Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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are hostile or indifferent towards its ideology and its objectives. As
historians are apt to take notice of only glaring events, the Sikh
movement did not draw much attention upto its rise under Banda.
The testimony of Muslim and Hindu historians about the plebian
character and achievement of the Sikhs under Banda and thereafter is
all the more valuable because they are constrained to state what is
obviously unpalatable to them. The only appreciative note struck by
the non-Sikh writers about the egalitarian character of the Sikh
movement is that found in early European accounts of the Sikhs. Their
writings are also valuable because these show the extent to which the
movement had retained its egalitarian spirit even in the postrevolutionary
phase of the Missals and Ranjit Singh. The historical
testimony from non-Sikh source bears it out, by an large, that the Sikh
tradition about the main features of the Sikh movement is correct and
consistent.
6. Important Features
(a) Separate Identity
A perusal of the Janamsakhis, both of Bhai Bala and Meharban,
leaves no doubt that their authors were very much steeped in the
orthordox Hindu lore and tradition. Their evidence, therefore, that
Guru Nanak was ‘neither a Hindu nor a Musalman’ assumes added
significance’s in establishing the separate identity of his mission. Koer
Singh clearly states that Guru Gobind Singh rejected the paths of
both the Hindus and the Muslims and created his own Panth. 12 The
Rehatnamas, which emphasize that Sikhs should maintain their
separate identity from the from the caste-society, were written,
according to Piara Singh Padam, in the eighteenth century. References
to corroborative evidence on this point from non-Sikh sources have
been made in the text here and there. In spite of this, it is suggested
that the movement to separate the Sikh Panth from the caste-society
started with the Singh Sabha movement towards the end of ninteenth
century. The episode of Ranjit Singh and Ram lal, referred to earlier,
knocks out the bottom of this suggestion. The consciousness of their
separate identity from the caste society by the Sikhs had, no doubt,
touched a very low point after their defeat by the British. But, the