The Mughals and the Sikhs
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
Conceived as a doctrine of living devotion to One God or The Truth (Sat), and as a movement for spreading love and peace, the Sikh religion later turned into a martial creed. Guru Nanak's successors started acting like worldly chiefs, which resulted in a radical transformation of this sect into a militant community.
During the seventeenth century, the gurus entered into the Mughal politics and unfortunately found themselves in opposition. This politics then smacked of a religious strife although it was not so. Worthy of note is the political move that even on the eve of Partition the Muslim League had tried to woo the Sikhs to join hands with it and opt for Pakistan. Further, the post-partition riots in the Punjab, which seemed religious, had political undertones, i.e., the division of Punjab.
Since the founding of the Sikh faith in the early sixteenth century, this community had flourished in the Punjab, drawing its followers mostly from the hard working peasantry of Hindus and Muslims. Sikhism, as a nascent religion, had not made inroads in the court of Akbar and his Hall of Worship. The fourth Guru, Ram Das, had, however, served Akbar, who granted him lands between the rivers Sutlej and Ravi in the Punjab, not as the head of a religious movement but as a pious leader of a cult. On a piece of that land at Amritsar arose the great Harmandirgurudwara, which was to become the Sikh religion's sacred capital.
During the ill-fated revolt of 1605, Prince Khsrow had a brief encounter with the fifth Guru, Arjun, at Gobindwal in Punjab. For Jahangir, Guru Arjun had erred by offering his blessings to the rebel prince and putting a saffron mark on his brow. Already Jahangir had seemed not to be happy with this religious figure. In his memoir, Tuzuk-i-Janhangiri, he makes the following observations:
"In Gobindwal, which is on the river Biyah (Beas), there was a Hindu named Arjun, in the garment of sainthood and sanctity, so much so that he had captivated many of the simple-hearted of the Hindus, and even of the ignorant and foolish followers of Islam, by his ways and manners, and they had loudly sounded the drum of holiness. They called him Guru and from all sides stupid people crowded to worship and manifest complete faith in him. For three or four generations (of spiritual successors) they had kept this shop warm". Jahangir did not know ofSikhism as a religion. This is why he referred to Guru Arjun as a Hindu, and for that matter, a heretic Hindu.
When the revolt failed, the king inflicted the pain of blinding his errant son in order to disqualify him permanently from the kingship. His associates from the court, Husain Beg and Abdul Aziz met their death by being enclosed in animal skins, and the 700 soldiers by being impaled alive on the stakes. Guru Arjun is said to have suffered a fate like others, but in the Sikh traditions there is hardly any reference to Arjun’s capital punishment. In the BachittarNatak, composed in the last decade of the seventeenth century, there is a reference to the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur, but nothing about the martyrdom of Guru Arjun. In fact, Jahangir converted the death penalty into a heavy fine of Rs. 200,000, which the Guru was unable to pay. Consequently, he was tortured in hot weather, which resulted in his death.
Arjun’s son, Hargobind (1595-1644), was now installed as the sixth Guru. He adopted a style bordering on royalty. He constructed a high platform opposite the Harmandirgurudwara and called it Akal Takht, ‘the immortal throne’. He built a fort called Lohgarah and held court as if he were a Raja. He wore two swords, one symbolizing his spiritual authority and the other his temporal power. He began to train his disciples in military style self-defense. Alarmed, Jahangir moved to quash this young Sikh leader’s pretensions. Hargobind was arrested for non-payment of his father's fine, and imprisoned in the state prison at Gwalior for two years (1609-1611). Eventually, satisfied with the justifications given by Guru Hargobind for his interests and activities, the emperor released him from prison. Upon his release, Hargobind shifted his household along with the institutions of Sikh religion from Amritsar to Kiratpur in the Himalayan foothills. Subsequently, he did not cause any trouble to the monarch, and so he remained unnoticed. During Shahjahan’s reign, however, the Guru came into conflict once again with the emperor and gave a tough fight to the Mughal army. The Guru died a peaceful death in 1644.
