Sixty-five years ago, on March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh and two of his associates were hanged to death at the Lahore Central jail. This was the culmination of the Lahore Conspiracy Case, one of the most controversial, not to say notorious, trials to take place in India under the Raj. The execution robbed the Indian freedom struggle of a leader who, although just 23 years old at the time of his death, inspired millions through his personal courage and dedication to the cause of freedom, the depth and seriousness of his thought, his commitment to the cause of social justice and his vision of a future India.

Small wonder, then, that the political-legal machinery of the Raj moved into top gear to ensure for Bhagat Singh the hangman’s noose. In his new book, lawyer, writer and journalist A.G. Noorani argues that Bhagat Singh and his comrades were the victims of a travesty of justice that amounted to nothing short of judicial murder. In their determination to send this remarkable young man to the gallows, the Government of India and the British-controlled judiciary committed what Noorani calls "a forensic Jallianwala Bagh", transgressing fundamental principles of law, changing the rules of the game at will, denying the accused every procedural safeguard, removing from the trial any judge who revealed integrity and a sense of fair play, and denying the condemned men any right of appeal.

Noorani, a practising advocate in the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court, is the author of a number of books, including a study of the Kashmir question. One of his earlier books explored the phenomenon of Indian political trials, for him "a twilight zone in which law and politics meet in mutual embarrassment". That book did not take up the trial of Bhagat Singh, an omission which Noorani seeks to make good in his new study.

In his introduction, the author explains that he has set out, not to provide a "definitive record" of the long trial, but rather to study it in its political setting. The comprehensive record of the two centuries of British justice under the Raj has, he notes, yet to be written, but "It is doubtful if there was any political trial in which the regime’s grim determination to ‘evict’ its political foe from the scene was accompanied by such egregious violations of the norms of justice and was matched by such willing compliance by the judges in that aim as in Bhagat Singh’s trial." (page xv)

One aim of the book, then, is to set the record straight, to reconstruct a telling but surprisingly little studied instance of colonial jurisprudence in action. In his dissection of the gross miscarriage of justice that sent Bhagat Singh and his comrades to the gallows, Noorani provides abundant food for thought for apologists of the Raj as well as those who persist in believing that British colonialism operated under a system of rectitude, the strict, impartial rule of law.

But the author also believes that Bhagat Singh’s trial has contemporary relevance. If we look back at India’s post-independence experience, he argues in a short but impassioned conclusion, we find plenty of evidence that the Indian political trial is alive and well. Let down by every arm of the state - Parliament, the Executive and the Supreme Court - citizens of free India still have their basic Human Rights infringed, still find themselves incarcerated by illiberal rulings and legislation every bit as bad as the Ordinance under which Bhagat Singh was tried and sent to his death.

The book opens with a consideration of Bhagat Singh - the man and the phenomenon. Noorani pays tribute to his intellectual qualities and scholarly bent of mind, noting that "all evidence that has come to light of his thinking in the last few years of his life, and particularly of the last few months, suggests that deep commitment and strong emotions spurred, rather than retarded, his intellectual growth." (pages 5-6)

The remarkable diary kept by Bhagat Singh in prison, the letters smuggled out, and articles reveal a young man evolving away from revolutionary terrorism towards mass struggle and socialist ideas and practice. "It is my considered opinion," he wrote in a letter to young political workers a few weeks before his death, "that bombs cannot serve our purpose... Throwing bombs is not only useless, but is often harmful as well... Our chief aim should be to mobilise the toiling masses." (page 6)

But, of course, it was for two specific acts of revolutionary terrorism - the shooting to death of a British police official, John Saunders, and the throwing of non-lethal bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly - that Singh and his comrades were put on trial for their lives. As Noorani’s narration makes clear, the killing of Saunders was a case of mistaken identity: the real target was Lahore’s Superintendent  of Police, J.A. Scott, held responsible for a physical assault on Lala Lajpat Rai during a demonstration  against the Simon Commission, in the aftermath of which the ageing freedom fighter died.

Noorani provides a detailed reconstruction of the Saunders shooting, and explains what exactly happened in the Central Assembly on April 8, 1929, when Bhagat Singh and his comrade Batukeshwar Dutt made their literally explosive point before calmly surrendering. The culpability of these young freedom fighters is nowhere in doubt; as the author notes, no serious historian contests the fact that Bhagat Singh fired the fatal shots or hurled the bombs. What is at issue is the fairness of the trial that ensued.

