During my tenure at All India Radio Ranchi, I had a Gujarati friend, an engineer in the Extension Department. He claimed no faith in the Divine Entity. I listened to him but never entered into an argument with him. Every time he had an opportunity, he would have something new to support his disbelief. At times, he would laugh at me. He wondered, how in this age and day, a progressive writer, highly educated and enlightened, could continue to subscribe to the faith of his father, his father’s father, his father’s father’s father.

Once it so happened that he was travelling with his young son from Calcutta to Ranchi by train. As ill-luck would have it, the train running at the top speed derailed at a sharp curve and plunged into a ditch at the dead of night. A virtual hell was let loose; shrieking and screaming, wailing and howling. He didn’t know for how long he lay unconscious. When he regained his senses in the calamitous darkness with the dead around and the wounded crying for help, he folded his hands and solicited, "Lord! if I can find my son, I will be your slave for the rest of my life." And as these words came to his lips, there was the cry of his young child – "papa," from down the boulder on which he lay. Hundreds were killed, many more were wounded. My friend and his son arrived home the next day without a scratch. The first thing he came and narrated to me was the fact of his discovery.

Another happening: Serving on the Editorial Board of the Lotus, an organ of The Afro-Asian Writers Association, I had to visit Moscow frequently. My interpreter Tania, a confirmed Communist couldn’t believe that with all my progressive writing, I said my prayers regularly. My telling her that, as a Sikh, my Guru believed that one should labour hard and share one’s earning with others, is the essence of Socialism by which she swore, she wouldn’t understand. God and religion were, as if, an anathema for her. Every time she had an opportunity, she would try to argue with me, ridiculing faith in anything excepting what Marx and Engel had "revealed". Temperamentally non-argumentative, I listened patiently and would seldom refute her. I used only to tell her that if my faith made me a better man than many confirmed Communists I saw around, what was wrong with it? And yet I could never convince her.

Once she took me to visit one of their ancient monasteries outside Moscow, a huge complex which housed a seminary and a grand church with splendid icons. It was Sunday. There were hundreds of devotees. As we entered the sanctum-sanctorum, there was something in the atmosphere that, for a split second, my eyes closed and my hands were folded. Opening my eyes, I looked around. Tania was nowhere. Where could have she disappeared? And then I spotted her with a candle in her hand going along with the rest of the devotees offering her obeisance to the Icon.

A Punjabi poet has said:

We may not believe in the Lord;

But what do we do with the void in the heart?

A leading progressive writer, one of the founders of Progressive Writers’ Movement in India and a confirmed leftist who had been jailed several times during the freedom struggle, would carry a volume of Hafiz, the celebrated Persian poet every time he came to Delhi and stayed with us. "It seems it is the only classic which has caught your fancy," once my curiosity had the better of me and I asked. "I carry it as my constant guide," he explained. "How?" I was intrigued. Reading a book once or twice at best should do. One has to read so much around. Finding me unconvinced, my non-believer friend who swore by Marx explained, "Every time I am in a dilemma, I know not my mind, I open Hafiz at random and read the verse which catches my eye and, believe it or not, I find what is said in it is a clear signal for what I am going to do. It serves as my guide." "But this is exactly what we the Sikhs do every morning," I butted in, "we read a Shabad from the Holy Granth opened at random and treat it as a signpost for the day."

I found that my senior colleague didn’t wish to continue with the argument. We started talking of something else.

God Is. Though, perhaps not as commonly visualised – a saintly, grey-haired sage, with inebriated eyes, beaming face, halo around His head; a regal monarch sitting on a majestic throne; a master-craftsman; a savant exuding wisdom; a mystic lost in trance, and so on. God is a concept. He is Just. He is Love. He is Compassion. He is Truth. He is Working-Hard-Earning-Enjoying-And-Sharing.

‘An initiation ceremony involving the use of a sword was instituted; initiants were to keep their hair uncut; weapons were to be worn as a matter of course; smoking the hookah was forbidden; and many (though not necessarily all) who thus entered the Khalsa adopted the name ‘Singh’.’ (W.H. McLeod).

Sikhism was not the state religion during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule. The Maharaja’s regime was essentially secular, with patronage evenly distributed amongst the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. His prime minister was a Hindu Dogra, his foreign and interior ministers were Muslims.

The Britisher colonial rulers who found it politically wise to maintain and foster the sense of identity amongst the Sikh soldiers for reasons of their valorous tradition.

