From Tagore to Gandhi to Armed Forces’ attack on the Guru’s Darbar in 1984

In the Modern Review, Calcutta, of April 1911(starting at page 334), there appeared a paper entitled, "The rise and fall of the Sikh power." Ostensibly, it had been written earlier by Rabinderanath Tagore (May 7, 1861-August 7, 1941) in Bangla and had then been translated to English by the well known historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar. A cursory reading of it will convince anyone that it is extremely strange in nature. The following aspects of this write up are noteworthy:

1). Regardless of the title, the paper is actually a detailed comparison of the author's understanding of both the Sikh and the Maratha situations.

2). The ‘fall’ is taken to be a fact in the relation to the Sikhs even before setting out to examine the issues. If language and approach are an indication, it is this proposition which the author appears to have set out to establish and not merely to examine. The aim clearly is to establish the superior nature of Maratha ethos and to support the imaginary phenomenal ‘Rise’ of those people.

3). It is extremely significant that Rabindernath Tagore, who is not known as a historian and to whom no significant work of history is attributed, chose to express an opinion on a subject of history. The irreverent would prefer to believe that Jadunath Sarkar wrote it and the poet translated it to Bangla and owned responsibility for writing it. Jadunath’s deep-rooted bias against the Sikhs is a fact that would lend credence to this theory. Jadunath would not lend his name to the motivated and prompted production as it is sufficient to discredit a historian having even elementary acquaintance with the Sikh and Maratha history.

4). Though the essay is so obviously defective that it does not deserve even the passing attention of a casual reader of Sikh history, yet ostensibly one of the well established historians chose to translate it for the English reading public. He also gives his comments in conformity with the author's theme to lend it a respectability of sorts. His support to the distorting of Sikh history was considered valuable. Later, this historian was dubbed as a Knight of the British Empire for his services.

5). Tagore appears to have owned the project with a definite aim to promote a skewed view of Sikh culture and history. He chose to use, somewhat superficial knowledge of Sikh history for the ultimate purpose. Yet its influence on later Hindu (particularly) Bengali leaders and political leaders of India (in particular on M. K. Gandhi) was of great magnitude. Almost all his concepts of Sikh history were accepted by them as axiomatic and can be detected in the mental make up of those who ordered the attack on the Darbar Sahib in 1984. Gandhi would, henceforth, accept Rabinderanath Tagore as his `divine teacher' ("gurudev").

6). Incredible as it may seem, it was Tagore who for the first time felt that abolition of personal Guruship was a retrogressive step. It involved the bestowing of Guruship on the Guru Granth and on the Khalsa Panth through its true democratic representatives, the `Five Beloved Ones'. One and all have commented favourably on this unique happening in the history of faiths. It is the culmination of transferring divinity to people, the proposition with which Guru Nanak had initiated during his ministry. Though many historians coming after Tagore accepted just a few of his formulations, they felt compelled to ignore this one in particular.

7). The Sikh people, after having been reawakened by the new religious ferment of the Singh Sabha, were on the verge of initiating militant activity. In the same year Tagore composed his Jan Gaan (now the national anthem of India) to welcome George V on the occasion of his visit to India. In this, throwing all self-respect and national pride to the winds, he eulogises the head of the colonial power as the `god of India's destiny'. Within less than two years Tagore was selected for the Nobel Prize for literature. These circumstances are extremely significant and have to be treated as interconnected. It gave a measure of prestige to his formulations against militancy which must be appreciated in the background of the well known English dread of Western style militant movement in India.

From the above it is possible to suggest that the project undertaken by Tagore was perhaps suggested to him by the circumstances then prevailing in India. It is more likely that the inspiration came from some organisation or authority, or may be a multiplicity of authorities, which accepted him as an ideologue or hoped to be able to project him as one. The greatness about to be bestowed on him in the near future was perhaps a part of the calculation.

There is scope for the existence of a perspective in which Rabinderanath Tagore was a part of the myth built up to serve the design of a colonial power. It was hoping to enjoy perfect peace during the remaining period of its stay in India. Although a colonial power, it entertained the dream of exiting at will with a large measure of subject support it hoped to depart honourably. Responsible de-colonisation required the projection of India as a country fit for freedom. To keep the coming `freedom struggle' within defined and safe limits, it was necessary to project a self-restrained intellectual overflowing with enthusiasm for colonial masters as the ideologue of the new dawn. The spinning of myth around Tagore was calculated to serve both purposes equally well. In a special way, Tagore was developed into a representative of the Hindu thought. This was necessary since the bulk of the Indian population subscribed to that faith and their attitude to the rapidly developing political scenario was of the greatest importance. It would determine the character and direction of the coming stage managed India’s struggle for freedom.

Before the inauguration of the twentieth century, two aspects of the colonial rule had become very clear: firstly, that the British imperialism had already started on a course which would fructify in its being extinguished on some not very distant date. The process of de-colonisation had come out of the domain of mere pious assertions and had entered the melting pot stage. Secondly, since it was certain that the British rule would wither away and the process would finally conform to democratic norms prevalent in England. It was apparent that the Hindus had the immense advantage of numbers which would eventually decide who would enjoy political power after the British had wound up their concern in India. This necessitated the development of a role model society which would make it possible for the much fragmented Hindu people to put up semblance of a struggle for freedom and a united front for capturing power when the opportunity came.

Any person who has studied the behaviour of Indians under the imperial Mughals and the British powers, would find very few honourable entities who had consciously maintained their dignity and had not succumbed to the temptation of harvesting slavery for base material advantage. Looking back, it is again possible that the Sikhs, Rajputs and Marathas were the only people who could be developed into role models for the future Indian society. Between the Marathas and Rajputs, there was nothing much to choose. It was easy to reject the Rajputs who, with few exceptions, had cooperated fully with Mughal imperialism deemed particularly despicable by the Hindu psyche overloaded with hatred of Muslims. Geographically they were a people on the periphery. Such regions were distrusted by imperial powers and had traditionally enjoyed a degree of autonomy conferred upon them by strategic location and by the inhospitable, barren terrain in the case of Rajputs. Both Marathas and Rajputs supported a culture based on deeply ingrained inequality and had nothing but a mountain of meaningless ritualism to uphold in the name of religion. Further both of them had held out much promise in history and both had never delivered. Both the political societies had parochial, feudalistic, racial undertones and connotations. Both had most of their history behind them and it did not seem to square up with the spirit of the new age, which was thrusting itself with considerable force on the slowly awakening sub-continent. Spirit of equality, freedom, universal approach, the single-mindedness to oppose oppression everywhere involving the willingness to make sacrifices for the wellbeing of the common man, the tendency to build a just society based on fairness and scientific temperament were some of the requirements of the future but these had never manifested in either of the two political societies before us.

Most of the desirable traits and concepts required as building blocks of the new society were present in abundance in Sikhi (the Sikh faith) and the Sikh movement. It was capable of becoming the nucleus of a vibrant potent nation without the necessity to weave myths around it for respectable presentation. For perceptible reasons, which need not be discussed here again, it was thought undesirable to project Sikhs and Sikhi as model for the free Indian society after decolonisation. Main consideration must have been that though Sikhi preserved all that was best in the religious traditions the Indian sub-continent, it nevertheless sought to build a society outside the Vedic social sphere and notably, outside the Hindu system of caste. Secondly, it repudiated the religious authority of the Vedas and claimed to be a sovereign dispensation. Sikhi embodied the revealed explanation of the sacred and the profane, of the relationship between the two states. It was organised around a revealed text embodying the expression of spiritual truth exclusively relevant to the new tradition. Obviously it could not be ignored for these reasons. That would leave it in the reckoning for a real invigorating and transforming renaissance when and if it came. This could upset many an applecart. The larger design that Hindudom had reserved for itself was to revert to the concepts prevalent in remote antiquity. So Sikhi had to be considered and condemned as unsuitable for new India. In a significant comment on the innate nature of those deeply engrossed in the mundane world, the fifth Nanak says, ‘donkey loves to roll in the dust and is ever enthusiastic about washing off the sandalwood paste if applied to it.’ So Sikhi had to be written off from the minds of the Bengalis of the age who were increasingly succumbing to the charms of Japuji, the transforming recitation of scripture at the Darbar and the indomitable spirit of the Khalsa.

