Hagiography Colors a History of the Sikhs

The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world, but is barely known in the West, save perhaps for vague images of turbaned men and violent clashes abroad.

Patwant Singh, a Sikh writer based in New Delhi, attempts to fill the vacuum with “The Sikhs.” The book is billed as the “only comprehensive history available in the U.S. of an extraordinary and little-known people.”

Colorful and at times absorbing, the book details the rise of the religion more than 500 years ago in the Punjab region of what is today northern India and Pakistan. The faith’s 10 original gurus espoused a creed of one God and human equality, most notably striking out against India’s entrenched caste system that conferred power and status on the priestly Brahmins over the warriors, traders, farmers and untouchables.

The sentiments were not new: Buddhism had also opposed the caste system--one reason it was eventually stamped out in the country of its birth--and the Bhakti movement of northern India also upheld a belief in a personal God. Early Sikhism developed in a milieu of Hindu, Sufi and other religious influences and gained its most distinctive forms and codes of conduct two centuries after its founding.

The book, however, does not extensively examine the origins of the faith. It ultimately turns out to be more a political and military history of the Sikhs than a religious exploration. Questions of faith are dealt with only in the first chapter on the 10 gurus who developed the religion, and in a brief section on the Singh Sabha and Tat Khalsa reform movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The rest of the book mainly chronicles, in bewildering and sometimes gruesome detail, the unending battles that Sikhs have waged over hundreds of years against Muslims, Hindus, the British--and sometimes each other. It covers the rise and fall of the Sikh Empire, the coming of the British colonialists and the 1947 partition of India that sliced the Punjab region in half to give Muslims their own state in Pakistan. Over and over, Singh says, Sikhs have been attacked, demeaned and sold out--forcing them to adopt the distinctive militant aspect of their faith.

The focus on politics is foreshadowed. In his preface, Singh forthrightly lays out his reason for writing the book: to counter what he calls the “systematic disinformation campaign” against Sikhs by the Indian government. Partisan motives, however, inevitably raise questions about the objectivity of the accounts.

Which leads to the second point: The book may best be viewed less as a definitive history than as a hagiographic compilation of Sikh tradition.

The book’s descriptions of the birth of Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak, for instance, bring to mind the stories surrounding other exalted births, from Jesus Christ to North Korea’s mysterious leader Kim Jong Il.

Guru Nanak, according to Singh, was born with an “exceptional aura” and a favorable horoscope predicting that he would be revered by Hindu and Muslim alike. Like Jesus, Guru Nanak was also said to have shown an amazing propensity to challenge and stump religious elders at a very early age.

The book also recounts without qualification some of the most famous Sikh traditions, such as the martyrdom of the ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur. In a story revered for symbolizing Sikh courage in standing for justice, the guru is reputed to have accepted a public beheading by the nefarious Mughal (Muslim) ruler Aurangzeb in defense of religious freedom for Hindus.

But Muslim accounts of the incident differ dramatically. “Sikhism,” by New Zealand scholar Hew McLeod, reports that Muslims claim Tegh Bahadur was demanding contributions from all who opposed him, and was executed after failing to appear in Delhi to answer charges of lawlessness.

McLeod also asserts, however gently, that authentic historical sources on many of the gurus are scarce, that the cruelty of Muslim rulers has been exaggerated and that the noble principle of equality for women has fallen short in practice. He even questions the bedrock belief that it was the 10th guru, Gobind Singh, who introduced the five symbols of Sikhism: uncut hair, a dagger, a comb, a steel bracelet and long undershorts.

McLeod, of course, is persona non grata to many Sikhs, who take umbrage at his audacity in submitting their most cherished traditions to the rigors of scholarly scrutiny. Singh, to his credit, ends his book with an appeal to Sikhs to extend freedom of speech and academic inquiry to Sikh scholars. He also appeals for an end to the social distinctions--between the Jat caste and non-Jats, for instance--that he says have crept into the faith.

Most readers may want to skim over the excessive detail on Sikh military campaigns. But, as a tome on what Sikhs believe about their own faith--rather than what can be historically proven--”The Sikhs” is interesting and occasionally enlightening reading.