Roundtable

The Great Betrayal I - How The Curse Of Hindu Casteism has Corrupted Today’s Punjab -
The Roundtable Open Forum # 140-A

RAJ KUMAR HANS

Hinduism has always been hostile to Sikhism, whose Gurus successfully attacked the principle of caste, which is the foundation on which the fabric of Brahminical religion has been reared. The activities of Hinduism have, therefore, been constantly directed to the undermining of Sikhism ... Hinduism has strangled Buddhism, once a formidable rival to it, and it made serious inroads on the domains of Sikhism. [A. E. Barstow]


The ‘Dalit history’ approach, a particularly germane form of social history ‘from below’, seeks to bring caste conflict out in the open by making it a central theme in the writing of Sikh history. It thus provides a rather different, potentially stimulating, and realistic lens through which to take a closer look at Sikh history as a whole. [John C. B. Webster]

 
Today’s Untouchables are stronger than they have ever been. The progress they have made over the last century is quite remarkable. Many of the discriminations that once affected them have been seriously attenuated. Yet, and perhaps paradoxically, the great majority remain poor, powerless, and indeed without a voice. [Robert Diliege]

Dalits constitute about 30 per cent of the population of Punjab, which happens to be the largest proportion in the country, when compared with other provinces. However, they occupy the lowest share in the ownership of land (2.34 per cent of the cultivated area). Mazhbis and Ramdasias, the two dalit castes among the Sikhs, particularly the Mazhbis, remain the most deprived.

Evidence of untouchability against dalit Sikhs is well established. They have been forced to live in separate settlements, contemptuously called ‘thhattis’ or ‘chamarlees’, located on the western side and away from the main body of the villages.

All the Sikh organisations from Sikh temples to the political party are under the control of the Jatt Sikhs. The Jatt Sikhs refuse to consider them equals even after death, by disallowing cremation of their dead in the main cremation ground of the village.

Over the years such harsh caste attitude has forced the dalits to es­tablish separate gurdwaras, marriage places and cremation grounds. This seems to be the biggest paradox of present-day Sikhdom which theoretically and theologically has been characterized as ‘emancipatory’ and even sociologically as ‘revolutionary’.

In its true egalitarian spirit, Sikhism had succeeded in integrating the lowliest of the low, the former untouchables, the dalits, into its fold.

From dalits’ perspective the evolution of Sikhism can be seen in two phases: a) from seventeenth century to Ranjit Singh’s rule, when dalits played remarkable role in Sikh political struggles and religious movements; b) post-Ranjit Singh phase, when Brahmanical values and attitudes resurfaced with caste and untouchability afflicting the Sikh body politic in such a way that there was danger of its re-absorption into Hinduism.

Though dominant literary tradition has denied the significance of ‘caste’ and ‘untouchability’ in Sikh practice, it has also ignored and neglected the dalit contribution to the flourishing of Sikhism in the first phase.

The rise in consciousness in the twentieth century has enabled the Dalits to raise questions on the dominant historigraphical praxis by attempting to recover the lost ground. The paper would first look at the modern moment, the rise in the dalit consciousness as manifest in Dalit creative writings.

In seeking an answer to as to what made the powerful Sikh movement drift the paper would look at the ‘brahmanisation’ of Sikhism in the nineteenth century with ominous implications for dalits as well as for Sikhism.

Dalit consciousness begins with the cerebral activities and is best reflected in the literary expressions. It is important how in the dalit literary writings, ‘being a Sikh’ has taken a precedent over ‘being a dalit’ till the mid-twentieth century.

It is only when the caste discrimination and untouchability within Sikhism came to be seen by Dalits from either the socialist angle or from Ambedkar’s perspective that a new process of looking at the self begins. Our first three dalit poets had subsumed their dalit identity in the broader ‘Sikh’ identity.

BHAI JAITA / JEEVAN SINGH

Bhai Jaita (d. 1705), who was rechristened by Guru Gobind Singh as Jeevan Singh in 1699, happens to be the first dalit poet from Punjab. Earlier, young Guru Gobind was overwhelmed with emotions and had embraced Bhai Jaita when the latter had brought the severed head of Guru Tegh Bahadar under the most violent circumstances from Delhi to Anandpur in 1675 and called him ‘Ranghrete Guru ke Bete’ (Ranghrete, the untouchables, are Guru’s own sons).