It is to this trial that Noorani applies his considerable analytical skills, drawing on court records and archival material to provide a detailed reconstruction and a damning critique. He brings to his task the perspective of an experienced lawyer, sensitive to the nuances of the legal points involved. But this is by no means a book simply for lawyers, historians and legal scholars. There is much here to interest and hold the attention of the general reader.

In a basic sense, the trial involved a struggle between the accused who were determined to assert their rights as political prisoners and British colonialism equally resolved on treating them as common criminals. Quite early in the proceedings, Bhagat Singh and his comrades began an epic hunger strike in protest at the conditions in which they were imprisoned, demanding that they be accorded the status of political detainees. The prosecution, as well as an openly partisan judiciary, preferred to present the hunger strike as a devious stratagem to obstruct the proceedings. Using this as a pretext, the Government set about the task of bending the law and flouting long established legal principles in order to secure the verdict it desired.

As the hunger strike progressed, exacting its toll of the young men’s health and firing nation-wide protest as details of their treatment, including their subjection to painful and debasing forced feeding, filtered out, the colonial authorities turned British legal tradition on its head by seeking to provide for trial in absence of the accused.

This was the essence of what came to be known as the ‘Hunger Strike Bill’, an attempt made within the Central Legislative Assembly to amend the Criminal Procedure Code. Rather than concede the just and reasonable demands of the hunger-strikers for humane living conditions as well as access to books and newspapers, the Government sought to get the law amended, even if this meant negating a fundamental principle of criminal law: that an accused cannot be tried in his or her absence.

That this effort within the Central Legislative drew an ignominious blank was, Noorani reveals, in no small part due to the brilliantly argued intervention of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Reproducing extensive portions of Jinnah’s historic speech before the House on September 12, 1929, the author alerts his reader to a little known, and highly positive, facet of a controversial political career.

Having failed in the Central Assembly, the Government then sought to bypass the legislative process altogether. It enacted an Ordinance establishing a Special Tribunal to try the Lahore Conspiracy Case by invoking the Governor-General’s emergency powers. The Tribunal, comprising three High Court judges (two of them British), was not subject to ratification by the Central Assembly. It was explicitly set up to try the case without any right of appeal. "What is of truly historic and enduring significance," comments Noorani, "is the conscious use of the court of law as a political weapon." (page 139)

The travesty of justice to which this trial by a fixed, partisan Tribunal amounted is sharply brought out. A tragic feature of the trial was the key role played in it by certain of Bhagat Singh’s comrades who turned approvers, chief among them Jai Gopal, Phonindra Nath Ghosh and Hans Raj Vohra. According to the law, evidence adduced in corroboration of approvers’ testimony must be independent, reliable and relevant; what the prosecution placed before the Tribunal was, as often as not, pure conjecture. In a trial in which the prosecution evidence was untested by cross-examination, much depended on the readiness of judges to question witnesses actively; the one judge - an Indian - who showed himself prepared to do this was speedily removed from the Tribunal, which was then arbitrarily reconstructed.

Small wonder that the resulting judgement, clearly penned by one of the British judges, gave free rein to conjecture and suspicion, even as it sought to paper over gaping holes in the persecution case. The verdict was, in a real sense, preordained: Bhagat Singh and two of his comrades would hang, and the rest would be transported for life, or subjected to long periods of rigorous imprisonment.

Could the Congress leadership, particular Gandhi, have saved Bhagat Singh from the hangman’s noose? Noorani reopens the question, taking note throughout the book of how Gandhi’s consistent aloofness from the show trial of the spirited young freedom fighters contrasted with Nehru’s activism on their behalf. An admirer of Gandhi who argues that his personal courage and integrity are beyond dispute. Noorani nevertheless finds the historical record relating to his role in the Bhagat Singh case to be far short of inspiring.

The weeks immediately prior to the execution saw Gandhi actively involved in talks with the Viceroy, Lord Irwin; the outcome of this process was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 5, 1931 - less than three weeks before Bhagat Singh’s death. Clearly, then, Gandhi had the opportunity to intercede on the young man’s behalf and plead with Irwin for a commutation of the sentence.