Then came Christian missionaries and the Arya Samaj. In order to meet new challenges, the Singh Sabha Movement was launched towards the close of the nineteenth century. It was a reformist movement which laid stress on the distinctive Sikh identity. The process continued in one form or another until 1950 when a statement of the Sikh Rahat Maryada (the Sikh way of Life) was adopted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the statutory Sikh Council. It defined a Sikh as follows:

A Sikh is any person who believes in Akal Purakh; in the Ten Gurus (Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh); in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, other writings of the Ten Gurus, and their teachings; in the Khalsa initiation ceremony instituted by the Tenth Guru; and who does not believe in any other system of religious doctrine.

The Sikhs were conceived as a political entity, there is no doubt about it. As much as the soul, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, appears to be preoccupied with the socio-economic plight of his people. His first utterance after his enlightenment was – there is no Hindu; there is no Musalman. (All are human beings.) His other exhortations were: you must work had and share your earnings with others. And a life of action is superior to a life of mere contemplation.

Commenting upon his times, Guru Nanak said:

Kaliyug is a dagger,

Kings are butchers, Dharma has taken wings

And disappeared.

In the dark night of falsehood

The Moon of truth is nowhere to be seen.

Agonized by atrocities perpetrated by the intruders on his countrymen at the time of Babar’s attack, Guru Nanak was fearless enough to remark:

The dogs have ravaged the gem of a country.

When they die, none will ever remember them.

Guru Nanak calls India ‘ Hindustan’ for the first time and goes on to say:

Khurasan Khasmana Kiya, Hindustan daraya

[ He has occupied Khurasan and subdued Hindustan.]

He was equally harsh on the administration:

There is none who receives or gives not bribe:

Even the King administers justice

When his palm is greased.

Chased by Sher Shah Suri, Humayun came to Guru Angad Dev, the second Sikh Guru, asking for help.

Guru Amar Das, the third Sikh Guru, was visited by Akbar who was deeply impressed with what he witnessed and offered a tract of land to the Guru’s daughter Bibi Bhani, as a wedding gift, since the Guru would not accept State patronage as such. Akbar again visited Guru Arjun Dev, the fifth Sikh Guru, and as recorded by Abul Fazal, the prime minister and court historian, the King was fascinated by the Guru’s ‘handsome appearance, charming manners and princely style of living.’ At the Guru’s request, the sovereign reduced to one-sixth the revenue of the pargana because of the famine conditions prevailing at the time.

However the relations of the Sikh community with the State deteriorated soon after Akbar departed from the scene. Jahangir had Guru Arjan tortured to martyrdom because the Guru had blessed Jahangir’s son Khusro, an offspring of Jodha Bai who had come to seek his help and also because he would not carry out the suggested modification in the Holy Granth.

As a result Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru, who was called ‘Sacha Padshah’ (The True King), assumed the mantle of ‘Miri and Piri, Shakti and Bhakti, Deg and Teg, one symbolized the temporal power and the other spiritual power, one to smite the oppressor and the other to protect the innocent.’ According to Hari Ram Gupta, the renowned historian, Guru Hargobind emerged as ‘a saint’ a sportsman and a soldier and proved himself the first national hero of the people of Punjab in 600 years since the conquest of Punjab by the Mughals.’

Guru Hargobind and the four Gurus following him, maintained a regular army, built forts and fought 14 battles with the Mughals and vanquished the Imperial forces 12 times.

The Sikh Gurus were spiritual leaders alright but they were equally involved in social change. Guru Nanak, the founder, discarded meaningless rituals and ceremonials. Guru Angad, the second Guru, laid stress on children’s education. Guru Amar Das raised his powerful voice against the obnoxious practice of Sati, and so on. They laid foundation-stones of new townships. We owe Kartarpur to Guru Nanak, Khadur Saheb to Guru Angad, Goindwal to Guru Amar Das, Amritsar to Guru Ram Das, Tarn Tarn to Guru Arjan Dev, and Kiratpur to Guru Hargobind. Anandpur Saheb was founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur and developed by Guru Gobind Singh.

Guru Nanak had refused to wear the sacred thread as a mere ritual, Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, gave his life to safeguard the Hindu’s right to wear the sacred thread which the ruler of the day would not permit.

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, corresponded with Aurangseb, the ruler of the day. In Zafar Nama, his famous epistle to the King, he did some plain-speaking which was unheard of in those times:

When all other means fail,

It is fair to take to sword.