Jaita had turned out to be a fearless and daring Sikh warrior who had endeared himself so much to the Tenth Guru that he was declared as the ‘Panjwaan Sahibzada’ (Fifth Son) in addition to his own four sahibzadas.

He was killed in a fierce battle with Mughal armies in 1705. Even though he is now given some space in the Sikh iconography, it is hardly known or acknowledged that he was also a scholar poet.

He had composed a long poem ‘Sri Gur Katha’ which is an eyewitness account of important events surrounding Guru Gobind Singh. It is worth noting that this composition has eluded the notice of scholars of Sikh literature and history whose efforts to unearth the literature and materials pertaining to the Sikh tradition is otherwise remarkable.

The way Bhai Jaita had been integrated not only in Sikh religion but also in the family of Guru Gobind Singh, it is understandable any other identity would have been meaningless to him. His identity as Ranghreta has been subsumed by his identity as a Sikh as he says:

O Jaite! the savior Guru has saved the ranghretas
The pure Guru has adopted ranghretas as his sons


DITT SINGH

Our second dalit poet and writer is Giani Ditt Singh (1852-1901).

About the age of 17, he shifted to the main Gulabdasi centre at Chathianwala, near Kasur, in Lahore district. It was here that he composed his first two books of poetry; the love-lore ‘Shirin Farhad’ in the established Punjabi ‘kissa’ genre and ‘Abla Nind‘.

Not long afterwards, under the influence of Jawahir Singh, formerly a follower of Gulabdasi sect, he joined the Arya Samaj. But after entering into dialogue with Swami Daya Nand on his visit to Lahore in 1877, he was drawn into the Sikh fold by Bhai Gurmukh Singh, then an active figure in the Singh Sabha movement.

Ditt Singh’s scholarly talents came in handy for the Sikh movement. Lahore Singh Sabha floated a weekly newspaper, the ‘Khalsa Akhbar’ in 1886. He assumed editorship of the paper in 1887, which he continued till his death in 1901.

Meanwhile, he was also appointed as a professor of Punjabi at the Oriental College. To Bhagat Lakshman Singh, erudite Sikh educationist and reformer, “Bhai Ditt Singh Gyani wielded a powerful pen and was a literary giant.”

Ditt Singh wrote more than fifty books and pamphlets on wide-ranging subjects, from love-lore to Sikh traditions, from history to ethics, from heroes to charlatans as he also produced polemics.

Even being a leader in the limelight he could not escape the overt and covert assault of untouchability from his fellow and follower Sikhs. And it seems despite being reminded that he belonged to an untouchable family he was suffused with Sikh consciousnesses.

DAYA SINGH ARIF

Our third such dalit poet, Sadhu Daya Singh Arif (1894-1946) was born in a landless Mazhbi Sikh family of Firozepur district. Contrary to the material as well as cultural condition, Daya Singh developed a keen interest in learning letters as a child for which his father Santa Singh threw him out of family on former’s persistence against several warnings by the latter.

Living independently, Daya Singh was absorbed in reading and contemplation. After learning Gurmukhi and studying the Guru Granth, he learnt Urdu from a local teacher in his village madrassa Maulvi Ibrahim and Persian from Sunder Singh Patwari and Master Munshi Ram Khatri.

The desire to learn about Islam led him to the local Sufi scholar Shadi Khan who laid a condition of accepting Islam if he wanted to learn the Quran. Daya Singh agreed on the condition that he would do so after the education if he finds Islam superior to Sikhism in principles and ideas.

The result was that Daya Singh emerged as a sound scholar of Arabic, Persian and the Quran. Learning Sanskrit from Baba Sawan Das who lived at Dharamkot was not very difficult as the Sanskritist was bowled over by Daya Singh’s knowledge in religious studies. He studied Vedanta from Baba Sawan Das’ younger brother Baba Prabhati Das who had studied Vedas at Kashi for 10 years.

After gaining insights into the theological aspects of religion, he turned to the secular literature of Punjab, especially the kissas.

Passionate readings of series of works on traditional Punjabi love-lore seem to have ignited his creative potential. His first poetical work ‘Fanah-dar-Makan’ was published when he was 20.