The project was to depict Sikhi as an inadequate religion unable to sustain a new society and another society was to be projected as one quite qualified to lead India into the future. For this it was necessary to divest, at least on paper, the Sikh society of known traits and to thrust these attributes elsewhere where they did not exist. Clearly, any historian would be reluctant to make a statement against the existing and well known facts. In these circumstances a poet with the proverbial poetical licence was selected for the job. With just a little more than usual degree of credulity, which is anyhow a prominent trait of the Hindu society, the task could be accomplished by mere assertion; regardless of facts. Aided by the general intellectual apathy of the Sikhs, this was achieved ever so smoothly. The fact that Sikhi had come to acquire its own personality was particularly painful to Tagore. Ignoring the strongly manifested spiritual message of Sikhi, of which resistance to tyranny was one integral part, he asserted that Sikhi had no universal appeal and was the religion of mere soldiers. According to his particularly distorted vision initially the Sikh faith was rooted in Hinduism but somewhere down the line it disassociated from it and its spirituality and suffered further diminution by embracing political concerns. Consequently it dwarfed itself and became alienated from its past. A long unbroken tradition of spiritual and social striving was necessary for a society to be projected as a model. Tagore found this wanting in the Sikh society where it existed in abundance and discovered it in ample measure amongst the Marathas who had none of it.

Tagore made a distinction between the prophetic vision of Guru Nanak and that of the later Gurus, particularly that of Guru Gobind Singh. Of Nanak he admitted that his "heart had gained emancipation from the bondage of such a narrow Pauranic religion." It is implied that he released a "force that was making for liberty" and he, initiated "spiritual unity" of the Sikh people, which was presumably nurtured by the succeeding eight Gurus. He completely ignored the basic Sikh doctrine of unity of Godhead and Guruship. There was no Guru who was anyone else than Nanak. The absolute uniformity of thought was the condition of succession. The truth revealed to the first Guru by God, the original and the ultimate Guru was the insurance against distortion by any human agency. In matter of every minute detail actions of the succeeding Gurus had to conform to written pronouncements of the realised truth made by Guru Nanak.

The author stuck to drawing distinction between the Gurus in spite of recognising the universal import of Guru Gobind Singh’s message. Preaching of religion, "the great truth proclaimed by Nanak" is projected to be his sole aim.

Contrary to all known facts, it is implied by the poet that Guru Nanak did not mean to found a religion or a society based on the truth revealed by him. Nanak’s own utterances and his act of appointing a successor is ignored. The existence of a very coherent, perceptible spiritual society during the time of Nanak himself is testified to by contemporaries including Guru Angad and Guru Amardas. Bhai Gurdas a near contemporary holds the same views. Tagore found it necessary to doubt the continuity of the Sikh spiritual tradition, which on the contrary, is remarkably coherent. This he achieved by projecting the prophetic visions of Gurus Nanak and Gobind Singh to be distinct. Tagore was not the first one to do that. To a great extent, this was the stance of Aurangzeb as reflected in his own recorded utterances about the Guru and the Khalsa. This interpretation is totally contrary to the established Sikh belief preached in Guru Granth Sahib or the utterances of the succeeding Gurus and the instructions given to his successor by Guru Nanak. It is contrary to facts of authentic Sikh history depicted in some of the Gurbilases and Panth Prakashas. Independent observation, all Sikh literature and all expositions of gurbani support the proposition that all Ten Gurus were one and preached the same doctrine. Without doubt it was the same sovereign independent doctrine that all the Gurus preached.

No matter how contrary to facts his assertions were, Tagore insisted upon using them to heap adverse criticism on Guru Gobind Singh. He was the target. It is he who is supposed to have "checked the work of preaching the religion -- and made it his life's mission to form the Sikhs into a strong body". It is disapproved of with harsh words, "this is not the work of a religious teacher". Incredible as it may seem, Tagore presumes to know more about the God ordained mission than the prophet of the faith and the illustrious successor of nine prophets knew.

