Reasoning with Faith

A landmark account of Sikhism that explores the historical circumstances which shaped the religion

Sikhism Hew Mcleod Yoda Press, 2010 Rs 350, 380 pages {{name}}
01 August, 2010

IN 1958, A 26-YEAR-OLD PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONARY left the shores of his native New Zealand, bound for the Punjab, accompanied by his wife and infant son. The missionary was Hew McLeod, and the journey that he embarked on was to profoundly alter the direction of his life. His ostensible purpose was to teach English at a Christian missionary school. However, a historian by training, he was soon drawn to the study of Sikhism. Teaching English fell by the wayside as McLeod delved deeply into the history and culture of the Punjab to the extent of learning Punjabi and completing a doctoral dissertation on the Sikhs under the tutelage of the famed AL Basham (best known to the general public for his historical book, The Wonder That Was India) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. The decision to study with AL Basham seems a curious (even dubious) one, for Basham, although a famed Indologist, did not know Punjabi nor was he an expert on Sikhism. But this choice is also revealing—for prior to McLeod there seems to have been no real place for Sikh Studies in academia. His passion proved to be an enduring one—he was a prolific scholar, with over 20 books and numerous essays to his name at the time of his death last year. The plethora of obituaries that mourned his passing testify to the degree of his influence—his work has ignited debate, raised challenging questions and been instrumental in encouraging a new generation of Sikh scholars.

Sikhism, first published in 1997 and reissued by Yoda Press this year, is intended for the layman. It is meant to be an accessible account of the history of Sikhism, and a survey of religious rituals, doctrines and society. The historical account is fascinating and well-written, raising many intriguing questions. But McLeod’s detailed survey of society and custom is, at times, tedious and overly meticulous—more suited to an academic work than an accessible introduction to Sikhism.

It is as a historian, first and foremost, that McLeod engages with Sikhism. Although his work reveals a cautious, considered approach, he never shies away from asking the ‘tough’ questions which measure religious myths and teachings against historical fact. It’s this approach which has sparked controversy, and it might be appropriate to note that McLeod isn’t unique in this regard. Many historians attempting a history of an Indian religion, most vociferously demonstrated in the case of Hinduism, attract the ire of the devout—those who perceive the conclusions and the questions raised by such a historical investigation as blasphemous.

One controversy, in McLeod’s case, arises from his treatment of the Janam Sakhis or ‘birth evidences’—collections of hagiographic anecdotes that serve as the basis for biographies on the life of Guru Nanak. The Janam Sakhis, he notes, have immeasurably shaped Sikh ideals and influenced the Sikh identity. But although of immense importance to the devout, they contain little historical fact. McLeod notes the inconsistencies between different Janam Sakhi traditions, and points out areas where historical fact contradicts the texts. He goes on to analyse the content, revealing similarities between anecdotes from the life of Guru Nanak and myths from other religious traditions. The one concerning Nanak’s travels to Multan, for instance, is borrowed from Sufi sources, according to McLeod.

However, McLeod dismisses the view that Sikhism is a syncretic mixture of Islam and Hinduism, and cautiously advances his own point of view—that Nanak, an original thinker with a clear, unified system of thought, was nonetheless influenced by the Bhakti tradition and the Kabir Panth. Nanak’s formless, abstract Akal Purakh, McLeod opines, is not absolutely alien from the Hindu concept of Nirgun: formlessness.

But this also points towards other contentious questions: to what extent is Nanak an original thinker—separate from preceding traditions such as Hinduism? And, consequently: How different are Hindus from Sikhs? These questions have been debated within the Sikh community, most notably, as McLeod points out, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries between the Sanatan Sikhs and the Tat Khalsa.

It’s a debate that the Tat Khalsa won. McLeod meticulously demonstrates that until the emergence of Guru Gobind Singh, and the establishment of the Khalsa order and the Rahit (the Khalsa code of belief and conduct), Hindus and Sikhs were not as distinct as they are today. But now, notes McLeod, the Sikh anth has “been fashioned in accordance with the Khalsa principles of the Tat Khalsa reformers. Their victory has not been complete, but it has nevertheless given to Sikhism the distinctive impress of their exclusivist Khalsa message.” (p. 79)

In an article published in Seminar in 2006, McLeod extends this argument to contemporary perspectives on Sikh history:

For many years I too viewed Sikh history through a Tat Khalsa lens. The Tat Khalsa was the radical segment of the Singh Sabha movement represented by the Lahore branch, which was founded in 1879 and committed to the belief that Sikhs emphatically were not Hindus. Men such as Kahn Singh Nabha and Vir Singh belonged to this segment and the booklet by Kahn Singh, Hum Hindu Nahin, became its rallying-cry. Sikh history was recast in accordance with this understanding and from this recasting emerged a distinctive historiography... Not until I began working on the Khalsa Rahit did the truth finally begin to dawn. As I worked my way through the various rahit-namas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I increasingly perceived the simple truth that there were different ways of interpreting the backdrop of Sikh history, and that the Tat Khalsa propounded only one such view. The Sanatan or ‘traditional’ interpretation was another such view and the ‘western’ understanding with its strong emphasis on reliable sources, was yet another. The ‘western’ view, based upon the European Enlightenment, was the one which I had been taught and which, without apology, I have always held. Slowly I was beginning to appreciate that it differed fundamentally from the Tat Khalsa interpretation in more than matters of detail.

