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After the Nirankari and
Namdhari movements of 19th Century.
Fresh century was about to be started
with a new movement called Singh Sabha.
Nirankari and Namdhari movements had
failed to stir Sikh people because of
their restricted scope and schismatic
character they acquired. To quote Sardar
Harbans Singh in The heritage of the
Sikhs "The Singh Sabha which followed
them had a much deeper impact. It influenced
the entire Sikh Community and reoriented
its outlook and spirit. Since the days
of the Gurus nothing so vital had transpired
to fertilize the consciousness of the
Sikhs. The Singh Sabha by leavening
the intellectual and cultural processes
brought a new dimension to the inner
life of the community and enlarged its
heritage. Starting in the seventies
of the last century, it marked a turning-point
in Sikh history . It touched Sikhism
to its very roots, and made it a living
force once again. The stimulus it provided
has shaped the Sikhs' attitude and aspiration
over the past one hundred years."
The reason behind the success of the
Singh sabha was the motivation to search
for Sikh identity and Self-assertion
that we are not just another sect of
Hinduism. Earlier, Hindu philosophers
had declared Sikhs as "another
sect of Hinduism". 2500 years ago,
same thing was done to Budhism, when
Budha was made "another reincarnation
of Vishnu" by Brahmins, thus ending
Budhism in India. Singh Sabha recognized
this and started their campaign of awakenings
for rural Khalsa, which was under the
direct threat of Christian Missionaries,
Muslim Maulalivis and Arya Samajis.
Khalsa's moral force and dynamic vitality
was rediscovered and Singh Sabha started
to look upon its history and tradition
with clear and self-discerning eye.
Everything that was against Gurus teaching
was rejected. Rites and customs considered
consistent with Sikh doctrine and tradition
were established. For some, legal sanction
was secured through government legislation.
With this came the reorganization of
Sikh Shrines. Later in 1920's Sikh Historic
Shrines like Nankana Sahib, Punja Sahib,
Golden Temple, TarnTaran Sahib, etc
were freed from the hold of hereditary
Mahants. These mahants were practicing
rites and ritual inconsistent with Sikhism,
Including not letting people of "lower
caste" into Gurdwaras, publicly
smoking, Idol worshipping of various
Gods and Goddesses, and holding Shraddhs
and other rituals not followed by the
Sikh Gurus.
This period also witnessed the modern
development and emergence of new cultural
and political aspirations. Higher level
of literacy were achieved by Sikhs.
Famous Khalsa college at Amritsar and
hundreds of Khalsa Schools were opened
through out punjab. Many Sikhs ventured
outside India at this period and settled
at Malaysia, Canada, U.K, Africa and
USA. In Punjab, the Sikhs sought to
secure recognition for themselves:
"An English newspaper writes that
the Christian faith is making
rapid progress and makes the prophecy
that within the next
twenty-five years, one-third of the
Majha area will be Christian.
The Malwa will follow suit. Just as
we do not see any Buddhists
in the country except in images, in
the same fashion the Sikhs,
who are now, here and there, visible
in turbans and their
other religious forms like wrist bangles
and swords, will be
seen only in pictures in museums. Their
own sons and grandsons
turning Christians and clad in coats
and trousers and sporting
toadstool-like caps will go to see them
in the museums and
say in their pidgin Punjabi: Look, that
is the picture of a
Sikh-the tribe that inhabited this country
once upon a time.'
Efforts of those who wish to resist
the onslaught of Christianity
are feeble and will prove abortive like
a leper without hands and
feet trying to save a boy falling off
a rooftop.
This was a note which appeared in a
Sikh newspaper, the Khalsa Akhbar (Punjabi)
of Lahore, May 25,1894, from the pen
of its editor, Giani Ditt Singh (1853-1901).
Reporting the observance of the first
anniversary of the Lahore Singh Sabha
in its issue for April 22, 1905, the
Khalsa Advocate (English) referred to
the occupant of a banga in the precincts
of the Tarn Taran Gurdwara who had embraced
Christianity and hung a cross on one
of its walls to convert it into a Christian
chapel. The Khalsa Akhbar, July 13,
1894, carried this letter in its correspondence
columns: "In the village of Natta,
Nabha state, a Sikh married off his
daughter according to Sikh custom Most
of the population in the village, including
Brahmanical Hindus and some Sikhs, became
hostile. They did not let the marriage
party stay in the dharamsala. The host,
firm in his faith, had to put up the
wedding guests in his own house."
A student by the name of Bir Singh contributed
a letter to the Khalsa Akhbar, February
12, 1897, saying: "Near the Dukhbhanjani
beri tree in the Golden Temple precincts]
there is a room on the front wall of
which is painted a picture. The picture
depicts a goddess and Guru Gobind Singh.
The goddess stands on golden sandals
and she has many hands-ten or, perhaps,
twenty. One of the hands is stretched
out and in this she holds a khanda.
Guru Gobind Singh stands barefoot in
front of it with his hands folded."
A letter in the Khalsa Akhbar, October
8, 1897, reported: "On Tuesday,
Bhadon 31, the pujaris of the Tarn Taran
Gurdwara held the shradha ceremony in
honour of Guru Arjan. Those feasted
were from outside the faith and they
smoked." A correspondent' s letter
in the Khalsa Samachar of Amritsar,
edited by Bhai Vir Singh, June 25, 1902,
said: "Around the village of Singhpur,
Christians and Muhammadans are becoming
very influential. The former have two
churches here and the latter two mosques.
In this area there is no dharamsala
and the rural Khalsa is rather neglectful
of its religious duty." "
(These newspaper quotations were taken
from Herigate of the Sikhs, by Sardar
Harbans Singh ji.)