According to Tagore, under the Tenth Guru the "chief aim was changed, -- to the public defence of their own community from destruction and oppression". He completely failed to understand that the Guru was affirming and was acting upon universal principles for all societies of which resistance to tyranny was the cardinal aspect. Tagore’s implication is that the societies which do not defend themselves and get destroyed as a result of lack of effort, of necessity uphold a higher form of religion worthy of emulation. In incredibly abusive language, Tagore asserts that the Guru had "an intense longing to be liberated from earthly enemies", and a "blind desire to serve the temporary need of the sect." He forgets that the Guru had no such desires and that he was a teacher charged with the task of teaching the eternally valid righteous path. He also is the one who made manifest the Order of the Khalsa that has universal import Tagore asserts that he imparted "martial qualities" to the Sikhs and consequently, "here their progress ended". Since he "left the seat of the preaching Guru vacant" and caused the great truth to be "confined in a book.” He appears to be unaware that the Word was always hailed as the Guru since the time of Nanak and that the scripture had been compiled by the Fifth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh merely accorded formal recognition to the already prevalent doctrine by declaring in the very last days of his Guruship that henceforth the Granth would reign eternally as the Guru. Maligning the most altruistic people in all history, Tagore continues, “-- the Sikhs very rapidly became greedy and uncontrollable". The remarkable restraint, the religious and military activity exhibiting wonderful discipline and the festival of altruistic activity exhibited by the Sikhs in particularly the seventy years after the creation of the Khalsa has been universally recognised but Tagore was blind to it all.

There were occasions, like the attack on Kasur, when five Sikh Misls would march to battle just to rescue a single (Hindu) girl from the clutches of depraved rulers. The rescue of twenty-two thousand Maratha women after the Battle of Panipat in 1761 CE from the army of the victorious Ahmed Shah Abdali, is a chivalrous act which has no parallel in history. Unfortunately, it was not Tagore's brief to consider facts. The creation of Khalsa, hailed by the world at large, too is misunderstood by him: "thus he called in the human energy of the Sikhs from all other sides and made it flow in a particular direction only". Even Toynbee, who mostly laps up what was served to him by Tagore, had to admit that the Order of the Khalsa was the result of the most creative act in history, having a parallel only in the Communist Party of Lenin that came some two centuries later. The other example given by him does not withstand closer scrutiny as brought out by Sirdar Kapur Singh. This is what J. D. Cunningham (History of the Sikhs) had said of Guru Gobind Singh in relation to creation of the Khalsa: "he effectively roused the dormant energies of a vanquished people, and filled them with a lofty although fitful longing for a social freedom and national ascendancy, the proper adjuncts of that purity of worship which had been preached by Nanak. – Gobind (Singh) saw what was yet vital, and he illuminated it with Promethean fire. A living spirit possesses the whole Sikh people, and the impress of Gobind (Singh) has not only elevated and altered the constitution of their minds but has operated materially and given amplitude to their physical frames. The features and external form of a whole people have been modified."

There was a tremendous spurt in spiritual activity immediately after the creation of the Khalsa. For the first time India saw the spectacle of ordinary religious people owning up their beliefs to the extent of becoming martyrs for the faith. For the first time in history, the word `martyr' was Indianised. It was at least a seven decade long continuous festive celebration of the highest spiritual elevation of the human spirit. It was one long victory march of the ethically developed human being. Every Sikh man and woman of the age was a fine example of the spiritual heights obtainable by a God-oriented individual. Bota Singh and Taru Singh were made of common clay but the life sprinkled into their hair was not vanquished by `fearful odds' in the battlefield or in the medieval Mughal torture houses where severance of head was routinely accepted as an alternative to abandoning commitment to serve higher spiritual forces, the ultimate Truth. These are the pages of Sikh history of which every religious person regardless of belonging to any other religion or denomination can be proud.

