Singh Sabha Movement

However, the Sikhs are fighting for a separate homeland since 1947, but the movement attained impetus by the efforts of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, which in 1984 resulted in most brutal operation against a highly sacred Sikh religious place-the Golden Temple complex (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar, Punjab, which resulted in killings of thousands of Sikhs.

In this respect, Indian Army led by General Kuldip Singh Brar, supported by troops and armoured vehicles had broken all records of the state terrorism and extra-judicial killings through the barbaric Operation Blue Star which occurred between 3–8 June 1984, ordered by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to control over the Harmandir Sahib complex.

In this context, in their book, “The Sikh Struggle”, Ramnarain Kumar and George Sieberer writes, “The army killed every Sikh who could be found inside the temple-complex. They were hauled out of rooms, brought to corridors on the circumference of the temple and with their hands tied behind their back, were shot in cold blood. Among the victims were many old men, women and children…However, all visitors were locked up in rooms for two days without any food, water, or electricity and were starved to death. Besides, the Harmandir Sahib remained under the army control for many months”.

The brutality of the Operation was not confined to the Harmandir Sahib. Indian armed forces simultaneously attacked 40 other historical gurdwaras all over East Punjab. When Sikhs in other states came to know about the desecration of the Harmandir Sahib and massacre of their brethren, they quickly left for Punjab. New Delhi tried to stop them before they could reach Punjab. Many Sikhs were assassinated on the way and many others were arrested.

In the same year of November, two dedicated Sikhs named Beant Singh and Satwant Singh who were posted at Premier Indira Gandhi’s residence in New Delhi, assassinated her. Then Hindu riots erupted in the capital and other cities in which more then 15,000 Sikhs were murdered in broad daylight by the supporters of Indira Gandhi, while police watched silently so as to provide the Hindus with free hand to massacre Sikhs.

Nevertheless, the attack on the Harmandir Sahib and genocide of Sikhs accelerated the liberation movement for Khalistan, as Bhindrenwale became a folk hero.

To maintain its control over the Harmandir Sahib, another attack was launched on the Temple in 1987, called ‘Operation Black Thunder’. That time only Sikh resistance which was natural outcome of the tragedy was the main target. Afterwards, ‘Operation Woodrose’ and ‘Operation Black Thunder-II’ were conducted against the Sikh community, which also assassinated them extra-judicially.

After these barbaric operations, Sikhs organised themselves into an armed power in order to fight the Indian state terrorism. Many Sikhs left India to escape religious persecution. Sikhs have spread out all over the world to keep the movement of Khalistan alive.

It is of particular attention that New Delhi and Indian intelligence agency RAW is trying to create division between the Sikh community-platforms in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and Pakistan etc. In this context, a deliberate campaign has been launched to ban or disallow Indian diplomats or officials’ entry to gurdawaras for misusing them for their ulterior motives so as to divide the Sikh community.

Gopal Singh Chawla leader of the Khalistan movement for independence has announced that “Peace for Sikhs” has stepped up registration process for the Khalistan referendum 2020. He has asked the other Sikh leaders to resign and join the movement and revealed that 11000 to 13000 Sikh leaders have already left Indian Army without any benefits and joined Khalistan movement—have reiterated that from now onward Sikhs will not fight for India. He pointed out that the Sikhs leaders have realized that Indian military leadership always post Sikh outfits on borders to meet any operation confrontation and it is either Sikhs or low caste Hindus lay their lives for India, from now onwards Sikhs will only lay their lives for Khalistan.

Gopal Singh also stated that Modi government is facing a fearful sit in the wake of thousands of Sikhs registering for Referendum 2020 and the India Army is in dire problems regarding the resignation of Sikhs at a time when Indian Army is in a fix in Ladakh after facing defeat and humiliation at the hands of Chinese.

Gopal Singh claimed that Khalistan is the basic right if Sikh nation and Sikhs will now create Khalistan at any cost. Referring to the promise of Gandhi made with Sikhs in 1947 for Khalistan, which was never fulfilled by cunning Hindu rulers, he said that mow Sikhs nation has complete awareness and at present New Delhi is in panic.

