INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

Varanasi in 1686 to pursue studies in Sanskrit and Indian philosophy. The Sikh students
established themselves at the former house of Bhai Gurdas and after nine years
of studies blossomed into knowledgeable Nirmala or “stainless” scholars. One of the
five, Pandit Karam Singh, is said to have instituted a school for Sanskrit studies and a
seat and succession of Nirmala scholars. 102 The present gurdwara Shri Chetan Math at
Visheshwar Ganj commemorates these two events and continues to give Sanskrit
education to boys and girls at a registered college now called Shri Guru Nanak Nirmal
Sanskrit Vidhyalaya. 103 The Nirmala tradition has several other historical establishments
in the city, most notably the Nirmal Sanskrit Vidhyala at Lahori Thora near
Dashashwamedh Road which holds a gurdwara on the first floor. 104
It is with the arrival of British colonizers that the demographical figures of the
Sikhs at Varanasi begin to crystallize. The city was under British administration from
1795 and the first Census for the district was executed in 1871 ‒ 1872. 105 Up to the
partition in 1947 the city belonged to the United Provinces of Oudh and Agra and
was after independence incorporated in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The ways by
which the Census reports categorize and pay attention to local Sikhs mirror the colonizers’
political interests and more rigid views on religious identity. 106
102
Ik Aumkar Satguru Prasad, Shri Chetan Math, Varanasi.
103
The organization at Shri Chetan Math is run by an independent committee founded on donations
and property revenues. The Sanskrit college is affiliated to the Sampurnanand Sanskrit
University in Varanasi. When I visited Shri Chetan Math in 2001 there were about 50 students
attached to the Sanskrit college and 12 students of different ages lived permanently in the
gurdwara. The present Mahant, Inderjit Singh, has gained fame for his astrological knowledge
and divinations.
104
Raghubir Singh Shastri runs the present Nirmal Sanskrit Vidhyalaya at Lahori Thora. He is a
Sanskrit scholar and active propagandist of Sikhism, often invited to deliver speeches in the Sikh
gurdwaras.
105
Mishra 1975: 2. Ganda Singh (1974) has interestingly shown how the first census of 1871 –
1872 created great suspicions and rumours among locals. Pilgrims at Varanasi refused to have
their names registered since they suspected the British collected data for new taxations. It was
rumoured that Census registrations were only pretence for demanding young village girls to
England for fanning the English queen, since the weather had become too hot (Ganda Singh
1974: 350).
106
While Oberoi (1995) has observed how the British constructed images of Sikhism in the
mould of Christianity and created the myth predicating a decline of Sikhism, Ballantyne (1999)
has paid more attention to the way in which the British imagined a congruence of religious
beliefs and cultural values between the Sikhs and themselves. The latter study demonstrates
how the British interpreted the Sikh religion as the Protestantism of India, which condemned
popular Hinduism for being lost to superstitious idolatry (like Catholicism). Fearing a degeneration
of Sikhism the British recruited Sikhs to the military to preserve and foster a Khalsa identity
(Ballantyne 1999: 195 ‒ 209).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008