The work which made Daya Singh a household name through the length and breadth of Punjab was ‘Zindagi Bilas’ completed when he turned 22. It is in this work where his vast religious, spiritual and secular knowledge is manifest. It is moving didactic poetry that caught imagination of masses which became the most read or heard poetic creation next only to Waris Shah’s ‘Heer’.

Sadhu Daya Singh wrote his next major published poetic work ‘Sputtar Bilas’ in 1922. Written in the same genre, this is also a didactic work of great aesthetic value addressed as it is to his eldest son Kultar Singh. This is also said to have been printed in hundreds of thousands of copies.

Daya Singh succeeds in reinforcing the moral thrust of the medieval spiritual saints in a fast changing objective reality when there was a rise in the acquisitive tendencies irrespective of the means adopted. His introverted self made him seek answers in the subjective human makeup rather than in the objective material conditions.

He was well grounded in the philosophy of Advaita-Vedanta. He moves from the particular to the general, quintessential human life. Daya Singh’s poetry is free from any kind of sectarianism and is thoroughly secular in the prevailing communal environment.

He not only produces good poetry but emerges as an intellectual of his age. But soon after he turned to composing poetic material for the Sikh traditions, legends and anecdotes which he would render as a kavishar in a jatha (band) that he had formed for this purpose. This was also his material need; after settling down as a family person, with five sons and a daughter, to run the family unit he found the vocation that he was best at, composing and singing at religious and other popular festivals.

He excelled in this art as well; travelling across Punjab with his band earned him so much popularity that he was invited by Sikhs settled in Malaya and other parts of South-East Asia in 1929.

After his return to Punjab, he is said to have played some role in the political developments as a representative of Mazhbi Sikhs. At the time of 1937 formation of provincial ministries, the untouchables were to be enlisted separately in the voters’ lists but Sadhu Daya Singh along with other Mazhbi Sikh leaders had refused this separation saying they were Sikhs and there was no ‘caste’ in Sikhism.


GURDAS RAM AALAM

Gurdas Ram Aalam (1912-1989), who was born in a poor Dalit family of Bundala village in Jallandhar district, happens to be the first Punjabi poet with dalit consciousness.

Aalam was not able to go to school and learnt basic Gurmukhi letters from his friends. Even though illiterate, Aalam had emerged as one of popular folk-poets of stage before the Partition.

All the four books of his poems were full of social and economic issues of the deprived and oppressed caste-communities. On political and social issues, Aalam wrote like a revolutionary. No wonder, even Pash (who has become symbol of Punjabi revolutionary poetry) considered Aalam the first revolutionary poet of modern Punjab.

A few lines from his poem ‘Achchut’ (Untouchable) where the untouchable cries about his chronic ailment to which the Pandit, Maulavi, Bhai (Sikh preacher), pastor and Congressman prescribe for him their respective religious and political solutions and finally the poet offers his:

O untouchable, open your eyes and see
I will write a prescription that I have stolen
Possess three things: strength, unity and education
And don’t bother about anyone else

Faith here is made of shoes and religion of staves
Caste too is of shoes, of force

None is high nor is one low here
Untouchability is nothing but your weakness
You are as human as others are
Differences are because of vested interests

Temples and mosques are traps, O Alam!
Fools like you are trapped


In his poem ‘Ulahma’ (Complaint) he gives a call to his ‘dalit brother’:

Rise, O Dalit brother, why are you wasting your time
Only you have to do your work, whether today or tomorrow
Your neighbours have moved ahead while you are happy left behind
You are human like them, if you are one, be ashamed

Alam had his poems ‘Inqlabi Aagu’ (Revolutionary Leader) on Bhagat Ravi Das, ‘Dr Ambedkar’, ‘Mandi’ (Market) and several others which directly address the dalit issues.


THE ROUNDTABLE OPEN FORUM # 140-A

Though this is a continuing feature, divided into three parts over the next few days, we invite your comments on the issues raised in this article,




CONTINUED TOMORROW …

[Extract from ‘Dalits and the Emancipatory Sikh Religion’. Courtesy: Dalit. Edited for sikhchic.com]

January 19, 2015

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