Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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ideals embodied in the Guru Granth and its execution was entrusted
only to those committed to those ideals. When Guru Gobind Singh
appointed Banda as the Chief leader he was directed to regard himself
as the servant of the Khalsa and follow the advice of the five men the
Guru appointed for the purpose. “All Sikhs were theoretically equal;
their religion in its first youth was too pure a theocracy to allow
distinctions of rank among its adherents.” 42c It became an article of
faith with the Khalsa that wherever five of the Khalsa, committed to
Sikh ideals, met to take a decision, the Guru was present there in
spirit to guide them. 43 It was to this level that the leadership was spread.
It was this spirit and faith which sustained the movement when the
Khalsa guerillas were split up and scattered into small groups without
a central or common leadership. Writing on the election of Kapur
SIngh as a leader, Arjan Das Malik comments : ‘It is a paradox of Sikh
history that a man who was elected in this cavalier fashion later proved
to be the most competent leader that the Sikhs could ever had. This
can be explained only in one way. Such was the uniform high standard
of motivation and training that each one of the Khalsa was as good a
commander as he was a soldier.’ 44 It was the wide consciousness of
the issues at stake and the extension of the sense of responsibility and
leadership to a broad base that gave consistent direction and tenacity
of purpose to the Sikh Revolution. The Mughal authorities had come
to believe more than once that they had exterminated the Khalsa to
the last man; but the Khalsa ‘always appeared, like a suppressed flame,
to rise into higher splendour from every attempt to crush them.’ 44a
And it was due to a lack of understanding of the issues at stake and a
leadership from their own ranks committed to these issues that the
sans-culottes could not give a plebian direction to the French
Revolution.
One of the reasons why the Khalsa reached such a ‘uniform
high standard of motivation and training’ was that the Sikh movement
depended, for the achievement of its objectives, entirely upon
revolutionary activities. It was not distracted by reformist or
constitutional illusions. Unlike France, here there were no
constitutional channels through which the subjects of the Mughal State
could seek the fulfilment of their aspirations, much less a share in