Sikhs

Later Period.

The history of Sikhism in the 19th century belongs rather to the history of the Punjab (see INDIA, History), but the Sikh sub-sects and orders were mostly maintained. The differences with Hinduism tended, however, to be suppressed. Thus the Akalis lost ground, though the Kukas remained staunch to their extremist tenets, with diminished numbers. Sects like the Sanwal-Shahis, followers of a disciple of Guru Nanak, are all but confined to the south-west Punjab, while the Sewapanthis are still more restricted to the Sindh Sagar Doab. The Hindalis forfeited their once influential position by throwing in their lot with Ahmad Shah Abdali and are now known as Narinjani or worshippers of the Bright One (God). The Nirankaris, a modern sect, revived Nanak's teaching though they respect later Gurils also. The older orders became Sikh castes, like the Ramgarhias, whose founder was a carpenter and which is now the Sikh car penter caste; as the Sikh Kallals or Nebs (potters) style themselves Ahluwalia. Every confederacy worked out its own destiny, tending to form hereditary chief ships and divide the villages it had occupied among its members as if they were private lands. To a certain extent the mutiny revived Sikhism by stimulating anti-Muslim feeling, and this recrudescence probably saved it from becoming a mere collection of more or less Hinduized sects in which the Nanak-panthis would have absorbed the Khalsa or sect of Guru Govind Singh. But the revival was militarist rather than religious. The sectarian institutions decayed. Little was added to religious literature. In a sense the Granth became the Guru, receiving divine honours, for example at Conjeeveram, in the south, where it became the object of a fire sacrifice. The book of common prayer was the Panjgranthi, including five poems from the Granth, three of which have to be recited daily by the Khalsa Sikhs ; yet Sikh ascetics used to make pilgrimages to Hindu temples. The Khalsa college at Amritsar was, however, founded, and there too the chief Khalsa Diwan had his headquarters. It made grants to various schools, including some 3o for girls. Local societies, Singh Sabha, were established throughout the Punjab and even beyond it.

There was very little innovation in the religious sphere, but Sikhism was still alive awaiting a stimulus to arouse its latent power. This came to it from education, the general awakening of India, and the maladministration of the sectarian shrines and temples.

Laity.

When Sikhism revived, all its divisions were equally resuscitated. A notable example of this was furnished by the Kiikas ("shouters"), who professed to be ethically strict fol lowers of Govind Singh but observed such secrecy that they were debited with the degrading practices so often ascribed to such sects. The KUka insignia, a high straight turban and a knotted necklace or rosary of wool, hint at an originally military asceticism and possibly at some connection with Banda Bairagi, but their significance has never been disclosed. Supposed to be hostile to British rule, the Kilkas were certainly anti-Muslim, especially resenting the slaughter of kine, carefully planning the assassina tion of Mohammedan butchers and once organizing, in 1872, an armed rising which took the shape of a raid into the Muslim state of Maler Kotla. Owing to the drastic action of the district officer of Ludhiana who executed over ioo mutineers by artillery the rising speedily collapsed, but severe as was the method of its suppression, it had undoubtedly excited the Sikh population and a less decisive one might in the end have resulted in more bloodshed. On the other hand the fanatical Akalis only revived as a body of harmless eccentrics practising their rites at Sikh gatherings, and not taken seriously by any other Sikh body. The Udasi order became hardly distinguishable from a Hindu religious sect and was even regarded as Vaishnava.

The Nirmalas were not quite re-Hinduized but the general tendency of the Sikh laity was towards emergence into Brahman ism. Only the more ardent followers of Govind Singh preserved their distinctive tenets, dress, and protestant, anti-Brahmanical attitude. Thus ended the first phase of the Sikh revival. The second phase was greatly fostered if not initiated by the formation of the Imperial Service troops. The Sikh recruits in the Phulkian states, south of the Sutlej, had often neglected to take the pahul. They were encouraged to do so by their British inspecting of ficers, and the military spirit of Sikhism was enhanced. With its revival came an awakened interest in other things. The Sikhs, even the stricter elements, had acquiesced in the decay of their religious institutions. In 1863 the British Government had by statute divested itself of all administrative control over religious endowments, but had provided no machinery to assume its func tions. The Sikh orders had no written constitutions. Such an order as the Udasi was in theory celibate. It proceeded to permit its members to marry, to found families of great respectability and influence, who were accepted as owners of the religious shrines and wealthy refectories, and administered them as private proper ties—on the Brahmanical model. But Brahmanism allows no lay

interference with Brahman property.