Tagore failed to appreciate that the life affirming Sikh movement, true to Indian tradition, began as a profound spiritual thought expressed through Sikh religion. Till today it has retained that characteristic. It helped in unshackling the soul of man and brought within his reach limitless possibilities for self-realisation and the realisation of highest spiritual truths. Fighting for righteousness and opposing oppression was just one of the avenues of spiritual advancement open to an enlightened people. This was the injunction of Guru Nanak who preached, `it is the privilege of the brave to die fighting for a cause approved of by God.' That was the beginning of the Sikh doctrine of Miri-Piri (essential unity of the mundane and spiritual) and struggle for a cause in furtherance of values which are attributes of God. According to Bhai Gurdas and Bhai Mani Singh, Adit Soini, a Khatri belonging to the fighting classes, was advised by Guru Arjan to entertain no hatred and to `wield the sword for the cause of Dharma for the love of the people and in order to remove oppression on the helpless'. To a professional soldier the same Guru had said, `remain steadfast in your duty to fight (for righteousness) but entertain no violence in your heart'. Can anyone hold that this preaching is in any manner different from the essence of Srimad Bhagwatgita? The above statements of the non-fighting Gurus lay down the conditions under which wielding the sword has always been sanctioned as a part of the Sikh spiritual training and achievement of summum bonum. Guru Gobind Singh introduced no new doctrine and in no way deviated from the spiritual purpose of his Guruship. All the Sikh Gurus scrupulously avoided taking up the sword for worldly gains even though prophets of the Old Testament, companions of Jesus, Prophet Muhammad and ‘incarnations’ like Rama and Krishna had done it much before them.

While making his unbecoming observations, the author completely forgets that all battles of the Guru were fought in self-defence and that he has never been found to be an aggressor by any assessment. It is also conveniently forgotten that of the thirty-three or so years of his ministry, only about five were spent in the field of battle and that the Guru was preaching for most of the rest. The doctrine of use of force for defence and for a righteous cause was basic to Sikh belief from the time of Guru Nanak himself and has to be considered a higher stage of spiritual development. The right of self-defence is recognised by all jurisprudence, ancient, medieval and modern. To believe that it constitutes a fall to any degree is to betray gross ignorance of human affairs. Had Tagore been honest he could have arrived at a proposition contrary to the one supported by him. He could have recalled the plight of millions of his co-religionists who did not resist and were reduced to abject slavery. They led the lives of beasts of burden for more than a thousand years. Noble Buddha’s followers were eliminated from India when the crafty Brahmin persuaded them to believe that ahimsa (non-violence) was parmodharam (the paramount religion).

In a total distortion of facts and disregard for the universal nature of the Guru’s struggle, Tagore states, that "the wars waged by Guru Govind were merely wars of the Sikh sect. He did not extend his aim beyond his own followers". The aim of Guru Gobind Singh has always been perceived as the elimination of oppression in any form on any human being anywhere. This was the reason that the Guru could elicit willing support from Muslim saints and even Mughal soldiers like General Sayid Khan. Tagore's poetic licence served him well and he was not wary of making any unfounded statement.

The remarkable inner coherence that the faith of Nanak gave to the society constituted by his followers is sought to be lightly dismissed by the author. His explanation for the phenomena is simply that the external pressure did "solidify the Sikhs into a compact nation". Competent observers have known that the Sikhs were already a well knit nation at the time of the ministry of the Fifth Guru. Amongst others it is testified to by ‘Mohsin Fani’ and Emperor Jahangir. The external pressure of which Tagore talks, came as a consequence of recognition of this fact and because of the fears it inspired in the ruling quarters. He also brushes aside the role of spiritual training of two centuries. Sikhi was a promising movement leading one and all towards exciting new spiritual and worldly goals. It evolved a brand new and remarkably sensitive human. All those whose innate nature was stirred by higher spiritual ideals flocked to it enthusiastically. Turning its back on worldly responsibility and action here has never been its inclination. Yet it has held fast to the many faceted splendours of the spirit and has always maintained right sort of relationship between the physical and the supra-physical. It was this balance which allowed it to release immense vitality, all embracing creativity in the lives of the people who came under its influence. For the first time in many centuries it demonstrated to the world that God-ward turned mind and soul is beyond caste and is filled with love for all creation. To deny that it was not the basic concern of any of the Gurus is to be guilty of deliberate distortion.