For McLeod, the Khalsa interpretation diverges from Guru Nanak’s original system of thought where the tools to access the divine and achieve liberation were internal. Nanak’s Sikhism was an inclusive system, accessible to all regardless of caste or gender. But with the emergence of the Khalsa, Sikhism assumes an exclusive identity, where a Sikh is marked by ‘exterior symbols,’ that is, the five Ks—kesh (uncut hair), kangha (comb), kara (steel bangle), kirpan (sword), kachera (breeches)—and is defined by the observance of the Rahit. McLeod critically asks, “Why did a religion of interiority assume such an overtly exterior identity? Secondly, why did the Panth adopt a militant philosophy and develop an appropriately militant tradition?” (p. 111)

Moreover, McLeod points to a distinction in Nanak’s time—Sikhism was a religious identity, but not necessarily a social one. Through the custom of Langar, Sikhs of various castes ate together and repudiated the notion that caste determined access to the divine or liberation. Nonetheless, the Sikhs of Guru Nanak’s time followed the caste system socially—it was, as McLeod claims, the “glue that bonded Indian society together so firmly.” As a result, Sikhism retained caste as a ‘social convention’—for example, the practice of marrying within the same caste.

But as Sikhism evolved, so did a specifically Sikh political and social identity. The ‘militant’ philosophy developed, McLeod claims, in part as an extension of the particular customs of the Jat majority—carrying weapons was a feature of the Jat way of life— and partly as a result of Guru Hargobind’s miri-piri doctrine. Miri-piri refers to the Guru’s two-fold function as a leader of the Sikh Panth, both in temporal and spiritual terms, and Guru Hargobind symbolically asserted this by girding himself with two swords. Hargobind’s father and predecessor, Arjan Singh, had been executed by the Mughals—and Hargobind’s role as not just a spiritual leader, but a temporal one as well, engendered a sociopolitical dimension to the Sikh identity. From the time of Hargobind onwards, the Sikh Panth was armed. The later martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur and the consequent path taken by Tegh Bahadur’s son and successor, Guru Gobind Singh, culminated in the creation of the Khalsa and armed conflict with the Mughals.

This raises another intriguing question, particular to the times we live in. It is now the custom to disassociate religion and belief from violence, to see all religions as advocating peace. But many faiths have been birthed in violence and conflict—the Christian narrative, for example, centres on the crucifixion; an act of incredible brutality. Islam, too, was born in a time of great political turmoil. Much religious imagery and narrative features the language of war—most notably, the pacifist figure of Jesus Christ is quoted in the New Testament as saying, “I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Many modern readers tend to focus on the dharmic philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, glossing over the main purpose of the text—the argument for war—and ignoring the fact that it is situated on a battlefield. This emphasis on the pacific aspects of religions could be seen as ‘ahistorical’ and a revisionist perspective of the past.

It’s such revisionism that has led to many spats in recent times—historians of religion wishing to present a more accurate picture of the past, and coming into conflict with nationalists and rightwing advocates. And so it’s intriguing that Sikhism, although originally published in 1997, does not feature any account of the events of 1984, even if the figure of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale looms over McLeod’s history. (He is referred to numerous times, most particularly in the discussion on martyrdom.) One opens McLeod’s book in the hope of encountering a clear and detailed account of how the Khalistan movement has developed from and influenced Sikhism. But despite McLeod’s own focus on the historical development of the religion, there is no larger treatment or discussion on the question of a free Punjab.

The ‘exteriority’ of Sikhism manifested itself in the five Ks. SIDDHARTHA TRIPATHI FOR THE CARAVAN

It’s clear that for McLeod, Sikhism is a religion shaped by historical circumstance: persecution generates martyrs, develops a stronger and more exclusive sense of identity and, in the case of the Sikhs, provokes a call to arms. This conclusion, he claims, is the result of an analytical approach and based on the values of the European Enlightenment, an approach that prioritises science and reason, and is influenced by epistemological methods. McLeod, like many such historians, betrays an affinity for definition and categorisation. But his subject matter often evades such precision. He devotes a section to ‘Defining a Sikh’—and concludes that it is difficult to generalise.

As AK Ramanujan suggests in his essay, ‘Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?’, the ‘Indian way’ is full of seeming contradiction and paradox. What applies in the particular case cannot, with Kantian confidence, be applied to the universal.Consequently, it’s difficult to categorise and generalise in our context—perhaps this is something the Western-trained scholar, influenced by the axioms of the Age of Enlightenment, forgets when delving into the history and culture of the Indian subcontinent.

McLeod came to the Punjab not just as a scholar, but also as a man of faith, a missionary. Years later, he and his wife began to entertain questions about their beliefs and as a result, left the church. This was a difficult decision, with many potential ramifications. While in London at SOAS, McLeod and his wife had adopted a girl-child of mixed race, born to a Punjabi Sikh mother and an Irish father. The adoption had been approved on the condition that the child be raised as a Christian. When the McLeods began to question their faith, there was the danger that their daughter would be taken away from them. Fortunately, this did not happen, but McLeod’s own personal apostasy suggests that perhaps he found it hard to reconcile the Enlightenment mindset with the doctrine of the church.

This raises an interesting question: Can the historian, or the man of reason, have faith? When myth and religious teaching cannot always be reconciled with historical fact, must an individual choose between the two? Perhaps McLeod’s story only reflects the dilemmas that have assailed Indians of the past two centuries, torn between their Western, scientific schooling and their centuries-old religious traditions.