That he did not is made clear by the archival record. Indeed, instead of pleading for Bhagat Singh’s life, Gandhi was as late as March 20, counselling the Home Secreatary, an avowed racist called Emerson, on damage limitation, on how to manage effectively the anticipated nationwide eruption of feeling against the judicial murders. As Noorani puts it:

"Gandhi alone could have intervened to save Bhagat Singh’s life. He did not, till the very last. Later claims such as that "I brought all the persuasion at my command to bear on him" (the Viceroy) are belied by the record which came to light four decades later. In this tragic episode, Gandhi was not candid to the nation or even to his closest colleagues about his talks with the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, on saving Bhagat Singh’s life.” (page 252)

In his conclusion, Noorani poses the question: how would free India treat its Bhagat Singhs? He provides a double- edged answer. In its attitude to Human Rights, independent India (or rather the governments that have controlled the state machinery for the past 49 years) has been seriously wanting. No branch of government, whether the executive, the legislature or the judiciary, is found by Noorani to have anything to boast of. Pledged to abide by established norms and to respect Human Rights enshrined in the Constitution and the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Indian state continues to observe these in the breach, continues to engineer travesties of justice.

It is incredible but true, everytime the Sikhs in the Punjab have been on war path in recent times, it is basically on the languate issue. And they end up with a spate of books in English while their mother tongue, Punjabi is the worst sufferer. And the books in English are mainly on the Sikh faith.

I have before me for review GURU NANAK AND ORIGINS OF THE SIKH FAITH (Reviese Edition) by Professor Harbans Singh and THE NAME OF MY BELOVED - VERSES OF THE SIKH GURUS by Nikki-Guninder Kaur Singh. Professor Harbans Singh, Chief Editor of the SIKH ENCYCLOPAEDIA, under preparation, is probably the best known Sikh scholar today, while Nikki-Guninder Kaur is his daughter, a researcher in the Sikh studies domiciled abroad.

There are ever so many books on Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism but the difficulty is that those with scientific approach based upon objective research put off the orthodox reader and what is acceptable to him, more importantly the Janamsakhis written in the medieval period, seldom stand the scrutiny of historiography. Professor Harbans Singh combines in him an undiluted Sikh and a research scholar of impeccable credentials. He is eminently aware of the problem. Talking about the Janamsakhi, he says:

"These accounts were written up by men of faith. They wrote for the faithful - of a theme which had grown into their lives through the years as a real, vivid truth. Straightforward history was not their concern, nor was their description objective and conceptual. Their thought-stream was more individual and they expressed themselves in graphic, representational terms and in the forms of drama and narrative. The life to which they responded in wonder and faith had a unique sanctity and meaning for them and was essentialized in the idiom of legend, myth and miracle."

But the problem cannot be left at that. A serious student of history must satisfy himself and also educate his reader to his satisfaction. Mohan Singh, the renowned Punjabi poet who was commissioned by the Punjabi University to write the life of Guru Nanak in verse of the epic dimensions on the occasion of the Guru’s 500th birth anniversary avails of the poetic licence. Wherever a happening in his celebrated work entitled NANKAYAN seems to strain the credibility, he gets over it by remarking: "so says the Janamsakhi". A scholar of Professor Harbans Singh’s stature cannot afford it. He presents his point of view candidly and with the conviction of an honest historiographer:

"With the critic, it may be conceded that there are exaggerations in the Janamsakhis, but the underlying principle for these accounts was the remarkable quality of Guru Nanak’s spiritual inspiration and genius - his divine intuition, compassion and wisdom. The details of many of the stories may not be true literally, but each one bears in it testimony to the depth and charity of Guru Nanak’s life, which depth revealed to his followers the presence of God in him. This is the abiding truth underneath the Janamsakhi stories. The historian’s picture of Guru Nanak will remain essentially scanty and much short of the reality he was."

