or creed' was provided by the caste composition of the
panj piyare
or ‘five loved ones' whom the Guru had selected from the volunteers who had come forward for the surprise ceremony. One was a Khatri of higher caste, the second a Jat, a step lower, and the remaining three were Shudras, untouchables or those belonging to a low caste. The most convincing proof of the Guru's opposition to the caste system became obvious to the assembled gathering when he first baptized each of the five himself, then knelt before them and asked them to baptize him. By taking
amrit
from them the Guru put an end to the pernicious hierarchical customs that had long bedevilled the Sikhs just as other societies. As Guru Gobind Singh put it on that Baisakhi Day: ‘Your previous race, name, genealogy, country, nation, religion, customs, beliefs and sub-conscious memories are completely burnt and annihilated. Believe this to be so without a doubt, for you now start a New Birth in the House of Guru – Akalpurkh.'
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And in kneeling before the ‘five loved ones' he also stressed the republican spirit of the faith.