Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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too, the institution of Guru came to be seriously abused. But the Sikh
Gurus steered clear of these dangers by impersonalising the concept
of Guru, by placing principles above personalities and by diverting
religious devotion to serve social and political ends. As a final step to
abolish the personality cult among the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh
abolished altogether the institution of a Guru in person and conferred
Guruship on the Guru Granth, the enshrined principles.
One can appreciate the social contribution of this devotional
approach of the Sikhs towards the
Guru only if one is aware of the Indian social context in which
it was made. Pannikar writes: ‘Beyond this extended joint family (i.e.
the sub-caste), the Hindu in practice recognises no society or
community. This is the widest social group that the Hindu evolved
and is therefore the limit of his allegiance, of his social relations, of
his loyalties. It is the bed-rock on which the Hindu social organisation
is built. ’47
The problems of leading men to serve humanistic causes in a
society, whose very basis was hierarchical, was in itself very tough to
tackle. It was further compounded by the narrowing down and
segmentation of social loyalties. In a country, where every human
activity was conceived and postulated in religious terms, devotion to
a religious head, dedicated to a progressive cause, could be the means,
perhaps the only means, to raise people above their divisive values
and loyalties and yoke them to achieving social goals. This is what
precisely happened in the Sikh movement. Devotion towards the Sikh
Gurus supplanted hierarchical values and narrow individual, caste and
class loyalties. It speaks volumes about the deep commitment of the
Gurus to their revolutionary mission that they delinked the devotion
directed towards their personalities and channelized it towards
revolutionary objectives. In the battle at Chamkaur, when most of
the beseiged Sikhs had died and there was no hope left of holding the
mud fortress for long, the survivars forced Guru Gobind Singh to
leave the place in order to reorganise the movement Sant Singh dressed
himself like the Guru and remained behind in order to deceive the
enemy and gain time for the Guru’s escape. Finally, when overpowered,
“He went on uttering ‘Khalsa’, ‘Khalsa’, and had no other desire. Sant