AS liberal dreamers go on the back foot in India and
Pakistan, having reneged on their promise to deliver an open, equal and
just society, it may not be unwise to probe other like-minded people.
The Dalits and the powerful middle- caste Yadavs have shown the way in
Uttar Pradesh by abandoning their traditional aloofness to save
democracy. If religion has to be an ally of a secular quest, why not
Sikhism?
Sikhism, as it was conceived — and not
necessarily the way it is practised — is one place where all humans are
embraced equally, without fear or favour. It is perhaps the only
religion where you would find a mere cobbler, the lowly chamar at the
bottom of the Hindu caste heap, being revered as a saint. As such
Sikhism in its original form can be a major force against the
Brahminical order. And since Sikhs are strategically located in the most
powerful state institutions they cannot be easily trifled with.
As
school kids boarding the morning bus from Raidas Mandir in Lucknow we
were hardly aware that this was the temple to someone so revered by
Sikhs, or the fact that the pre-Mughal poet formed the core of northern
India’s momentous Bhakti movement. It was strange to see cobblers
outside and inside the temple, making and repairing shoes. But that was
as far as our curiosity would go.
Raidas Mandir was once
on the outer precincts of Lucknow, which is where shunned people of the
erstwhile Untouchable community were allowed to build their place of
worship. After a while, the temple got hidden by an ungainly flyover
that came up right in front of the entrance. The new road facilitated
the passage of Hindu believers to an old Hanuman mandir in Aliganj. It
didn’t matter that flyover was a rude insult to Ravidas, whose temple
stands obscured by milling fruit vendors, medicine shops and rickshaw
pullers clamouring for their space under the bridge. I am beginning to
understand why my Hindu friends would decline a cup of tea that I
sometimes enjoyed brewed by the lady who ran the small food stall at the
temple.
The men and women who fought and died for a homeland were also fighting to honour Bulleh Shah, Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas.
“Your lotus feet are the home of my mind. Drinking in Your
Nectar, I have obtained the wealth of the Lord. Prosperity, adversity,
property and wealth are just Maya, illusion.” I was not equipped to
understand the lines of Ravidas leave alone divining their relevance to
an Indian era. “I am worthless, and You are so benevolent. You are the
white and yellow threads of silk, and I am like a poor worm.” The words
are strikingly similar to Kabir’s in some ways. But Kabir was taught in
the school syllabus compiled by Brahmin Hindi teachers, Ravidas was not.
Which should make one wonder why the idea of an
independent Sikh homeland, comprising people of music and equality, is
considered repugnant by those who had readily accepted a separate
country for Muslims and are now on the verge of hijacking an eclectic
way of life called Hinduism (including those who deny being Hindus!) to
turn it into a rigid religion in their march towards a theocratic state.
The Ravidas lines I quoted from the Guru Granth Sahib
are composed in a lilting Raga Asa. And Sikhism is the only religion in
the world in which almost every wise saying is assigned a specific
classical raga. People who fought for Khalistan may have resorted to
brutal and unacceptable violence, but which religion has not been guilty
of that.
See it another way. The men and women who
fought and died for a homeland were also fighting to honour Bulleh Shah,
Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas among other great mystics. Yes, there is
caste-based inequality and patriarchy still prevalent against the advice
of Sikh tenets. But whatever else in terms of ideas or practice the
followers may have subscribed to, they were fighting to preserve the
essence of their gurus’ culturally open-minded and socially inclusive
thoughts in musically disseminated stanzas. Give me an equally lyrical
religion.
I was at a Sikh gurdwara recently, not for the
first time. And I was predictably blown off my feet by the shabad
performed by the renowned exponent Bhai Baldeep Singh. Shabad are
musically composed verses and sayings of Indian mystics from different
eras and of varied religious backgrounds compiled in Sikhism’s holiest
book. As I said, there is no other religion in which a cobbler is a
revered hero side by side with others, rather inspired in a fundamental
way by Buddha.
Moved by what I heard, my mind waded into
the question. On the one hand, Indians are being coerced by a
combination of Hindutva’s street power and a delinquent state that
indulges a hard-line religion modelled on Ziaul Haq’s idea of Pakistan
and underpinned by elements of Italian fascism. On the other hand, the
people who overtly or covertly support Hindutva bear a disproportionate
degree of hostility towards a far more inclusive proposal for a
homeland. The quest is sustained by fierce aversion of Brahminism and
narrow-minded Muslim rulers, primarily Emperor Aurangzeb.
Theocratic
states in our age are a bad idea, not that they were any more agreeable
in the past. There are also states that are founded on the principles
of human equality but stray into majoritarianism of a vile order.
Neither India, nor Pakistan were conceived at Partition as theocratic
states by their founders, although the assertion seems to confuse and
befuddle liberal opinion-makers in varying degrees on both sides of the
border. It was L.K. Advani, a pontiff of Hindu rashtra, who saw a
secular vision in Jinnah’s musings on Pakistan. But of Khalistan he will
not hear a word, even if it’s wrapped in the magic of music that
purveys a priceless message of human bonding.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.