These quotations reveal the identity
crisis that Sikhism faced at the dawn
of new century.
An editorial in the Khalsa Advocate
(English), December 15, 1904, summed
up the situation which existed before
the emergence of the Singh Sabha thus:
". . . false gurus grew up in
great abundance whose
only business was to fleece their flock
and pamper their
own self-aggrandizement. Properly speaking,
there was no
Sikhism. Belief in the Gurus was gone.
The idea of brotherhood
in the Panth was discarded. The title
of 'Bhai' so much
honoured by Sikhs of old, fell into
disuse and contempt.
Sikhs grovelled in superstition and
idolatry... It [Sikhism]
had thus lost all that was good and
life-giving in the faith."
Singh Sabha movement not only reform
the Sikh institutions of the rituals
and rites like casteism but also made
sure that in future, these rituals would
not creep back in. Before Singh Sabha,
situation was so bad that even Giani
Ditt Singh, a very much honored literary
giant of Singh Sabha movement had to
withdraw from gurdwara when Karah Prashad
was to be served, reason being that
he was from "low caste", and
many priests as well well educated devotees
were followers of this anti-Sikhism
casteism ritual.
As Sardar Harbans Singh ji say "
The decline had started in the very
heyday of Sikh power. In the courtly
splendor of the days of Maharaja Ranjit
Singh, Sikh practice had been utterly
subverted. The faith was weakened by
the influx of large numbers of those
who had adopted the Sikh form to gain
material advantage, but whose allegiance
to its principles and traditions was
only tentative. In the words of a character
in one of Sir Jogendra Singh's English
novels, Rasili: "We failed because
we did not obey the Guru. People established
kingdoms and principalities and neglected
their poor brethren. The result is what
you see-the Khalsa has fallen."
But the protagonist is aware of the
massive reformation that was taking
place. He says, "Sikhism is now
casting off external influences and
returning to the solid rock of its own
pure faith and divine teachings."
In a general way, the Singh Sabha was
an expression of the impulse of the
Sikh community to rid itself of the
base adulterations and accretions which
were draining away its energy and to
rediscover the sources of its original
inspiration. Unlike other Indian reform
movements of the period which were the
creation of the elite, the Singh Sabha
was a mass upsurge. Besides the awareness
that Sikhism as commonly practiced was
a corruption of what it originally was,
two other motivating factors were at
work: a reaction to what was happening
in the neighborly religious traditions
and defensiveness generated by Christian
missionaries activities."
The Christian missionary activity had
started in the Punjab with the influx
of the English. Even while Ranjit Singh,
the Sikh sovereign, reigned in Lahore,
an American Presbyterian mission had
been set up at Ludhiana, the north-western
British outpost near the Sikh frontier.
The factors for the choice of this area
as "the best field of labour"
were its "numerous and hardy population....a
better climate than the lower provinces
and....a ready access to the lower ranges
of the Himalaya mountains in case of
the failure of health." Another
reason was the Sikh population "to
whom our attention at first was specially
directed," as says John C. Lowrie
in his book Travels in North India.
With the end of Sikh rule in 1849, the
Ludhiana Mission extended its work to
Lahore. Two of its members, C.W. Forman
and John Newton, were set apart for
this duty and sent to the Punjab capital
immediately. English and vernacular
schools as well as welfare institutions
like hospitals and orphanages followed.
C.W. Forman turned out regularly for
bazaar preaching.
John Lawrence, who was one of the triumvirate
which ruled the Punjab after it was
annexed to Britain, was a zealous patron
of Christian proselytization. He contributed
towards the Mission funds a sum of Rs.
500 annually out of his own pocket.
Other English of fixers followed his
example. It was his ambition to see
the conquest of the Sikh dominions followed
by large-scale conversions to Christianity.
Amritsar, headquarters of the Sikh
faith, became another important seat
of Church enterprise. In 1852, T.H.
Fitzpatrick and Robert Clark, the first
missionaries of the Church of England
appointed to the Punjab, arrived in
station. In the valedictory instruction
given them, they had been told: "Though
the Brahman religion still sways the
minds of a large portion of the population
of the Punjab, and the Mohammedan of
another, the dominant religion and power
for the last century has been the Sikh
religion, a species of pure theism,
formed in the first instance by a dissenting
sect from Hinduism. A few helpful instances
lead us to believe that the Sikhs may
prove more accessible to scriptural
truth than the Hindus and Mohammedans...."
The English missionaries were joined
by Daud Singh recorded to be the first
Sikh ever to have embraced Christianity.
He had been baptized in Kanpur by the
Rev. W.H. Perkins, and was transferred
to Amritsar as pastor in 1852. The Mission
houses were built in the city by the
Deputy Commissioner. Construction of
the station church was started. In the
wake of the Mission came a vernacular
school, a high school, a school for
girls and midwifery hospital. The evangelizing
work was rewarded with the conversion
of men like Shamaun, i.e. Simeon, a
Sikh granthi (reader of the Holy Book
or priest), formerly Kesar Singh of
Sultanwind, Imad-ud-Din, a Muslim maulavi
and Rulia Ram, a Hindu Khatri from Amritsar,
who had attended the Mission School
and passed the Calcutta entrance examination.
Sub-stations of the Mission were opened
in important towns of the Sikh tract
of Majha such as Tarn Taran, Ajnala
and Jandiala.
Singh Sabha movement was helped by
the missionaries activities of Mohammadens
and Christians. It grew out of nowhere
to become a founding father of current
SGPC and Akali party. Singh Sabha Movement
brought back the old ways of Khalsa
and restored the pride and dignity of
common urban and rural Sikhs.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copyright © Harbans Singh "Heritage
of the Sikhs"
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