Orders.—The humbler village fanes were equally appropriated by their incumbents, who naturally favoured the fatal principle of hereditary rights in them. The Kfika headship became a kind of dynasty. The Akalis alone retained celibacy, but even the Nir malas failed to enforce it rigidly. But celibate or not, no order evolved any definite system of selecting its heads. The powers of the abbots, of the chapter and of the congregation were undefined. If, then, the glebe was alienated by a dissolute incumbent, or en dowments misspent by incompetent abbots, the sole remedy for the laity was a suit in the courts, which begged the whole question of the layman's right to ask for relief by treating the priestly rights in the shrine as a matter of custom—of custom recently created by priestly malfeasance. Ignoring the fundamental doc trines of Sikhism in general and of its orders in particular, the courts proceeded to give legal recognition to the vested interests of the carnal heirs of spiritual offices in their benefices. This led to grave unrest among the Sikhs. Even the administration of the Khalsa college, founded under British auspices, had to be re modelled. The golden temple at Amritsar, being a purely religious foundation, was, however, beyond Government control. Internal dissensions made its problems difficult of solution. Its governing body had long been divided, one party permitting its walls to be adorned with Hindu mythological pictures, another condemning them as incompatible with Sikh monotheism. The Sikhs at a mass meeting accepted a provisional council, only in part nominated by Government, to draw up a scheme of management. But it failed to function. In 192o the Mahatma Gandhi intervened, suggest ing the appointment of the Shiromani Gurfidwara Parbandhak committee for the management of shrines in general. This body proceeded at once to the high-handed seizure of places of wor ship, including the golden temple itself. It also reorganized the Akalis, recruiting them with lawless jathas, gangs of turbulent elements not all furnished by the Sikhs. It called on the Udasi mahant or "abbot" of Guru Nanak's birthplace, Nankana, to re form his institution. In defence of his property the Guru enlisted Muslim mercenaries and so exacerbated Sikh feeling. A body of 13o Sikhs seized the sanctuary but were massacred to a man. Equally lawless seizures of shrines ensued. At Guru ka Bagh, the "Guru's Garden," the Akalis captured the Guriklwara or fane of the Guru, but the mahant held its house and lands. The com mittee took steps to seize some of the latter as appurtenant to the shrine, but the law was here successfully vindicated and no fewer than s,000 Akalis arrested. In reprisal, the Akali order threw off a new and more militant offshoot in the Babbar ("lion") Akalis dedicated to the murder of village officials and others loyal to Government but in their isolation beyond its effectual protection. The tract between the Sutlej and Bias rivers was terrorized by Akali and other lawless gangs, marked men being openly assassi nated and property indiscriminately plundered. Soldiery alone secured a semblance of order. Yet in 1923, when communal riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out at Amritsar the Akalis aided authority to maintain order. In 1924, however, the shrines committee espoused the cause of the misguided Maharaja of Nabha, who abdicated after levying private war on the sister Sikh state of Patiala, and at Jaitoke a meeting of the new ruler's opponents had to be dispersed. The Akalis came to the rising, but their peaceful purpose was merely the perpetual recitation of the Granth for the restoration of the ex-Raja. Unfortunately they were reinforced by a huge mob which attacked the State forces. It was beaten off with a loss of 5o men, including 21 killed and only three or four Akalis fell. In 1925 the Sikh Gurudwara and Shrines bill became law. It set up legal machinery for the control of Sikh endowments, and if it is alleged to be unjust to the Sikh orders, it must be pleaded that the failure of those orders, even of the Uda.sis, to organize their own self-discipline and protect the rights of the Sikh• congregations made it a necessity. The disrup tions in the Udasi order made it impossible to give legal embodi ment to it or to anyone of its branches.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Capt.

J. D. Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs, new ed. by H. L. 0. Garrett (1918) ; art., "Sikhs" in E.R.E., by H. A. Rose (192o) ; M. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion; its Guras Sacred Writings, etc. (1909). The Sikh has produced little recent literature, but Khazan Singh's History and Philosophy of the Sikh Religion (Lahore, 1914) is valuable. Gokul Chand Narang, Trans formation of Sikhism (1912) and "Sikh Relics in Eastern Bengal," Dacca Review (1916), also throw light on Sikh history, (H. A. R.) SIKH WARS, two Indian campaigns fought between the Sikhs and the British, which resulted in the conquest and annexa tion of the Punjab (see PUNJAB).