THE END OF INDIA by Khushwant Singh

Author:Khushwant Singh [Penguin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184750560
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-08-05T04:00:00+00:00

The Punjab Example

For anyone interested in understanding the persistence of communal feelings among Indians and the tragic results of letting them grow unchecked or encouraging them, Punjab makes for a good case study. I use Punjab as an example because it is home to the community I know best. Also because through history, Punjab has suffered more than any other Indian state due to religious conflict.

The Punjabis of today are what they are because of the legacy their forefathers left them. They had to face invasions by tribesmen of Central Asia and beyond. Recorded in history are the invasions by Greeks under Alexander. From AD 1000 onwards, came invaders like Ghazni, Ghauri, and the conquering dynasties—the Tughlaqs, the Lodhis and then the Mughals. When the Mughal empire began to totter, came Nadir Shah and his Afghan successor, Ahmed Shah Abdali, who invaded India nine times in quick succession, laying bare the countryside and Delhi. Punjabis bore the brunt of these invasions and the humiliations which followed in their wake. It took centuries of periodic depredations for the people of Punjab to realize that they must stand together in order to be able to resist and, if possible, repel invaders.

Although by this time more than half of the people of the region had converted to Islam, they were willing to join hands with Hindus and Sikhs. An important factor in this was the new Sikh religion, born of the need to bring the Hindu and Muslim communities together. The new faith borrowed elements from both Hinduism and Islam—an edifice built as it were with Hindu bricks and Muslim mortar. The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (14691539), came to be acclaimed by both communities. A popular couplet describes him as:

Guru Nanak Shah Fakir

Hindu ka Guru, Mussalman ka Pir.

(Guru Nanak, the King of Fakirs,

To the Hindu a Guru, to the Muslim a Pir.)

The spirit of Punjabi nationality, Punjabiyat, was thus born. It did not, of course, resolve all conflict. Sikhs, in fact, soon found themselves the target of Mughal anger. The Mughal empire was naturally concerned by the growing popularity of the Sikh Gurus, whom they saw as leaders of a cult with political ambitions. Punjab was too important a region for them. The Sikh gurus and their followers were persecuted. The reason was clearly more political than religious. The fifth Guru, Arjun, was executed by the Muslim rulers in Lahore. With this began the transformation of the Sikhs into a militant sect. Under the last Guru, Gobind Singh, whose father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was executed in Delhi, this transformation was complete.

There was tension between the Hindu Brahmin order and the Sikhs too. Many of Guru Nanak’s teachings went against entrenched Hindu beliefs and attitudes, like idol-worship, religious ritual and the caste system. Hindu rulers of the hill kingdoms in and around Punjab perceived the Sikhs, sometimes rightly, as a threat and often colluded with Mughal forces in their campaigns against them. Sikh historians maintain that among the tormentors of Guru Arjun, who

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