BELIEF SERIES LECTURE

Sikhism: sant-sipahi (soldier saints)

Beliefs, martial ideals & military traditions

Dr Catherine Robinson

Bath Spa University

9 May 2005

During early discussions concerning the content of this series, it seemed important that it should include mention of a tradition which is one of the so-called ‘Big Six’ religions taught in school, perhaps as a result of British rule in India and the presence of a large Sikh community in Britain, yet which has not attracted the same kind of attention as most other traditions.

Sikhism traces its origins to Guru Nanak, who lived from 1469 to 1539, and is interesting to a student of religion as offering an insight into historical change and continuity. It used to be presented as some kind of synthesis of Hinduism and Islam, or as an early effort at interfaith dialogue; neither interpretation is credible. Sikhism does however combine certain features that most people associate with Indian religions - the idea that there’s a cycle of existence, and veneration for the guru or the teacher – with other features, generally associated with the so-called ‘western’ religions - belief in one God, and a strong moral impetus. Sikhism certainly deserves to be included in any lecture series on Belief. Oddly enough, given the martial title, there is a sentimental reason for my subject. My grandmother, growing up in Brighton during the Great War, was befriended by an Indian Soldier who, in those simpler days and without causing any concern, gave her sweets while he was

convalescing at the Royal Pavilion Hospital. It gave her a lifelong admiration for tall, dark men in turbans. Her daughter, one of my aunts, who lived in Brighton and was a dedicated member of the Women’s Institute, helped to prepare tea for people making their annual pilgrimage to the Chattri, a sort of war memorial on the Downs, dedicated to Indian soldiers who had died in WWI.

One of the most striking aspects, for me, of the Sikh tradition is the way it has understood the qualities of the true Sikh. There are many ways, but classically, it has combined the religious virtues of humility and devotion with martial virtues, such as bravery and chivalry, hence the title Sant-Sipahi, usually translated as Saint-Soldier. For example, Gurdarshan Singh Sidhu refers to ‘a set of values which goes beyond mere piety or military prowess’, defining these as

It is clear that the Sant-Sipahi embodies important norms for the Sikh faith. It is often related to an ethic of tolerance and equality, alongside an active opposition to tyranny and injustice. However, for religions to give explicit endorsement to the call to take up arms in a just cause, be it for self-defence or to protect the weak, seems to provoke controversy. Certainly in the Sikh case, western commentators have tended to be exercised by an apparent disjunction between the origins of the tradition, as a pacifist and quietist faith, and its development into a martial and militant force, though most Sikhs understand instead a continuity from the beginnings of their faith.

This evening I propose to introduce to you the military dimension of Sikh history, partly because it has been fundamental to the relationship between Britain and the Sikhs. The sant-sipahi ideal is most closely associated with the founding of the Khalsa (Society of the Pure) by Guru Gobind Singh, the last of the Sikh Gurus. There were, though, significant moves towards militarisation that predated the founding of the Khalsa.

The story begins with Guru Arjan (1581-1606) [1],

1 Guru Arjan (1581-1606) 5th Guru. Organiser, mystic, martyr.

whose death in 1606 is generally blamed on the Mogul authorities who ruled India at that time. Remembered as the first Sikh martyr, he is believed to have sent a message to his son and successor: Guru Hargobind (1595-1644) [2]

2 Guru Hargbind (1595-1644) 6th Guru. The martial figure.

, ordering him an d his followers to arm themselves and make a stand against oppression. His portraits show a more martial man than the saintly figure of his father. He had succeeded his father whilst still a boy, and from that time the military and the religious coexisted. At his consecration, he is said to have worn two swords, symbolising his assumption of temporal, earthly, as well as heavenly power. In a later, doctrinal formulation, this is known as Miri-Piri, Miri (c f Emir, a temporal leader) asserting that the Guru had a right to engage in armed struggle, and Pir (the Sufi word for a leader) designating a spiritual leader, acknowledging that the Guru had a continuing religious vocation. Guru Hargobind is known for having constructed the Akal Takhat (the throne of God or ‘The Timeless One’) which is the centre of temporal power in Sikh tradition, opposite the Harimandir Sahib, better known as the Golden Temple. But Guru Hargobind was a bit of a puzzle. He was famously contrasted with his six predecessors by a poet’s observation that the previous Gurus were found in Dharamsalas, places of worship, now known as Gurdwaras, but Guru Hargobind travelled widely. Previous Gurus were visited by emperors, whereas Guru Hargobind just went to their jails. Previous Gurus offered blessings, Hargobind went hunting with dogs. Previous Gurus were surrounded by gentle spirits, Hargobind by rough characters. Sikhs saw these as mere appearances, but the poet Bhai Gurdas did conclude that Hargobind was the Guru, and the truth was eternal. Scholars are divided but, to the experience of persecution, the tragic death of Guru Arjan, possibly Arjan’s own instructions, and the very different personality of Guru Hargobind as explanations for the arming of the Panth, may perhaps be added the influx of the Jats , an independent egalitarian agricultural caste.