Guru Hargobind instituted Akal Takht, a temporal seat as distinguished from Harimandir Saheb, the sanctum sactorum of the Sikhs. In due course Sarbat Khalsa, assembly of the representatives of the Sikh people, came to be held here when important issues involving the community were discussed and decisions taken by what was called Gurmatta. Thus Akal Takht, Sarbat Khalsa and Gurmatta came to be recognised as symbols of the Sikh polity.

In Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh people found the redemption of their cherished dream. A heroic people, they were the last to lay down arms before the British and were the first to raise them under Guru Ram Singh, the founder of the Namdhari Movement. The Sikh’s contribution to the freedom struggle is unequalled. According to the contemporary chroniclers, out of the 181 freedom fighters hanged by the Britishers 93 were Sikhs, out of 2646 patriots exiled to Kalapani (Andaman Island) 2147 were Sikhs and out of 1202 people shot in Jallianwala Bagh 799 were Sikhs.

The Sikh concept is that of a welfare state. It is called Halemi Raj, a state in which truth forms the basis of spiritual as well as temporal activity. However, the establishment of Sikh Raj is found in the Sikh historical writings alone; there is no reference to it in the Holy Granth, the Sikh Bible. The Sikh Panth does have a tradition of combining Miri and Piri, amalgamating spiritual and temporal entities, but the vital issue is that of priority. When it is a temporal issue, the spiritual considerations are subdued and vice versa. The relation between spiritual and temporal is organic, not mechanical. The Sikh concept is not that of a theocratic state. There is no such thing as Sacred Laws and the Order of Priesthood. The establishment of the Khalsa Panth by Guru Gobind Singh was not designed to institute a communal outfit; instead it was all-pervading, a religious, social and political brotherhood, more importantly, giving an opportunity to the down-trodden and oppressed to find an expression. The Sikh concept of the state is the marriage of Divine Truth with Humanism.

Some time ago when Sardar Surjit Singh Barnala (currently Governor, Tamil Nadu) capitulated to the authority of the Akal Takht and submitted himself to undertake penance, it invited a great deal of criticism from various quarters. A True Sikh doesn’t find anything wrong with it. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Master Tara Singh, Sant Fateh Singh and a number of other leading Sikhs have been offering penance for their so-called lapses in the eyes of the community.

As a monarch, exercising absolute power, Ranjit Singh did submit himself to the resolution of the Sarbat Khalsa. It is said that when the Maharaja decided to marry Gulbahar Begum, a Muslim courtesan of Amritsar, he was advised by the clergy to have her converted to Sikhism to escape the wrath of the Sarbat Khalsa. ‘But it is I who want to marry her, not she,’ the Maharaja retorted, and had his way. Predictably, the Sarbat Khalsa censured the reigning monarch and the punishment to be inflicted was a certain number of lashes to be given on his bare back by Akali Phoola Singh, the chief of the Akal Takht. It is maintained that the Maharaja dutifully submitted to it but before the injunction was actually executed, better counsel prevailed and the punishment was converted to a substantial fine in cash.

Nevertheless, when it came to interfering with state affairs, the Maharaja would have none of it. A glaring instance of this was provided when the Maratha ruler Holkar, chased by Lord Lake of the East India Company, sought refuge in the territory under Ranjit Singh. The Sarbat Khalsa passed a resolution directing the Sikh monarch to provide protection to the fugitive Hindu ruler, as consistent with the Sikh tradition. However, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, knowing that he was not yet prepared to challenge the British soldiery, ignored the Sarbat Khalsa verdict. When pressed by Akal Takht authority, he abolished the Sarbat Khalsa institution and replaced it by a supreme command known as ‘The Pillars of Kingdom,’ in which he had, in addition to the Sikh high priests, Hindu and Muslim dignitaries also to serve as full-fledged panelists. In this way the astute ruler ‘formally effected a divorce between spiritual and temporal affairs’. Among his pillars of Kingdom were Dhian Singh Dogra, a Hindu who was his Prime Minister and Fakir Azizuddin, a Muslim who was his Foreign Minister.

It is desirable that politics is distanced from religion. The Sikhs find this irksome because of their being a minority community with limitation of talent. Also because the Sikh tradition goes back to Guru Nanak’s time, who is said to have admonished Babar and Guru Gobind Singh who waged a life-long holy war against unjust Mughal rule.

Who would not like to cherish such a faith? Sikhism is no doubt the youngest, most modern and most scientific of the world’s great religions.

Following such a religion, I am an ardent believer in the essential postulates of the Sikh faith. These being, as stated earlier – Justice, Love, Compassion, truth and Working Hard – Earning – Enjoying and Sharing. I stand testimony to them: