The nation celebrated 400th birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru of Sikhism on April 21. A spiritual descendant of Guru Nanak, he laid down his life for the sake of human rights and freedom of religion. However, what is happening in India for the last eight years is exact anti-thesis of what Guru Tegh Bahadur stood for. The human rights and religious rights of minorities, especially the Muslims, are being trampled upon on a daily basis with those at the helm of affairs just looking the other way and maintaining stoic silence.
Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking at the 400th birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur on April 21, was right when he said that religious fanaticism and violence perpetrated by Mughals could not deter Indians from their faith. He was referring to the execution of the ninth Sikh Guru on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1675. While the order for execution was issued from inside the Red Fort from where Modi delivered his speech, the Sikh Guru was executed at almost the same place where the Gurudwara Sis Ganj stands today in Chandni Chowk, opposite the Red Fort.
Historians give two reasons for the execution of Guru Teg Bahadur, who was the ninth spiritual descendant of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak.
One reason assigned to execution is that Guru Tegh Bahadur fought the Mughals against their bid to convert Kashmiri pandits to Islam.
The other reason offered is that the spiritual descendants of Guru Nanak had acquired lot of political influence and military power and hence, posed a serious challenge to petty kingdoms under the Mughal empire in Punjab region. Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak was mainly apolitical.
The gurus commanding huge following among the masses had indirectly posed a direct challenge to the might of the Mughal power in Delhi. That is why the Mughals suppressed them and that ultimately resulted in execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur.
If both the accounts offered by the historians in the sub-continent are accepted as truth, then what is the legacy or heritage left to us by the ninth Sikh guru? While we remember Guru Tegh Bahadur today, do we really also follow his legacy?
If we accept that he was assassinated because he defended the religious freedom of Kashmiri Pandits, it means that the Sikh guru stood for religious freedom and he wanted everyone to be guaranteed the freedom to believe in his religion. So, he gifted a new value system to the world four and a half centuries ago that gave every individual a fundamental right to follow and practice a religion of one’s choice and the rulers had no authority to impose their own will on others. Guru Tegh Bahadur, while defending the Kashmiri Pandits, did not ask them to follow his (Sikh) religion. He allowed them to practice their own faith. Even if the Christians would have approached him, the Guru would have defended their religious rights as well. So, according to the legacy of Guru Tegh Bahadur, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians or people of any faith have the right to have belief in their own religion and practice them also. And snatching or curbing the right of religious freedom from any religious group, whether minority or majority, amounts to violation of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s teachings.
Do the contemporary rulers in India or the party in power at the Centre believe in the legacy of religious freedom left by Guru Tegh Bahadur? A discussion about this question is important because the country today is facing the worst crisis in the last 75 years of its history after it became independent from the British. And this crisis owes its genesis to religion. Entire India from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and from Gujarat to Assam and Tripura in northeast has been communalized in the last eight years, targeting Muslims with the state government and police either looking the other away or having direct or indirect connivance with the hate propaganda against Muslims. After BJP acquired political power at the Centre, first lynch mobs attacked Muslims on pretext of cow slaughter, selling and consuming beef. Then came the attack on wearing of Hijab by Muslim women, followed by protest against sale of Halal meat. Giving of ‘Azaan’ from mosques is also being objected to. And now the Muslims are being terrorized by taking out Ram Navami and Hanuman yatras in towns, cities and villages. The yatras would deliberately stop in front of mosques, miscreants from the yatra would shout slogans offensive to Islam and Muslims. If Muslims refuse to get provoked even by abusive slogans, the miscreants would enter the mosque and try to unfurl ‘Bhagwa’ (saffron) flags on the mosque. The participants in the yatras are accompanied with swords, and sharp-edged weapons, raise slogans to teach Muslims a lesson and physically eliminate them. If Muslims resist to the harassment, they are victimized by the police by registering serious criminal cases against them, holding them responsible for the violence. If Muslims use stones to defend themselves from attacks by miscreants from the yatra or the procession, their houses are bulldozed as happened in Khargone in MP, Khambhat and other places in Gujarat and Jahangirpuri in the national capital of Delhi. The police in India seem to have taken a leaf out of their Israeli counterparts who harass and intimidate Palestinian Muslims in almost a similar fashion. Muslims on a daily basis are threatened that they will have to recite “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram” if they want to live in India. So-called religious leaders like Yati Narasinghanand from UP and a Mahant Dhirendra Shastri from MP give a call for genocide against Muslims but no action is initiated against them by the police and administration. Narasinghanand was arrested after a lot of hue and cry but only trivial charges were levied that enabled him to secure bail from the court.
While all this happens, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been elected as chief executive and conscience-keeper of the country, remains a mute spectator. While he admired the teachings of Guru Tegh Bahadur from the premises of Red Fort, everything in India under him at present is happening against what Guru Tegh Bahadur stood for.
Modi’s programme at Red Fort was a “drama”: author & journalist Chanchal Manohar Singh
Author and journalist Chanchal Manohar Singh (editor of bloggerCMSingh.com and amritprasar.com on youtube), reacting to Modi’s comments, says, “BJP does not believe in the ideology of Guru Tech Bahadur. This is quite apparent from the humiliation of Muslims on a daily basis all over the country. And PM Modi remains silent. The ninth Sikh Guru gave his life defending the human rights of the people, not only Kashmiri Hindus. He would have stood even for Christians if they would have sought his support for defending their human rights.”
Singh says that the event at Red Fort on April 21 was Modi’s and BJP’s “political drama” because they have no belief in the teachings of the Sikh gurus. “BJP was in power at the Centre for five years with Atal Bihari as prime minister. BJP is again in power at the Centre for the last eight years with Modi as PM, but there is not a single chapter on Guru Tegh Bahadur in NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training) books taught in CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education)-affiliated schools all over the country.”
Singh also questioned Modi celebrating the birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur only. Why did he not hold similar programmes on the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak or other Sikh Gurus? “The basic idea of the BJP is to create wedge between communities,” replies Singh.
Sikh leaders foiled BJP’s bid to install life-size statue of Guru Tegh Bahadur in Delhi
He says that BJP a few years ago tried to install a life-size statue of Guru Tegh Bahadur in Delhi. However, it was strongly opposed by Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (DGPC) and other Sikh leaders. The BJP-led central government then withdrew the plan. The statue is said to be stored in a central government warehouse.
“There is no idol-worship in Sikhism. What then motivated BJP to go for installation of a statue of a Sikh Guru and, that too, in national capital?.” Singh says that BJP does not have any icon to present it before the people. “So, the party first appropriated Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel from the Congress and built his life size statue in Gujarat. Now, they tried to appropriate Guru Tegh Bahadur as their own by making a bid to install his statue in Delhi. But BJP did not succeed because of stiff opposition from Sikh leaders since the proposal was in direct contravention to the basic tenets of Sikh religion believing in one shapeless, formless God.”
CM, who lives in Chandigarh, says Hindus and Sikhs did not support BJP in the recently concluded assembly elections because of wrong policies of the party and its leaders.
Bid to change Punjab’s demography
Reports coming from Punjab say that BJP and RSS are trying to change demography of the state by bringing Hindus from Bihar and East UP and settling them in different parts of the state. This has generated lot of concern among the local Sikh population.
Punjab-based social activists say that Hindu outfits have also launched a campaign against Muslims who have migrated from other parts of the country and settled in Punjab. Muslims found Punjab a peaceful place for themselves because the Sikh community has no distrust against them.