Very generous view of the above appreciation is that, in spite of his thorough familiarity with the teachings of Gita, Tagore did not understand the original Sikh concept of miri-piri and was genuinely misled into making a wrong assessment. For those not willing to stretch generosity to the limit of gullibility, it is obvious that the motive for the wrong assessment is to be read in the context of the broad undertaking, the deeper import of Tagore’s article and the use that decolonised has made of concepts evolved by him.

The history of Buddhism in India should have sufficed to make Tagore aware of the truth of the Sikh doctrine that evil has to be resisted and that it is the duty of the God-oriented persons to resist it. Buddhism did not resist and it was violently wiped out mainly by the just a few thousand armed followers of Adi Shankracharya. Thus was lost the greatest opportunity of by-passing the medieval ages. Had Buddhism defended itself, India and perhaps most of the world would have descended straight into the modern age at least two thousand years earlier. The consequence of not defending people’s culture by the people who own it up should also have been apparent to Tagore who had the Buddhist example in India before him. The ochre robes were erased from this land by a handful of sword and staff wielding hordes of a young militant.

Tagore’s most prominent, self-ordained pacifist acolyte Gandhi would, according to Wavel find bloodbath justified as an alternative to accommodating Muslims as equal partners in political power in united India. Finding no pacifist answer to Hitler's violence, Gandhi recommended England to surrender and was so frustrated that he contemplated suicide. In its four confrontations with China and Pakistan since 1947, no follower of Gandhi, Aurobindo or Tagore recommended non-violent resistance even for the sake of form. To this extent is ineffectiveness the peaceful pursuits in the face of deliberate violence. Tagore went on to hold that pacifism was the ideal human conduct under all circumstances. It is inconceivable that he did not realise the philosophically untenable nature of pacifism or that violence, under certain circumstances was, more compassionate action than non-violence. This proposition has been quite clear to prophets, incarnations, the Ten Gurus and the Khalsa. Its validity is axiomatic to common man.

Some later day Bengali historians of the Sikhs followed a lead or two given by Tagore and looked upon the Guru's act as ‘Transformation of Sikhism.’ Tagore’s assessment influenced M. K. Gandhi who, throwing all propriety and good sense to the winds, went to the uncouth extent of calling Guru Gobind Singh a "misguided patriot." It was but a small step from Tagore to Bengali historians to M. K. Gandhi and thereafter to Arnold Toynbee. He too felt that Sikhi stood spiritually dwarfed because of having taken measures to defend itself. He forgot that Jesus had asked his followers to sell their cloaks and to purchase swords. Ignoring the overturning the moneychangers' tables must have come easily to a person who even failed to appreciate that Jesus accepted crucifixion for social and spiritual causes. Most of the key phrases used by Toynbee are lifted straight from Tagore. He writes this in a chapter in which he has discussed `Kabirism and Sikhism', consciously bracketing the two together. Had he convincingly shown that since no self defence was organised by Kabirpanthis, and consequently they were able to make it to the pinnacle of spiritual glory, he would have been taken seriously. The fact, however is that Kabirism, which did not take up the sword made no spiritual or material progress and is hardly heard of as a living force in history. Like a small stream in the middle of Sahara it has almost vanished from history without leaving a trace. It had nothing to show for not taking a vow to resist tyranny and injustice. The same would be true of several scores of sects which made a short appearance within the pail of Hinduism, did not defend themselves or their spiritual heritage according to the requirement of the age, became redundant and having nothing to justify their existence, vanished into the darkness of the past leaving a few imperceptible foot prints on the sand of time.