It is mentionable that India, dominated by politicians from the Hindi heartland—Hindutva have been using brutal force ruthlessly against any move to free Assam, Kashmir, Khalistan, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Tripura where wars of liberation continue in one form or the other.

These states have witnessed various sorts of India’s state terrorism, but, did not stop their struggle. Instead of redressing the grievances of the people, Modi-led Indian regime is depending upon ruthless force to crush the movements of self-determination. Therefore, India’s unrealistic counterinsurgency strategy has badly failed.

Notably, Sikhs have intensified Khalistan Movement for Independence, as in the recent years, Sikhs have conducted anti-India demonstrations and rallies in New York, London, Switzerland and Geneva, raising slogans for Khalistan as an independent state.

In fact, the Indian vulnerabilities have been exposed first during the mishandling of Covid-19 and lately by the Chinese attaining Ladakh area as per their claims prior to 1959. India seems to be acting like a rudderless ship destined to sink. The fascist policies of the fundamentalist outfits-BJP and RSS have not only weakened the Indian federation, but also created rift in society and institution. Presently, nothing seems to be going right for New Delhi, as every coming day is bringing bad news for the country.

Nonetheless, Sikhs move of leaving Indian Army will definitely affect other castes and religious communities in the Indian Army. Indian Army due to paucity of resources coupled with complex caste system is already at a low morale—discontented and un-professional military has generated serious concerns for its military leadership. The Indian drastic situation is providing opportunities to weaken its Army and federation in manner which could pave the way for its disintegration.

Increased Mughal persecution of the Sikhs in the eighteenth century[3][4] forced the Khalsa, which had raised arms against the state, to yield Gurdwara control to mahants, or custodians, who often belonged to Udasi, Nirmala, or other Brahmanical-influenced ascetic heterodox sects,[5] or were non-Sikh altogether[6][7] due to their lack of external identifying as opposed to initiated Sikhs. The Khalsa at this time engaged in guerilla campaigns against the Mughals and the hill-rajas of the Sivalik Hills allied to them;[8] having vacated the Punjab plains, they launched attacks from the refuges of the northern hilly areas adjoining Punjab, and the desert areas to the south.[4] They later fought the Afghans and established themselves as local leaders, while mahant control of Gurdwaras continued into the nineteenth century, particularly "pujari" priestly class under the patronage of Sikh elites and aristocracy.[6] Such groups wrote exegeses while the Khalsa focused on political power at the time,[5] as Sikh jathas solidified into the Sikh misls of the Dal Khalsa, which would establish the Sikh Empire, which, in the midst of reaching new levels of political power in the face of Mughal and Afghan attacks, came at the expense of reestablishing direct control over Sikh institutions and the eroding of Sikh mores, a development that Khalsa would have to contend with when the Sikh Empire was lost to the British.[9]

The British East India Company annexed the Sikh Empire in 1849 after the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Thereafter, Christian missionaries increased proselytising activities in central Punjab. In 1853, Maharajah Dalip Singh, the last Sikh ruler, was controversially converted to Christianity. In parallel, Brahmo Samaji and Arya Samaji reform movements of Hinduism began active pursuit of Sikhs into their suddhi ceremonies. Muslim proselytizers formed the Anjuman-i-Islamia midst the Sikhs in Lahore, while the Ahmadiyah movement sought converts to their faith.[1][2] The British colonial rulers, after annexing the Sikh empire in mid-19th-century, continue to patronize and gift land grants to these mahants, thereby increasing their strength and helped sustain the idolatry in Sikh shrines.[10]

The annexation of the Punjab to the British Empire in the mid-19th century saw severe deterioration of Gurdwara management.[11] The British sought to cosset and control the Sikhs through the management of the Golden Temple and its functionaries, even ignoring its own dictates of statutory law which required the separation of secular and religious matters, neutrality in the treatment of religious communities and the withdrawal from involvement in religious institutions; the need to control the Golden Temple was held to be more paramount, and along with control of Sikh institutions, there were measures put in place like the legal ban of carrying weapons, meant to disarm the Khalsa, who had fought against them in the two Anglo Sikh Wars.[12]