Guru Hargobind was succeeded by his grandson Har Rai, who became the 7^th Guru, and he by his five year old son, Har Krishan, who died of smallpox, and is said to have designated as his successor a son of Guru Hargobind, Tegh Bahadur , a man of quiet, contemplative reputation. The 9^th Guru nevertheless incurred the enmity of the Mughals, and is honoured by Sikhs, like Guru Arjan before him, for dying a martyr’s death. His son, also like Arjan’s, is credited with a significant shift towards militarisation.

Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1675) [3]

3 Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1675)10th & last human Guru. Compilerof the Adi Granth (scripture).Founder of the Khalsa.

is the last of the 10 human Gurus, and to him the Sikhs attribute a decision to vest the Guruship in the Granth, the scripture, and the Panth, the community. He is also believed to have compiled the final version of the Adi Granth, the Original Collection, and to have authored the Dasam Granth, the Book of the 10^th Guru. He also founded the Khalsa.

According to Sikh tradition, the Khalsa was founded by Guru Gobind Singh at an assembly of Sikhs at Anandpur on Baisakhi Day, 30 March 1699. The Guru addressed his followers, asking for the head of a Sikh. After a delay, a volunteer came forward and was taken into a tent. After an audible swish, the Guru emerged, wielding a blood-stained sword, asking for and receiving another volunteer, then another, another, and another. The five volunteers, prepared to die for the Guru, all returned to the assembly, and became known as the Panj Piare, the ‘Five Beloved Ones’, forming the nucleus of the Khalsa. The Guru is next recorded as Kakke, or ‘Five Ks’, uncut hair (Kesh), comb (Kangha), iron bracelet (Kara), a sword (Kirpan) and shorts or drawers (Kacch), in addition to which male members of the Khalsa were to take the name Singh, meaning lion. The Panj Piare then initiated all those prepared to join, many thousands according to Sikh tradition.

This account of the inauguration of the Khalsa cannot fail to impress, but academics do raise questions, such as why, in what form, and with what members it was formed. One suggestion is that Guru Gobind Singh may in part have founded the Khalsa in order to re-establish the Guru’s authority, over the Masands (appointed by the Fourth Guru, Guru Ram Das, with responsibility for specific congregations), thus reasserting the Guru as the only appropriate focus for the loyalty of Sikhs. There is also the generally accepted view that Guru Gobind Singh was concerned to make male Sikhs distinctive, in order to foster in them confidence, valour, loyalty to the Guru, and preparedness to fight in his cause. This martial explanation, giving Sikhs a separate identity, and the men a conspicuously different appearance, is convincing as part of the story. Such a martial emphasis is evident in the Five Ks, though some question whether the present list dates from the founding of the Khalsa, or is of later origin. Even with those doubts, most scholars accept that the most obviously martial element, the sword (Kirpan), along with the uncut hair and the shorts (signifying preparedness), were contemporaneous. Early references to a different martial formulation suggested that Khalsa members should bear five weapons, not the five Ks but sword, bow, musket, dagger, and a quoit or lance. Another issue has been the caste background of those who joined the Khalsa, notwithstanding its egalitarian principles. In Sikh accounts, the Panj Piare came from different social groups, some high, some low, but it has been argued that the Khalsa appealed to groups like the Jats, whose presence at least facilitated the militarisation of the Panth. Certainly, many agree with the view of the modern Sikh historian Patwant Singh, that the events of Baisakhi Day brought into being ‘a new and martial race - the Khalsa’.

Guru Gobind Singh lived in dangerous times, he fought several military actions, and died a violent death. He was also inclined to vigorous exercise and the martial arts. Indeed, his view of God, and of his own mission, had strong martial overtones. In Hew McLeod’s translation of his Akal Ustat (Praise to the Timeless One), God is invoked as ‘master of death and lord of steel, my shield, my eternal protector’. Similar martial imagery run through Bachitar Natak (Wondrous Drama), where, again in McLeod’s translation, Guru Gobind Singh invoked God as ‘all-conquering sword, destroyer of evil, ornament of the grave’. In this drama, Guru Gobind Singh presented himself autobiographically as the recipient of a divine summons, to be borne into the age of darkness, and to preach truth and righteousness. This is reminiscent of the avatara ideal, most closely associated with the Hindu god Vishnu who descends to earth to destroy evil and uphold good. This self-image, and more generally the martial ethic of fighting for justice, feature in the Dasam Granth, even if scholars and Sikhs still debate which parts should be attributed to Guru Gobind Singh. The Dasam Granth includes, for instance, the exploits of Rama and Krishna and the Goddess’s battle against the demons. They underline a great military legacy.

