Art

Final Week: The Golden Temple Exhibition

by NAOMI CANTON

 

 

The latest exhibition on Sikh history and culture sparkles with everything from an illustrated biography of Guru Nanak to the receipt for the Koh-i-noor.

Sikhs have long had a reputation for being proud saint-soldiers and displaying unflinching courage on the battlefield. When riots engulfed parts of England recently, hundreds of Sikh-Britons won praise after they took up baseball bats, swords, and hockey sticks to defend their businesses, homes and gurdwaras from the looters. In a typical display of community spirit and tolerance of all religions, they didn't just defend their own kind, but also Hindu temples, mosques and all the properties in their neighbourhood. They said they did so because the police were overstretched.

Cut to The Brunei Gallery in London where a 19th-century picture painted by a Muslim artist depicts a battle between the Sikhs and the Mughals showing, rather gruesomely, two decapitated Sikhs picking up their heads.

The gouache is one of dozens of unusual items on display at this exhibition dedicated to the Harmandar Sahib. Among the many fascinating stories on display is one of an aborted attempt by the British to auction off the Golden Temple of Amritsar in 1877, just months after Queen Victoria was pronounced Empress of India. In an attempt to subdue Sikh resistance to foreign rule, the British sought to dispose of the complex, but a miraculous bolt of lightning just prior to the secret auction persuaded them to abandon the scheme.

The lightning bolt is described in a plaque on the Temple's walls, seen in a picture dated 1880 at the exhibition, titled The Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past.

"We uncovered the rest in an autobiography by Professor Sahib Singh, an eminent Sikh academic who has translated many Sikh scriptures, " says Parmjit Singh, a founding member and project director of the United Kingdom Punjab Heritage Association, which has curated the exhibition. The same details are revealed in a lavishly illustrated book co-edited by Parmjit Singh, also containing more than 70 early eyewitness accounts of the complerx known as Darbar Sahib.

Parmjit Singh founded the organisation in 2001 with Amandeep Singh Madra, driven by a desire to rediscover his heritage. "I kept my hair long because my father wanted me to but I did not know anything about my religion, " Parmjit, who lives in Slough, says. "People would ask me questions and I had no answers. Any literature on Sikhs was just in trashy, poorly produced booklets. So one day I decided to embark on rediscovering myself. "

The following year he gave up his well-paid job as a chartered accountant to dedicate his time to preserving and researching Punjabi heritage in Britain. The 38-yearold, one of 5 million Sikhs living in Britain, says, "The United Kingdom has some of the finest objects from the Sikh empire. We are displaying things that have never been seen before. The Golden Temple has a museum but there are no other Sikh museums in India, so I realised there was a demand."

All the items belong to private U.K. collectors. The exact provenance of many artefacts is not known, though most were brought back by the British and sold at auction. Rare items exhibited include the earliest known image of The Golden Temple, an 1825 miniature, and the earliest video footage of the temple, taken in the 1920s. A photo album dated 1870-80 that belonged to Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Emperor of Punjab, contains faded pictures of his wife and sons. The Emperor's red Punjabi shoes are slightly frayed but otherwise in remarkably good condition. These were bought by a collector from Duleep Singh's Norfolk estate after he died.

Duleep was the first Sikh to settle in the U.K., in 1854. Wealthy Sikh students and traders soon followed, but Sikh migration to the U.K. peaked in the 1950 and 60s, when labourers from the Punjab arrived seeking work in British foundries and textile industries. Today, Sikhs work in a range of top professions and as entrepreneurs in Britain.

An original late-18th-century Sikh prayer book contains devotional verses by Guru Gobind Singh in Gurmikhi script and an original ancient steel battle quoit (chakkar) used by the Sikhs to fight the Mughals. A sword belonging to Lord Henry Hardinge, the governor general of India during the first Anglo-Sikh war, together with dispatches written by him, reveal how he came within hours of signing an unconditional surrender to the Sikhs on December 21, 1845.

An illustrated biography (janamsakhi) of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, dated inside as 1743, one of the oldest janamsakhis in existence, is also exhibited.

One of the most remarkable items is the original receipt for the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The parchment receipt, brown at the edges, has writing in an italicised hand and is dated 1851. It is on display inside a glass cabinet, with the owner remaining anonymous. A replica of the original 180 carat uncut Kohi-Noor diamond is also on display. Lord Dalhousie, then governor-general of India, handed the receipt over to Dr John Login, a doctor in the British army, in return for the diamond, when the British took control of Punjab. The original 1849 receipt went missing so a copy was made in 1851 and given to Dr Login.

It is this second receipt on display, explains Parmjit Singh. India has long wanted the gem back but the Koh-i-Noor continues to sit in the late Queen Mother's crown. "It does not bother me where the diamond is, " says Parmjit Singh. "It's a bit of a smoke screen actually. From a Sikh perspective, the receipt is an important document because it provides evidence that Sikhs were world players and had an empire. "

Indeed, the receipt serves as written evidence that the priceless jewel was taken off a Sikh, Duleep Singh, and handed to the British. Duleep had inherited it from his father, Ranjit Singh, who obtained it in 1813 from the deposed king of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja. The British auctioned many Sikh treasures, but Dr Login, Duleep's guardian, kept the diamond. It was presented to Queen Victoria in 1850 to mark the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Sikh War.

Asked whether he feels the exhibition should have opened in India, Parmjit Singh says: "London is now the centre of Indian arts. A lot of research is done here and items are preserved well in the U.K. But we are hoping to find a partner in Amritsar to exhibit it there and talks are under way."

He adds that he would also like to show it at the gurdwaras of the diaspora.

A set of ornate earrings belonging to the late Empress of Punjab, Rani Jindan Kaur (1817-1863 ), Maharaja Ranjit Singh's wife, is owned by Davinder Singh Toor. "There is a painting of the queen wearing these earrings, " Davinder Singh says. "She visited her son in England in the 1860s, and it may well be that she sold them while here."

Davinder Singh is one of the seven private collectors who lent items to this exhibition. The 31-year-old London optometrist had next to no interest in Sikh arts until 1999, when he volunteered at a Maharaja exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum and got his first glimpse of Sikh history. Hooked, he started making the rounds of auctions houses in London to acquire artefacts. "I want to share my inspiration, acquire, preserve, research and exhibit, " he says.

A 19th-century whisk (chaur) used in spiritual courts (darbars) is one of the many items that belongs to Davinder Singh. "I bought this from an Englishwoman whose great-grandfather had served with the Sikhs in Punjab," he says. "Many of the objects on display were brought back by the British who left at Partition. For many of the English servicemen, these were family heirlooms."

Davinder Singh also owns a heavy gold bracelet studded with rubies that was gifted by Ranjit Singh to Isabelle Fane, daughter of General Sir Henry Fane, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in India in the 19th century.

"The Golden Temple is one of the ten most beautiful buildings in the world and it is shocking that this is the first exhibition [here in London] on the building, " says Kulveer Singh Ranger, an adviser to London's Mayor, Boris Johnson. "The exhibition tells us what we can't find on Wikipedia. The temple gives us a sense of pride and a focal point: it is a beacon for us and is somewhere we can say is our own. There is no Sikh in Britain who does not have a picture of the Golden Temple on their wall."

 

FINAL WEEK

"The Golden Temple of Amritsar: Reflections of the Past" continues at The Brunei Gallery, London, until September 25.

 

[Courtesy: Times of India. Edited for sikhchic.com]

September 17, 2011

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