Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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the Sikh movement, because its study shows that the Indian mind is
not inherently or irrevocably committed to social reaction.
It may be pointed out here that the Sikh Revolution showed
greater tenacity in retaining the social equality and political freedom it
had won. The Estates-General assembled on May 5, 1789, a military
dictatorship under the guise of the Directory was inaugurated on Oct.
5, 1795, and Bonaparte delivered his Coup d’ etat on Nov. 9-10, 1799.
Gibbon writes : ‘At the end of the first century of the Hijra, the Caliphs
were the most potent an absolute monarchs of the globe. Their
prerogatives were not prescribed, either in right or in fact, by the power
of the nobles, the freedom of the commons, the privileges of the
Church, the votes of the senate, or the memory of a free constitution.
The authority of the Companions of Mohammed expired with their
lives and the chiefs of the Arabian tribes left behind in the desert their
spirit of equality and independence. 4 It took over 100 years for Ranjit
Singh to emerge; and even under him and the Misal Chiefs ‘the free
followers of Gobind could not be the observant slaves of an equal
member of the Khalsa.. 5 If the revolutionary achievements of the
French and Islamic Revolutions cannot be ignored because of their
later developments, there is no reason why it should be done in the
case of the Sikh Revolution.
3. Overall view
One is amused to read the fable in which blind men try to make
out the shape of the elephant by feeling the different parts of the
animal separately. The same mistake is made by the historians who
characterize the Sikh movement by emphasizing some of its aspects
while ignoring others equally important. Any interpretation of the Sikh
movement must attempt to find a satisfactory explanation to one and
all of its prominent features. Besides, they fail to differentiate between
the revolutionary and the post-revolutionary phases of the movement
and try to judge the former in the light of the latter.
We have been concerned only with the revolutionary phase of
the Sikh movement. It was, as we have tried to show, an organic growth.
Any characterization of the revolutionary Sikh movement must attempt