Yet, while orthodox Sikhs believe that Guru Gobind Singh was the last of the human Gurus, he seems to have given the Sikhs a leader. Tradition recalls that an ascetic was so impressed on meeting with Guru Gobind Singh that he converted, and was renamed Banda (Slave). Banda Bahadur (The Brave) was entrusted with a mission to lead a rebellion in the Punjab against the Mughal authorities, especially the governor Vasir Khan, who had antagonised the Guru by killing his two sons for not recanting their faith. Banda Bahadur (1670-1716) raised an army and led an uprising which succeeded for a time, but finally he was besieged and had to surrender, and with hundreds of his followers was taken to Delhi and executed. He is remembered for his courage, but he was also a divisive figure, and with his supporters the Bandai Sikhs, was opposed by Tat Khalsa, (the True Khalsa) who rallied around Mata Sundari, one of Guru Gobind Singh’s widows. Some Sikhs seemingly felt that Banda Bahadur was exceeding his authority and, after Banda, no single dominant figure emerged while Sikh fortunes continued to depend upon their military ability. After Banda’s execution, the Mughal authorities attempted to eliminate the Khalsa, whose members resorted to various strategies. Some retreated to the hills, some to the deserts, and some shaved their beards and cut their hair. Sikhs remember this as a period of much suffering and martyrdom. The weakening of the Mughal Empire brought with it, however, both danger and opportunity.

Out of the chaos came new forms of organisation, notably groups of armed horsemen known as the Misls, and newleaders, principally Jassa Singh Ahluvalia (1718-1783), their leader when they combined to form the army of the Khalsa. The misls worked together when facing a common enemy, first the Mughals, and later the Afghans, but once the enemy defeated, they fought amongst themselves. The system was based on Rakhi, a 20% tribute or tithe on agricultural producers, to cover protection against everyone else, even government officials, and in time the misls established and extended their control over territories. Eventually these tensions resolved into a clash between two leading misls, the Bhangi, and the Shukerchakia misls, the latter headed by Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), later known as Maharaja Ranjit Singh [4].

4 Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839)Founder of the Sihk Kingdon of the Punjab

He proceeded by many means, not excluding threats and intimidations, nor indeed warfare, to found and consolidate a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab. This he could not have managed without an impressive army.

Most Indian states continued to raise and organise armies along feudal lines, without the discipline or the equipment to compete with the mainly Indian levies recruited by the European armies fighting for control of the subcontinent. Ranjit Singh, however, took advantage of European expertise. He employed French army officers, somewhat at a loose end because the Napoleonic wars had ended, to train a professional army of infantry, cavalry and artillery. WG Osborne, military secretary to the Governor-General of India, observed:

The British clearly recognised in Ranjit Singh’s army a force comparable to that of the East India Company, as well as a clear Khalsa emphasis, notwithstanding the recruitment of Muslims and Hindus.

Ranjit Singh’s army has been estimated at about 100,000 men, about half of whom were Sikhs, among which the most famous were the Ghorcharras and the Akalis or Nihangs The Ghorcharras were aristocratic cavalrymen, of proud military heritage, armed with lance and sword, with colourful garments, ornate armour, and richly draped horses. They certainly stood out. The Akalis (Followers of the Timeless One) or Nihangs (Free from Care), with their impressive blue and yellow turbans and double-edged swords, were also feared. Yet various commentators have suggested that their effectiveness was impaired by indiscipline due to the individualism of the Ghorcharras and the recklessness of the Akalis, notwithstanding their courage and fearsomeness. Under Ranjit Singh, in his person short and unprepossessing but a skilled horseman who loved hunting and a capable military leader, the Sikhs, and particularly the Khalsa, continued to enhance their military reputation. Ranjit Singh’s regime and court have been referred to respectively as the chieftainship and the audience of the Khalsa, and his rule described as the fulfilment of a prophesy recited at the end of a Sikh prayer called Ardas ‘that the Khalsa shall rule’. Ranjit Singh’s territorial conquests and military glories won British admiration and remain a source of pride. Quoting Osborne:

The British had of course become a major force in India by the beginning of the 18^th century. The treaty of Amritsar with Ranjit Singh in 1809 had circumscribed the southern and eastern expansion of his kingdom, and after his death, and during the succession dispute within his family, British intervention would only increase, as rival claimants and their supporters vied for supremacy, and Ranjit Singh’s army begins to see itself as the real Khalsa, becoming increasingly autonomous, with its own agenda, though very large and costly to maintain. Maharani Jindan, the mother and regent of the young Maharaja Dalip Singh, Ranjit Singh’s youngest son, asked the British to intervene, to break the hold of the army and take the young Maharaja under their protection. British concerns that unrest in the Punjab could upset Pax Britannica were muted by a desire not to appear to be the aggressor, and so the Anglo-Sikh wars began in 1845-6, with Punjabi aggression across the Sutlej into British India being defeated a few months later, with a peace settlement which saw some territory ceded to the British, a reduction Sikh army numbers, the stationing of a British force in Lahore and the provision of a British political officer. In the 2^nd Anglo-Sikh War (1848-9), rebellion was actively fomented by the British, who, after a hard fought campaign and a serious defeat, were finally victorious, and annexed the Punjab. Oddly enough, the result was surprisingly positive, for both sides, and may be seen as what became a special relationship.

Many contemporary writings attest to this, such as the

account of an anonymous cavalry officer, published in the Illustrated London News in 1849, fulsomely complimenting the Sikhs for their ‘preparation, orderliness, skill, accuracy and rapidity of fire, cunning, bravery, and bravery in battle’.

One could imagine, from such a grizzly beginning, that the British might have preferred the Sikhs’ eradication. But they were to meet other needs, whose origin was the introduction to the Bengal Army of the Lee Enfield rifle, whose cartridges, greased with tallow for ease of loading, the soldier had to tear or bite before insertion into the barrel. Tallow is animal fat, which posed problems for Hindu soldiers who considered beef fat defiling, and Muslims to whom pork fat was equally abhorrent. Rumours as to the nature and origin of the tallow caused soldiers of the 3^rd Light Infantry to refuse to load cartridges. For that they were severely punished, with ten years hard labour, which precipitated a general mutiny in the Army, to which cause various, and sometimes conflicting, interest groups lent their support. In such circumstances, the British turned to the Punjab, and raised 60,000 troops there to fight the rebels, of which nearly one third, quite unsympathetic to the rebels and steadfastly loyal to their British commanders, were members of the Khalsa. This developed into a preference for recruiting Sikhs, along with other groups suitable for enlistment, and to a colonial concept of ‘martial races’ or ‘martial classes’ (some of the British officers are seen to have held their own in costume and military bearing), itself shaped by prevailing racial theories. The British proposed a division of the Indian population based on believed inherent properties, and in general terms preferred men of the north, for their physical stature and stalwart temperament, understood to give them martial qualities. They were generally tall, except for the Ghurkhas, though this seemed to be of no concern. In addition to their warlike nature and powerful physique, these races or classes were also seen as honest and virtuous in character, espousing ideals of honour, chivalry, gallantry, heroism and courage, qualities prized by the British no less in themselves than admired in others, and worthy of being fostered in recruits into the Indian Army.

In attempting to realise this aim, the British tried to satisfy the religious and ritual requirements of soldiers under their command. This was not multi-faith awareness; it was to preserve aspects of life that made these people so special. Concerning the Sikhs, it meant endorsement of the Khalsa, seen by the British as the true standard of Sikh belief and practise, and source of Sikh identity. British officers of Sikh companies and regiments therefore insisted on all recruits of this had been needed in his case, following as he was in his father’s footsteps. ‘People have been wearing turbans and beards in the Army for a long time’ he said, though in combat a helmet had to be substituted. He looked forward to the employment also of religious specialists from many faiths. What was once familiar as imperial ideology is now recognised as a liberal equal rights anti-discrimination agenda!

There is much more to Sikhism than what we have just discussed – wonderful mystical poetry suffused with love for

God and a radical message that true spirituality alone matters. Sikhism, a vital part of Britain’s contemporary religious scene, lies behind a Punjabi movement with global presence. One of its most interesting aspects is the reconciliation of religious and martial virtues in the Sant-Sipahi ideal, enshrined in the Khalsa. The taking up of arms in a just cause when all peaceful methods have failed, has been central to Sikh orthodoxy, and to British admiration. Now that recent British ambivalence in these matters is perhaps being overcome, it remains to be seen whether, for instance, the British Army will prove attractive to the Sant-Sipahi, the Soldier-Saints of today.

Summary by Martin Sturge

Bibliography