In this way the Khalsa army was disbanded and the Punjab demilitarized, and Sikh armies were required to publicly surrender their arms and return to agriculture or other pursuits. Certain groups, however, like those who held revenue-free lands (jagirdars) were allowed to decline, particularly if they were seen as “rebels,”[13] The British were wary of giving the Sikhs unmitigated control of their own gurdwaras, and drew from Sikh factions seen as loyal to the British, like the Sikh aristocracy and Sikhs with noted family lineages, who were given patronage and pensions, and Udasis, who had gained control of historical gurdwaras in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, were allowed to retain proprietary control over lands and gurdwara buildings.[13] The British administration went to considerable lengths to insert such loyalists into the Golden Temple in order to exert as much control over the Sikh body-politic as possible. One reason for this was the emergence of Sikh revivalist groups, like the Nirankaris, the Namdharis, and the Singh Sabha movement, shortly after annexation; this revivalism was spurred by a growing disaffection within the ranks of ordinary Sikhs about the perceived decline of proper Sikh practices.[13]

Sikh institutions deteriorated further under the administration of the mahants, supported by the British,[14][6][15][7] who in addition to being considered as ignoring the needs of the Sikh community of the time,[6] allowed the gurdwaras to turn into spaces for societal undesirables like petty thieves, drunks, pimps, and peddlers of unsavory and licentious music and literature, with which they themselves took part in such activities.[16][6] In addition, they also allowed non-Sikh, Brahmanical practices[6][7] to take root in the gurdwaras, including idol worship,[6][7] caste discrimination, and allowing non-Sikh pandits and astrologers to frequent them, and began to simply ignore the needs of the general Sikh community,[6] as they used gurdwara offerings and other donations as their personal revenue,[6][15][7] and their positions became increasingly corrupt[6][15][17] and hereditary.[18] Some local congregations marshalled popular pressure against them and to relinquish control, but the large revenue derived from gurdwara estates empowered them to resist such pressure.[6]

The first Singh Sabha was founded in 1873 in Amritsar as a response to what were identified as three main threats:[19]:

• Christian missionary activity, who sought to convert more Sikhs into Christians,
• “Reverse-proselytizing” of the Arya Samaj with their Shuddhi (purification) movement, which claimed Sikhs as a Hindu sect, and
• Possibility of losing British patronage of Sikhs in general due to the actions of groups like the Namdhari Sikhs[19]

In parallel to Singh Sabha, in 1869 Punjabi Muslims organized themselves with the Anjuman-i-Islamia. Similarly, the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reform movement composed of English-speaking Bengalis then served as the lower rung of the British administration in Punjab had set up branches in several Punjabi cities in the 1860s. These socio-religious organizations also motivated the formation of the Singh Sabha.[20] According to Oberoi, the Arya Samaj movement arrived in Punjab in 1877, four years after the first Singh Sabha was founded.[21] Its criticism of both modern Hinduism and Sikhism as polytheistic corruption, treatment of Sikhs as a Hindu sect, and attempts to "purify" Sikhs back to what Arya Samaj called as the "monotheistic Vedic Hinduism" infuriated many and had a major impact in Punjab.[22][23]

In the early decades of the 20th century, The Tat Khalsa also contributed to two major legal victories, the 1909 Anand Marriage Act, and the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, which re-established direct Khalsa control of the major historical gurdwaras, previously run by British-supported mahants and pujaris,[37] or Hindu priests, and their rites. The reestablishment of Sikh control of Gurdwaras, after the non-violent Akali Movement, also known as the Gurdwara Reform Movement, was touched off in 1920 following General Reginald Dyer’s invited visit to the Golden Temple failed to pacify the Sikhs. The Akali Movement, lasting from 1920 to 1925, culminated in the transfer of gurdwara control to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC); the Akali Movement is the forerunner of the modern Akali Dal political party.[37] In 1919, the internal disagreements led some Sikh leaders to form the Central Sikh League, while in 1920 the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, or SGPC, emerged for the same reasons.[35]