Professor Harbans Singh’s story of Guru Nanak is an attempt to recreate an image of Guru Nanak. He makes no claim at definitiveness. Advisedly, he makes no attempt at rewriting the myths and miracles associated with the Guru in the light of scientific study and psychology. What he has done and fully succeeded in doing is to present a positive picture of Guru Nanak skillfully laid in the framework of his times. In doing this he has resorted to Guru Nanak’s own words whose identity is beyond doubt. For a sensitive pen like that of Professor Harbans Singh’s, reconstructing the life of Guru Nanak based his 974 hymns obtaining in the holy Granth is a tribute to his creative genius.

However, Professor Harbans Singh’s daughter, Nikki-Guninder Kaur Singh’s task seems to be a little more difficult. Nurtured in her early life in the Sikh tradition of pristine purity; educated, married and employed abroad, she doesn’t seem to be quite abreast with the researches back home. She calls Guru Nanak a "herdsman" which sounds quite unfamiliar. As a lad Guru Nanak was no doubt given charge of his family cattle for a while to keep him gainfully employed since he would retire in the nearby jungle for meditation, but nowhere is he mentioned as herdsman. Similarly, Guru Nanak’s father, Bedi Kalyan Chand was a Patwari, a record keeper and not ‘an accountant of the local Muslim landlord’, as mentioned by the author. Her assertion that Guru Angad, the second Sikh Guru ‘developed Gurmukhi script in which Guru Granth was to be written’, too, does not appear to conform to the latest research in this regard. If Guru Angad evolved the Gurmukhi script then how come that his predecessor Guru Nanak wrote Acrostic in it several years before Guru Angad appeared on the scene?

Translation of Gurbani into English can, at times, be quite challenging. In the words of Professor Puran Singh, the Sikh savant: ‘The poetic petina of the verbal vocabulary of Guru Granth does not necessarily have equivalences or correspondences in the cross vocabulary of English language.’ Thus the journey from ‘East to West’ can be arduous. The author gives a glimpses into it:

At home in the Punjab, the very language of the Sikh verse is given the greatest respect. In our house, even Punjabi newspapers in Gurmukhi script were not allowed to be put on the ground. Any volume containing the sacred poetry is deeply honoured. When I studied the text with out Gyaniji (scriptural teacher) over my summer holidays from America, I was reprimanded for having tea during our sessions, or for not rinsing my mouth before I resumed after a tea-break. Now, miles away in Ireland, should I cover my head as I pick up the text? Should I even have a cup of tea as I hold and read through the sacred poetry? The process of translation has been more than conversion of a text from one language into other, it has been moving back and forth between the sacred and the academic worlds.

The hazards of translating the Sikh scripture into English are many and Nikki-Guninder Kaur is well aware of them. Some of these, as spelt out by her, are:

1. The vocabulary of the Guru Granth, which includes Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian terms, poses problems for an average translator. Decoding the poetry of Guru Gobind Singh, laced as it is with highly subtle and ornate metaphors and imagery, and replete with mythological allusions and linguistic innovations, is an even harder task.

2. The cultural differences make the job of translation a complex one. In spite of the Indo-European linguistic connections, there are some intrinsic differences between the East and the West. Translation of Sikh poetry into English meets with some basic problems, for example, in the Sikh worldview, emotion and thoughts are not bifurcated and we often hear the Sikh Gurus saying ‘we think with our hearts’. Now, how do we translate it without deviating from the original or sounding incomprehensible in English?

3. Although the Sikh Gurus abundantly use words such as Rama, Gobind, Hari Narayan, Raghunath, these are not representative of Hindu avatars, they are poetic appellations for the Divine. A translator not familiar with Sikh thought might misinterpret these and import erroneous connotations.

4. The greatest challenge by far is to reveal the aesthetic dimensions of Sikh literature. The poetry of love and devotion is to be approached with reverent wonder, it cannot be pried into with mere intellect. In keeping with the message of the Sikh Gurus, their poetry has to be savoured. Taste is a difficult sense to transmit from one tongue to another.

In the face of all these impediments it is a valiant attempt Nikki-Guninder Kaur has made. Her rendering is highly readable. Excepting Macauliffe, Dr. Swami Rama and Khushwant Singh, and her own father, it cannot be said of any other translator of Gurubani. Where she fails is when she becomes too much of a slave of the original text. An instance:

Thought cannot think,
Nor can a million thoughts.
Silence cannot silence,
Nor can seamless contemplation.

