INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

propagate the Sikh religion. For Baba Shiv Ram the motivation and benefits of adopting
a Sikh identity was primarily social achievements:
The main reason for becoming a Sikh is the caste system. Before they
were chamar [leather workers]. They saw the behaviour of people [towards
them], so that is why they changed themselves. They saw that
no one was accepting water from their hands, because they were untouchables.
The Brahmins disapproved of things in their villages. They
did not eat at the place of these people, not even in the second village
away from them. Only in a third village [away from the chamars] they
would eat. In Punjab people never treat the chamars as untouchables.
When a chamar prepares food the housewife will give this food to her
husband. Over there a chamar feels that food from his hand is accepted.
Here in U.P. [Uttar Pradesh] people beware of untouchables. Chamars
are considered untouchable in humanity.
When out on mission journeys his tactics were first to make the audience aware of the
social discriminations they are exposed to and then speak about the respect and
honor people would attain in the Sikh religion. In these discourses he expounded his
arguments of equality and justice from a religious framework and intertwined references
to the Rigveda with excerpts from Ramcharitmanas to demonstrate the ideological
foundation of discriminations in the Hindu society. The break of injustice came
with the social reformism of Sikhism and the Bhakti movement in medieval times:
“Kabir Das, he told that everyone comes from a mother’s womb. Ask the Brahmins
where they come from! Can they tell? Guru Gobind Singh ji answered, everyone
comes from human. There is no caste, everyone is equal”, he exemplified his oratory.
To make the audience take interest in the Sikh religion Baba Shiv Ram emphasized
that Sikhism, unlike Christianity, is a religion of “freedom” and does not force people
to abandon old customs and beliefs which they have followed prior to conversion. 151
To gain honor in the society he strongly encouraged neophytes to undergo the Khande
di pahul and be adorned with the external Sikh symbols. A few of the employees
working for the gurdwaras of Varanasi were low caste Hindus who converted to
Sikhism after meeting with Baba Shiv Ram. A man in his twenties, formerly a chamar
from a village in Mirzapur district, said Baba Shiv Ram came to the house of his
brother in-law and preached the benefits of Sikhism. In 1998 he and five to six other
villagers followed Baba Shiv Ram to Allahabad where they underwent the Khalsa
151
Another propagandist working in Varanasi and Mirzapur district used a similar rhetoric:
“When they come out of their own fold then they see the difference between Sanatana dharm
and Sikh dharm. In Hindu dharm there are so many things they have to comply with, but here,
in Sikh dharm, they will be free. They feel like that.” To illustrate the social freedom in Sikhism
he told a success story about a village boy who “Guru Nanak permitted grihast” – a family life.
The boy was a sadhu and socially obliged to live in celibacy but through the conversion to Sikhism
renounced his past life and got a wife, children and job in the city.
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008