In 1932, a general meeting of the Sikhs formed the Khalsa Darbar as an attempt to form a united front triggered by the colonial British government's Communal Award of seats to the Punjab Legislative Council. The Central Sikh League formed in 1919 merged into the Khalsa Darbar. However, in 1937, the Sikhs split into Shiromani Akali Dal and Congressite Sikhs.[38] The Singh Sabhas of the late 19th-century were overwhelmed by these organizations as Britain attempted to gain Indian soldiers for their World War II efforts and from the dynamics of religion-based political partition of the Indian subcontinent in the final decades of colonial rule.[32][33] The SGPC, as a democratic institution, has represents the majority opinion of Sikhs, and is the authoritative voice of the Sikhs.[37]

According to Harjot Oberoi – a Sikh academic, the first Singh Sabha formed in 1873 aimed at interreligious tolerance and cooperation between Sikhs and Hindus.[21] With the arrival of Arya Samaj in 1877 and its criticism of Sikhism, the dynamics changed. According to the Indologist T.N. Madan, Sikhs and Hindus not only lived together before 1870s, they shared a common cultural life with common symbols and orientations. Sikh did not project a separate identity. The Arya Samaj activity and the Singh Sabha movement's response to it created several competing definitions of Sikh identity.[21] After the early struggles within the Singh Sabha movement, new social and cultural elites emerged. These, states Oberoi, displaced early Sikh ties, replaced them with a "series of inventions: the demarcation of Sikh sacred space by clearing holy shrines of Hindu icons and idols, the cultivation of Punjabi as the sacred language of the Sikhs, the foundation of cultural bodies exclusively for Sikh youth, the insertion of the anniversaries of the Sikh Gurus into the ritual and sacred calender and most important of all, the introduction of new life-cycle rituals".[21]

Harnik Deol – a Sikh scholar, states that Oberoi's analysis may be termed as the "hegemony approach" where an emerging educated Sikh class gained cultural hegemony by demanding and then controlling the sacred centers of Sikhism.[39] According to Oberoi, this new class of leadership redefined the Sikhs identity, reinterpreted its rituals, introduced new symbolism into its historic festivals, ceremonies and customs.[40] This is only a partial understanding of the impact of the Singh Sabha movement, states Deol, and Oberoi's analysis is self-contradictory. She disagrees with Oberoi that the changes happened only in late 19th-century, and states that Khalsa Sikhs had some of these rituals earlier and the rigorous religious and moral codes a true Khalsa must follow were established by the Guru Gobind Singh. It is the rigor and difficult in living up to these codes, says Deol, is the reason why only a small fractional percentage of Sikhs undergo the initiation rite even today.[41]

According to Pashaura Singh, there is "no doubt" that some Sikhs embraced Hindu practices in the 19th century, but it is questionable whether this was always so, and "to imply that Sikh identity was always predominantly fluid, with free mixing of Sikh and Hindu practices," is questionable.[42] From as early as the period of Guru Arjan, states Pashaura Singh, Sikhs "clearly were encouraged to think of themselves as a new community."[42] The Singh Sabha movement had many shades of views, states Pashaura Singh. The Amritsar Singh Sabha's Khem Singh Bedi saw Sikh identity as distinct, the need for a living guru, supported the idea of divine incarnations (avatars of Hinduism) and the idea that "Hindus and Sikhs were indivisible" as a society.[42] The Lahore Singh Sabha's Gurmukh Singh held the middle ground stating that Sikhs had their own distinct scripture and practices, the issue of Sikh-Hindu relationship was redundant, and that all those who accepted Sikh scripture were Sikhs whether they undergo Khalsa initiation and live by its religious code or those who do not undergo initiation and do not follow some of the Sikh religious and moral codes.[42] The Bhasaur Singh Sabha's Teja Singh represented the more radical view during this movement with the view that those who have not undergone Khalsa initiation should have "no place in the Sikh panth", and to speak of Hindu-Sikh relationship is to insult Sikhism.[42] Eventually, states Pashaura Singh, the middle ground view of Gurumukh Singh types prevailed.[42]

According to W. H. McLeod, the Singh Sabha "systematized and clarified" the Khalsa tradition, but Khalsa identity was neither a totally new invention, nor mere purging of "alien excrescence", nor the "restoration of a corrupted original". The Khalsa identity of the Singh Sabha reformers contained both "old and new" elements, quotes Pashaura Singh.[43]}}