This spring The Name of My Beloved, the first contemporary English translation of the cental Sikh scriptures has been published by Harper Collins in the series of the International Sacred Literature Trust (ISLT). The book meets a pressing need for the increasing number of Engligh-speaking Sikhs. For them, and for many people who only know Sikhism as turbans and strife in the Punjab, this ground-breaking translation communicates the Sikh Gurus’ vivid style and radical, open-hearted spirituality. It reveals that, perhaps more than any other faith, Sikhism is a call to all faiths and to none, a reminder that spiritual experience belongs to all people, comes from within, takes many forms, and ultimately is beyond dress, culture, language and thought.

The collection begins with the poetry of Guru Nanak, one of the greatest singer-saints of India. His poetry, and that of the Gurus who succeded him, are the living heart of Sikhism, chanted daily and at key points in the life of the community and of each individual. They are at once, celebrations, love songs and worship of the Divine Being who pervades the whole of Creation.

(Extract from jacket)

Sikhism is of relatively recent origin vis-a-vis other major religions of the world. Howerver, the original sources of Sikh history are hagiographical and poetic in nature, and are thus loaded heavily  with symbolism, imagery and other literary embellishments. What makes a historians’s task of sifting fact from fiction, myth and legend from history is the weakness of the authors of such chronicles for the strange and the miraculous. To circumvent such elements so as to keep close to the fact of history is rather difficult task and Major Gurmukh Singh deserves commendation for following a fairly rationalistic approach.

Sikhism is a practical religion - a dynamic, vibrant force, conscious of its sovereign nature, proud of its heritage and sure of its identity (p. 30). Beginning with Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, the Sikh Gurus travelled far and wide communicating the Divine message as revealed unto them. The sangats of followers came into being wherever they went, dharamsalas (forerunner of the gurdwara) were also set up where these sangats used to meet together to recite and reflect on the Gurus’ bani, and langar  was an essential appendage to the dharamsala.

The Dharamsalas, lit. The abode of dharma, were first established by the sangat during the lifetime of Guru Nanak where the sangat used to assemble for congregational prayer. Many more such edifices subsequently came into being at places sanctified by the Gurus. By the time of Guru Hargobind, several of these dharamsalas had copies of Adi Granth (pothi) compiled by Guru Arjan installed in them, and the dharamsala where the pothi was placed, therefore, began to be considered and called the Guru’s abode, Gurdwara (p. 44). Besides these gurdwaras at places visited by the Gurus which have come to be treated as pilgrimage centres, though the Gurus had explicitly stated that pilgrimage possessed no special merit in God-realization, there are also gurdwaras at each and every place where a sizeable Sikh population resides.

Most of the early Sikh chronicles give fairly detailed accounts of the travels of the Gurus - the janamsakhis, gurbilas, etc. However, it was only in the later part of the nineteenth century that scholars like Tara Singh Noratam (Gur Tirath Sangrahi, 1884), Giani Thakur Singh (Sri Gurdware Darshan) and Giani Gian Singh took up the stupendous task of visiting all those places sanctified by the Gurus and preparing a catalogue of historical Sikh shrines. All these works were in Punjabi and are not these days easily available in the market as no subsequent editions were brought out.

The book under review, meets the requirement of the scholars as well as of the faithfuls, especially those not familiar with Punjabi language. The book is a vastly improved work, in terms of information provided and methodology used, than all the predecessors on the subject insofar as it includes some gurdwaras not mentioned in the earlier works on the subject and it gives a region-wise detail of the sacred places. In the earlier works, the shrines were listed under respective Gurus as a result of which the pilgrim/visitor to a historical shrine could never be sure of the existence of another such shrine, in the neighbourhood, sacred to the memory of  Gurus. Major Gurmukh Singh clubs all historical Sikh shrines in one town together even though these shrines are connected with the visits of different Gurus. Thus Part-II of the book comprises accounts of gurdwaras in foreign lands such as Pakistan, Iraq (Baghdad), Afghanistan (Kabul and Jalalabad), and Bangla Desh (Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylkot), and Part III of those in different states in India. Part I of the book, a kind of prolegomena, is a crowning glory wherein the author in an encyclopaedic style gives a synopsis of Sikhism, meaning and importance of Guru in Sikhism, and the concept and history of gurdwara.

