@ A paper presented at the National Seminar on Guru Gobind Singh: The Great Integrator of Humanity, under auspices of. The Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi on October 22 - 23, 1999.

In the so-called post- modernist age, scholars of culture studies are inclined to probe into the indigenous models of community living and self-governance in place of the modernist universal, if not totalitarian patterns of ruling and disciplining. Indian civilization is such a vast phenomenon of continental proportions that in various historical phases and spatial dimensions it has given birth to multifarious autonomous articulations and formulations of social alternatives. The creation of the Khalsa on the Vaisakhi day of 1699 by the Tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh was one such attempt delineating a social ideal, alternative to the prevailing ones. The present paper is a search to identify the realities and potentialities of the Khalsa order towards formulating a social alternative especially in its immediate Indian context.

THE CONTEXT: Unfortunately, our present knowledge and search for social alternative in Indian history are not adequate to the needs of our time. Social scientists and culturologists have not yet explored this area in all its depth and breadth despite the common acceptance that there must be enormous scope and possibilities for such research.1 The alternative social patterns in history are rarely in the modern realistic language and idiom that we often become insensitive to identify them in their own. However, the general background in which the search for alternatives is supposed to be conducted seems to be the varna-caste system. Without going into the details of the system we assume that it is historically the longest social pattern prevailing in Indian history, with varying local versions.

Perhaps the earliest attempt for an alternative, possibly, at the emerging period of the varna-caste system, is identifiable in Buddhism, an east-Indian social vision putting a lot of stress on the egalitarian, inter-related, communitarian possibilities of social living. Some scholars have indicated that Buddhism has inherited this spirit from its tribal past. It is equally true that the Buddhist social proposal contained many Utopian overtones and it was unable to guarantee adequate dynamism to its social system. It was a kind of monastic socialism in ancient India.2

The next major attempt, rather a series of attempts, alternating the castes with devotional communities we find in the medieval Bhakti traditions all over India. The Bhakti too was not an unitary movement, but was a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon specifying the regional identities of their own. From the South Indian background I can say that there were some real attempts to form unified religious communities of Bhaktas of Siva or Vishnu, called Adiyar Kulam or Thondar Kulam. The word ‘Kulam’ stood for the attempted new configuration of devotees transcending the primordial caste affinities. There was an open cry for "Give and Take" of brides (Kolzhmin! Kodumin!), a conscious call to go against the established endogamic marriage patterns of the caste society. Bhakti in South India, at the initial stages, was dominantly a non-brahmanic movement, if we look at the caste composition of the Nayanmar and Alwar saints of the Saivite and Vaisnavite brands.3 The Bhakti of the South also consolidated its regional identity, keeping itself out of the Sanskritic fold, even decentering the latter, declaring the regional languages as sacred, thus exploring a space for their own spiritual seekings. To quote an interesting theme, a Tamil poet declared that Bhakti is expressible only in "Wet Tamil", implying that his devotional songs are wet with the saliva of his mouth.4 This expression is to be understood against the status of Sanskrit as apaurushya and sruti (unspoken but heard).

We know that Bhakti could not develop itself into a full-fledged social movement and restricted itself within the religious realm. In its later phases, Bhakti even turned into its opposite, spreading the caste-feudal relations towards the remotest areas of the country.5

The third, in our order of narration, is the Islamic social theories and practice. K. A. Nizami, a noted author of medieval Indian history describes that the Islamic conception of society is the most egalitarian and dynamic in the entire medieval world.6 It is true that during the Islamic rule in India, it contributed substantially to the vertical and horizontal mobilization of people of manual works. However, the great encounter of Hinduism and Islam in India also involved a lot of violence, destruction and religio-political aggressiveness.7

Karta and karim are the same, Razak and Rahim are the same, Let no man even by mistake suppose there is a difference.8

The more important aspect of Guru Gobind Singh is that he does not stop with theoretically formulating and expressing his concept universalism but he goes on for concretising of the universalistic principle. Did not his master once note - "Truth is the highest; But Truthful Living is Still Higher!" Guru Gobind Singh moves forward to the practice of the universalism he preaches. This is the process of socialisation of the principles universals preached by the Guru. It is in this process of concretisation - or socialisation - of the universalism that Guru Gobind Singh conceives the idea of Khalsa, which repudiates the caste society and represents an unified nation of people. Guru Gobind Singh identifies that the division - and the hierarchy - are the factors which work against the unity and integration of the people. The Guru renders uniformal external appearance to all his followers (the panja kakas) to make them one. Let us remember how caste system rendered different visual appearances to different people to maintain the distinctions intact.9 The same with the caste appellations to the names of the people. The Guru abolished the caste surnames and called them uniformally, "Singh" and "Kaur". The social composition of the First Beloveds (Panj Pyare) too evidences that the Guru stood for an organisation of the oppressed, a broad alliance of all the oppressed.

The two strategies of Guru Gobind Singh for social unity could be compared to what in modern Indian Sociology is called the process of Sanskritisation (M. N. Srinivas)10 which is said to be the popular methodology for social upwardisation in Indian history. The Khalsa formation and the strategies the Guru adopted were clear cases of an alternative way for a people to achieve its identity.

There is a thick coloration of Humanism in the ideals and pattern of the Khalsa formation. The Khalsa formation did not leave the problems of world and man be resolved in the symbolic - or psychological - realms, as is expected from a religious organisation. The Khalsa endows its members with enormous rights and responsibilities to meet the problems of earthly problems then and there. This is how Hari Ram Gupta, a historian of Punjab evaluates the role of Guru Gobind Singh "Guru Gobind Singh aimed at regenerating a decaying people. He endeavoured to create a new nation. He planned to lay the foundation of a new society based upon justice and freedom of conscience. He designed to promulgate the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity."11

The Khalsa conscientises the Man and elevates him to a conscious level. It makes known the rights to which a man is entitled. The Khalsa makes the man aware of oppression to which he is exposed for ages. The Khalsa energises the human beings to honest labour and dignified living. The Kirpan, a Khalsa Sikh wears renders him a tremendous power of self-dignity and self-respect.12