The Sikh view of History

 

The Sikh History has been penned down by both Sikhs and non-Sikhs, in prose and poems, in favour and criticism, in Punjabi and non-Punjabi, and several of the books have elevated the already known stories and facts of the Sikh Faith.

A person who’s writing a piece of history can either accept an event or reject it based on several books. This is the trickiest approach to history by some authors. If one suggests look in the east, the other would say west. Both claiming their work is the result of their painstakingly digging of the past. Through many approaches and references, we almost forget the Sikh View of History. We readily accept the translated work of the Gurmukhi scriptures, criticism, but don’t see it through the Sikh View.

Dr Gopal Singh delivered two lectures in 1973. One of them was Sikhism: its unique contribution to human civilization[1]. In this lecture, he outlines the importance of the Sikh View. He was aware of the attempts made by some scholars, who might be the members of Batala-Berkley group[2], as Dr Trilochan Singh would have put up, to discredit the Sikh History written in the earlier centuries.

These scholars, who were Christian, ex-Christian, agnostic, and left-leaning, have tried to show the Sikh Religion as a morally good religion. What they deny is the intervention of God in the affairs of man because it’s inexplicable and can’t be put in words. They outrightly deny anything close to a miracle. Even from the Gurbani they take the teachings of the Gurus but try to show the absence of God or His Powers in their writing. The One who is all-pervading through all ages is shrunk to a very minute particle that His existence can be ignored all together, then what’s left behind is the good moral conduct only that the Gurus gave to the Sikhs. Although being a just and morally good person is what the Gurus made the Sikhs, but that isn’t sufficient to define Sikh or Sikhism. With all the negating of the references to God and His powers can be called a Secular History of Religion, rather than History of Religion.

Spiritually blind people have given the world a history of conflict and bad judgement. If the aboriginal religions of the land contain the belief of a non-entity or no-God, then the approach of secularism can be applied to them. Miracles and science approach to history cannot go side by side, especially that has been done so far. Miracles will be denied in all the secular histories and accepted by the religious histories. We can write about religions in a secular way too; that will not be just the product of the already written histories but our own understanding of spirituality and God-awareness.

A man can’t write a history by not choosing sides. If not a reliable source to choose from, then the moral conduct of the characters in history is what he is going to use. This is the whole point of the debate among the scholars. One goes into A direction, and other B.

In Sikhism, we must consider the teachings of the Gurus and their View. Their View is paramount. Our philosophical approach must be the approach of the Gurus – their View. But the history must be driven by the evidence. Because there are many events of history that happened after the Sikh Guru Period, or in their period, that isn’t combined in their writing. So, we have to have a holistic approach, comparing the old scriptures, looking at the historical scriptures of the non-Sikhs – overlooking their biased, of course – and never avert our eyes from the teachings of the Gurus. Few of the teachings, or words, mentioned in the historical scriptures are totally opposite of the writing of the Sikh Gurus. That must be overlooked otherwise we will smear the Sikh history, as done by some western scholars and their counterparts in India.

We have overshadowed the Gurmat with the new technologies and methods. We may differ in opinions, but our faith should be intact. If we bypass the faith, if we consider the Gurus mere human beings, we will write a secular history of the Sikh Gurus and Sikh People, which will be devoid of love and trust. That history will not only damage the Sikh psyche, also alter it with mere deductions. This has been done over and over by the English as well as Punjabi writers. Who to blame? When we are siding with them, or overlooking these matters, not penning down answers to their concerns/opinions, we will have a pile of books to answer in future. The better way is to answer as soon as possible. The Sikh Scholars – Sirdar Kapur Singh, Dr Trilochan Singh, Dr Ganda Singh, etc. – have done a great job to show how and where these missionaries went wrong, what drove their psyche, and what they gained out of the secular history, which they call the ‘myth-less’ history.

The Gurmukh of Guru Nanak Dev ji is spiritual; he is looking for the One; he loves to sing the praises of the One; he does as the Guru commands; he always faces towards the Guru; he is forever ready to follow the Guru, without questions. That Gurmukh can’t be satisfied with the secular history of Sikhs or of any other religion where a crevice has been made, that it’s devoid of the One. The Sikh scholars of the earlier times learned this early. Their details of the Sikh Gurus were centred around their teachings and them, everything, without much of their opinion. In these days, there are more conjectures than the actual truth in the historical scriptures written by modern men.

Following is the extract from the lecture of Dr Gopal Singh:

Before we conclude this lecture, it is but meet that we enunciate the Sikh view of history. Lately, attempts have been made by some “Sikh agnostics” on the one hand and non-Sikhs secular historians on the other to separate the Nanak of history from Nanak, the “founder” of a world faith, and thus a man also of legend, myth and miracle. And, though the latter attempt has been lauded by ignorant even among the Sikhs as being in conformity with the spirit of modern, scientific age, it has served more to confuse than to illuminate Sikh history. For, the Sikh Gurus have always claimed that though they were born in time, the message they had come to declare was eternal and had come from God. “I know not how to utter, for all that I deliver unto you is the command of God”, says Nanak. …

The Sikh view of history, therefore is that devoid of meaning (a meaning, that is, which corresponds to the purpose of God in creation as enunciated, in eternal terms, by the Gurus), history is a sordid record of man’s brutalisation of his inner self, tyranny and bloodshed, exploitation and war. Instead of movement, it is the stultification of all that is ennobling and eternal in man. Man, the individual as much as part of the social whole, is the primary test of history’s work. Nanak and his followers thus can be studied as part of history only as its redeemers and not as its victims. …

That God intervenes in the affairs of the world on the side of those who fight, detachedly, for its secular welfare and moral health is a miracle of human history in which the Sikh has firm faith. But, that miracles in the form of happenings in defiance of God’s natural and eternal laws, should determine a man’s spiritual prowess of God-awareness if denounced vehemently by the Sikh Gurus as the work of mountebanks and charlatans. That devout chroniclers have associated miracles with the Gurus and the mass of people believe in them as an act of faith cannot lead us to conclude either that such “blind faith” is born out of ignorance and superstition … or that once we separate the Nanak (or his successors) of flesh and blood from the Nanak of faith and prophecy, we shall have a true glimpse of Sikh history.

 

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[1] Sikh Gurus and the Indian spiritual thought, edited by Taran Singh, 1994, page 1-36

[2] Ernest Trumpp and W. H. McLeod as scholars of Sikh History, religion, and culture by Dr Trilochan Singh, 1994, Page 12