Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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confined to the Khalsa, whose membership was open to all. The general
mass of the people, who were not Khalsa, did not actively participate
in it. May be that its benefits did not accrue to them in any appreciable
degree. Within the Khalsa itself, the political power was in the postrevolutionary
period, shared by the Jats and the artisans. The outcastes,
somehow, came to be relegated to the back position. But, it was
nevertheless, a plebian revolution in the sense that, for the first time
in Indian history, a class of commoners rose to be the masters of the
land.
Waris Shah, the author of 'Hir and Ranjha', describes the state
of affairs in the Punjab of this period:
"Men of menial birth flourish and the peasants are in great
prosperity.
The Jats have become masters of our country,
Everywhere there is a new government."37
All the members of the Sikh Panth, irrespective of their caste or
class status came to be called, as they are even now, Sardars (overlords).
This is not to approve of this development, because it was a departure
from the Sikh ideals of human equality. But, the point is how the Sikh
revolution raised the social and political status, not of stray individuals,
but of a large section of the commoners en bloc.
Success and failure are relative terms. It has taken millions of
years for the animal to become man. To transform the animal in human
nature into a being of higher consciousness is a very difficult process.
On this account, the march of humanity towards its ideals has been
imperceptibly slow. The strain of acquisitiveness and aggressiveness
in man, and other weaknesses of the human nature, have again and
again side-tracked all progressive movements from their original aims
and course. There is not one exception. To raise commoners from the
level assigned to them by the caste ideology and the caste society and
make them become the masters of the land was an exceptional
historical development.