Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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chat the Khalsa was predominantly plebian in its composition. Besides
there are indications that the Khalsa at one stage regarded the acquired
property as the common property of the Khalsa Commonwealth.
Forster has written: ‘The amounts of contributions levied on the public
account was reported to this assembly, and divided among the chiefs
proportionately to the number of their troops. They were at the same
time obliged to distribute a certain share of this property to their
soldiers. 68 Polier also states that the contributions collected in
expeditions were duly accounted for to the central council of the Khalsa
and were distributed equitably. 69 Prinsep and Scott even go further in
stating that the land acquired by the Khalsa was regarded as its common
property. 70 This evidence suggests that, to begin with, the Khalsa started
with the idea of nationalizing property in some form or the other and
holding it as a common trust.
The utmost, the French Revolution could achieve was a
Bourgeois Republic. The political power under the Khalsa passed into
the hands of, what the bourgeois mentality of the historians of that
time had described as ‘asses’, qaum-i-arazil (the downtrodden), ‘the
lowest of the low-bred’ and ‘the meanest of the mean people’. Coming
as it does from critical sources, there cannot be a greater testimony
about the plebian character of the Sikh Revolution. And it was not an
accident of history. Guru Nanak had identified himself about 250
years earlier with such ‘lowest of the low’, and Guru Hargobind 71 and
Guru Gobind Singh 72 had blessed these very people with sovereignty.
The Sikh Revolution was, thus, not only an egalitarian social revolution
it was also a plebian political revolution.