In Aurangzeb's time again a political misstep was taken by the seventh Guru, Hari Rai (1644-61). He and Dara Shikoh were friends. When Dara fled from Delhi during the war of succession, Hari Rai emerged from his mountain abode to meet him in Punjab, and offered him aid for his claim to the throne. In this political struggle, the Guru had again put the stake on the wrong horse. Once victorious, Aurangzeb only demanded of him to send his eldest son, Ram Rai, as a hostage to Delhi so that he did not indulge himself in rebellious activities in future. In the new company, the young Ram Rai was conditioned to the values and institutions of the Mughal court. He turned out to be a loyal follower of the emperor. His manner and conduct won him Mughal friendship. Aurangzeb gave him land in the Siawalik hills, later known as Dehradun. Naturally, therefore, he lost his father's support, and was bypassed for the Guru's gaddi. Shortly before his death in 1661, Hari Rai designated his younger son, HarKrishen, as the eighth Guru, although a faction of the Sikhs was supporting Ram Rai as the successor, who also had the blessings of Aurangzeb. For seeking the Emperor’s favor HarKrishen proceeded to Delhi, where he died of smallpox in 1664.
Hari Rai’s granduncle, Tegh Bahadur (1621–75), became the ninth guru. By accepting his nomination as Guru, Tegh Bahadur had given affront to Aurangzeb who had intended to arbitrate in the matter of succession. Even then, had the Guru stayed at the new center of Sikkhism, Makhowal, Aurangzeb might have ignored the affront. But he left Makhowal and for the next ten years spent his time vigorously in organizing and proselytizing throughout the Punjab and as far east as Bengal and Assam. While the emperor disliked such activities, the guru made a public demonstration of his convictions that if the emperor could use the power of the state in support of his policy, the Guru could rely on moral courage.
To quote here a couplet of the great Mirza Ghalib:
Aajwaantegh-o-kafanbandhayhuayjatahun main
Uzrmerayqatlkarnemein wo ab layengekia?
(Today, I go to him with a sword and a shroud,
What pretext now he has not to slay me?)
Guru Govind gave a life-like meaning to this couplet. Courting his own martyrdom, he nominated his son Gobind Rai as his successor in July 1675 and entered the Mughal territory of Ropar along with five companions. He was captured and was brought to Delhi. While the monarch was in Hasan Abdal (now in Pakistan), Tegh Bahadur was tried at the Qazi's court, convicted of blasphemy, sentenced to death, and executed in November, 1675. There was a widespread anger among the Sikhs. While Aurangzeb was returning from Jami mosque of Lahore in October 1676, two brickbats were thrown at him. The accused were handed over to the law enforcement authorities, but no reprisal was made against the community.
Gobind Rai (1666-1708) became the tenth Guru. He vowed to avenge his father’s murder. Generally, he was on the run but he was successful in forging his community into an “army of the pure” (Khalsa). He took his new surname as Singh or “lion”. This name was also adopted by his close associates. From this time onward, the Sikhs emerged as a close-knit community and a force of toughened fighters. The Guru believed that use of physical force in defense of the good was sanctified by God.
In the last days of Aurangzeb the Guru wrote an impassioned letter to him justifying his position on moral grounds. Aurangzeb, who was at that time in the Deccan, ordered the governor of Lahore, Mun’im Khan, to conciliate the Guru at all costs and to persuade him to meet the emperor personally. Conciliated, Guru Gobind Singh proceeded to meet the emperor. On his way, he heard in Rajasthsan the news of the death of the emperor. How satisfying it was for the Guru to outlive his hated rival, the monarch, by a year and a half! In the ensuing war of succession, Guru Gobind Singh supported the victorious Bahadur Shah. This time the Guru's political acumen had paid dividend. The bond of friendship between the two grew stronger and when the emperor marched to confront his brother Kam Baksh in the Deccan, Guru Gobind Singh was a member of the royal entourage.
Following Guru Gobind’s death in 1708, the Sikhs resumed militant action against the Mughals in the Punjab under the leadership of Banda Bahadur. Khushwat Singh quotes Kafi Khan in A History of the Sikhs, “For eight or nine months, and from two or three days march from Delhi to the environs of Lahore, all the towns and places of note were pillaged by these unclean wretches, and trodden under foot and destroyed. Men in countless numbers were slain, the whole country was wasted, and mosques and tombs were razed.” In 1715, Banda’s army had to surrender before the Mughal forces. Banda and his followers, numbering about 700, were brought to Delhi, where they were executed in 1716.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, the political vacuum that was created by the weakened Mughals was gradually filled in northern India by the Sikhs. The result was that a number of Sikh principalities arose between the Jamuna and Sindh rivers. In 1799, Ranjit Singh started a process of unification to establish an empire. In 1839,Ranjit Singh died. Within ten years of his death, the British took over his empire, as they did with the Mughals in 1857.
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