Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06bigoted monster. It was during his reign that the tortures and persecutionsof Sikhs began on a large scale. The ninth Guru kept to his dharmaat the cost of his head.Martyrs throughout history will testify that there’s nothing like receivinga hammering to give your cause some shape. The ninth Guru’sson was a warrior: “The ultimate test of truth is to die fighting for it.”However, Guru Gobind was not only a warrior, but also the author ofmuch of the outward form of Sikhism. In 1699, he established the fraternityof the Khalsa, an orthodoxy of followers identified by alwayswearinguncuthair,acomb,military-styleunderpants,asteelbangle,anda dagger. And, significantly, Guru Gobind proclaimed that the true Sikhsof the Khalsa should subsequently carry the surname “Singh”—“lion.”Guru Gobind Singh is therefore held in reverence by Sikhs, secondonly to Guru Nanak. He is typified as a hero of true Hindu culture inthe face of Muslim intolerance, an heir of Lord Ram even. He lost hisfour sons (two walled up alive; two in battle) and a wife in the strugglefor dharma and was finally assassinated, leaving the Holy Book, the AdiGranth or “Shri Guru Granth Saheb,” as the next and lasting Guru.So that sealed things off. A book, however sacred, has no way of developing.Sikhism since has retained its identity through emphatic rerunsof the warrior-saint theme. The saintly aspects are their rejection ofcaste distinction, their refusal to steal, lie, or take alcohol or drugs, andtheir avoidance of sex outside of marriage. But what gets rememberedare all the heroic struggles against an oppressive majority. As the powerof the Mughals declined, the Sikhs fought against the British, and then,having been defeated but favoured by the British, fought for themagainst the sepoys in the Indian Mutiny. Separated from Muslims andHindus alike, they have been fighting over the Punjab since it wasdivided by Partition—fighting against rival factions in their own group,and fighting against the Hindu rulers of the Republic. Memories are stillfresh of the armed Sikh occupation of the Golden Temple at Amritsarand of terrorist activities in the early 1980s: the siege and the army attack1 9 0