Each account of the gurdwara sums up, besides giving the geographical location of the town where it is located, the tradition that sanctifies the place. Effort has been made to date the Gurus’ visit to such places wherever possible. History of the shrines comprises information on when the first building was raised, subsequent changes, the present structure and its present management. The details of the present architectural structure and location are trustworthy as he has personally visited almost all the gurdwaras included in the book. Maps given at the end could be of great help to the prospective visitor to these shrines.

The book is well written and elegantly produced: printing and get-up aesthetically pleasing. It will be of much value to the students and scholars of history as well as to the lay pilgrims.

The history of the Sikh religion has been told in 50 colourful paintings in a new book published as part of Vaisakhi celebrations in Singapore.

Episodes from Sikh History illustrates events from the lives of the Sikh Gurus, including Guru Nanak, the founder of the religion who lived from 1469 to 1539.

A total of 4,000 copies have been printed at a cost of $ 22,000 donated by well-wishers from the 18,000-strong community and the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, the Sikh Gurdwara on Wilkie Road.

Dr Wong Kwei Cheong, MP for Kampong Glam GRC launched the book, to be sold at $ 5 per copy, as part of celebrations at the Sri Guru Singh Sabha temple.

The launch ceremony also marked the opening of the Guru Nanak Devji Library with its collection of religious material, at Sri Guru Singh Sabha.

The paintings in Episodes from Sikh History were done by India’s Davinder Singh, Mr Surjan Singh, a retired senior teacher, wrote the text. Retired Supreme Court judge Choor Singh, in a foreword to the book, describes it as a "rarity" in many ways: "It gives prominence to events in Sikh religious history, known as sakhis (stories from the lives of the Gurus), which are illustrated and consequently of great educational value," he says.

He notes that the author’s aim was to spread the knowledge of authentic Sikh doctrines and to provide a standard measure of Sikh values. Some portraits from the community’s political history have also been included.

Author Surjan Singh notes in his preface that many young Sikhs find it difficult to understand the history and ideals of their religion because they are not familiar with the stories of the Sikh Gurus which depict chivalry, valour and sacrifice.

There are at present 50 paintings, mainly in the dining hall of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, depicting the lives of the Gurus, among other things. "A picture or a painting may tell a thousand words, but these thousand words, need to be understood and the message clearly grasped," says Mr Surjan Singh.

He believes that a child brought up in true Sikh tradition will be in a better position to deal with his problems than one who is not - he is more likely to keep away from drugs, cigarettes and alcohol abuse.

S. Param Ajeet Singh Bal, chairman of the Vaisakhi Celebrations Organising Committee, said the book would not only give an insight into Sikhism to members of the community, but also to other races in Singapore.

As Vaisakhi marks the welcoming spring and the harvesting of winter crops in North India, it is a time of merry-making. The occasion has acquired a special significance for the Sikhs since Guru Gobind Singhji, the last of 10 Sikh Gurus, established the Khalsa, or the community of the Pure, on March 30, 1699 at Anandpur in Punjab. Eighty thousand Sikhs turned up for the Vaisakhi festival that day. Five people who volunteered to be sacrificed were later found to be alive and well. Guru Gobind announced that these panj pyare (five loved ones) would be the nucleus of a new community, the Khalsa.

Since then, Sikh men take the common surname of Singh (lion) while the women take the surname of Kaur (princess).

Guru Gobind made it compulsory for baptised Sikhs to observe the "Five Ks": kesh, Kanga, Kara, Kachaehra and Kirpan. He also forbade them to smoke or chew tobacco, drink alcohol, or eat meat unless it was of an animal killed with one blow and not bled to death slowly. Sikhs were also told to respect women.

[Courtesy : The Straits Times, Singapore]

"Due to the above publicity given in the Press the book was very well received by the Sikh community and by other races. I was very glad that a Filipino maid came to the Gurdwara to purchase a copy. I suppose her employer must be a Sikh. Besides, there were a few Chinese gentlemen who bought the book and pressed me for my autograph. I was most happy when the Secretary of the Gurdwara told me that a European lady having read the statement in the Press wanted to become a Sikh."

 (Extract from Master Surjan Singh’s letter)