Arnold Toynbee, at least, could have been misled. Maybe, at the back of his mind was the history of Papacy which he has discussed in his monumental Study of History. It could have been possible for him to generalise against violence on examining the conduct of Popes generally from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. Much can also be said to show how that is irrelevant to the basic moral proposition embodied in the concept of mir-piri and in a large measure to even the history of the Church. Personal ambitions and failings of Popes and Emperors also introduced distortions which may be the relevant causes of the seamier side noticed by Toynbee. He has himself referred to such factors, as "the hardness of men's hearts and the perversity of their ambitions". In that context his drawing attention to, another variable, namely, the "dangerous game of fighting force with force, which is justifiable within limits which may be divined by intuition but which are perhaps impossible to define --- " may not be as relevant as he thinks it is. He also ignored the spiritual training (`the defining of limits') of two centuries which preceded the creation of the Khalsa. One is still left wondering whether the Church would have at all survived had Hildebrand (Later Gregory VII), on being appointed guardian, not taken militant measures to protect the Papal treasury and the Pope’s person.

Surely, Tagore must have also understood that the dynamic impact that Sikhi had on history is primarily due to its exposition of the concept of miri-piri. This particularly involved resistance to injustice and oppression. If God is Just and is Truth, as no doubt S/He is, how can a believer remain indifferent to strife involving truth and justice? The ultimate aim of a spiritually awake Sikh has been laid down to see the establishment of a just order free of coercion. Those eminently Christian powers that fought the two world wars will testify to this truth in spite of doubt and confusion possessing some very enlightened individuals.

It is not surprising, in view of the predetermined character of the writing and the general peevishness of disposition exhibited by the Tagore towards the Sikh Panth in general, that he rarely has a word of praise for the Tenth Guru. The only good thing about the Guru, according to him, is, ‘at blow from Guru Govind the already weakened caste system tumbled down to the earth'; and it is possible that this is a left-handed compliment designed as a reminder to the Hindu orthodoxy that the Guru created a new society totally outside the Hindu caste society. Message to the Hindu masses was clear. It was that the Khalsa Panth, associated by him particularly with Guru Gobind Singh, was not to be the model for the new society sought to be built up in decolonised India. Hindudom never forgave Sikhism for the revolutionary denunciation of every decadent principle of the old culture.

For the same reason, the ‘People’s Republic led by the Khalsa’ is looked down upon. The Hindu ideal polity was much different. Consequently, Ranjit Singh comes in for a lot of unfair and even mean criticism. He "firmly tied the Sikhs together by stratagem, force and policy" and "merely stands as an example of restless cunning and sleepless perseverance in self-aggrandisement". His striving “enabled Jat peasants to grow great." That appears to be Ranjit Singh’s greatest crime. He reversed the caste order. Fear of the Jat peasantry coming to political power was not displayed by Tagore for the first time. Hill Rajas, the contemporaries of the Guru were his worthy predecessors Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were their worthy successors. Many heinous crimes have been justified by the modern Indian state on the pretext of preventing Jats from garnering political influence in the Punjab. Tagore further continues about Ranjit Singh, that "there was no limit to his greed and no restraint on his voluptuous sensuality." His legacy was "disunion, mutual distress, lawlessness". This could very well have been the report of a gutter inspector.

All evidence is to the contrary. The Punjab stood united for the first time in many centuries. Recognition of Ranjit Singh's efforts and later those of the Panj Kaunsali (Council of five elected democratically) to unite all Indians and to expel the foreign occupiers – ‘to throw the English leopard into the sea’ as Ranjit Singh put it in a letter to the Muslim King of Hyderabad, to the Maratha potentates and the orthodox Hindu King (the ‘incarnation of Vishnu’) of Nepal. This is a chapter which deserved mention in golden letters in the history of this country. Just before the commencement of the Anglo-Sikh Wars, the British Governor General and the Commander-in-Chief had agreed that the Sikh democratic example was too dangerous for the existence of foreign occupiers and must be eliminated. This became the final cause of the immoral assimilation of the Punjab, the territory belonging to an ally that the British Indian Empire had solemnly promised to protect during the minority of Dalip Singh. This all too significant predicament of the East India Company arouses no curiosity in Tagore. It means nothing to him that these were the first rays of the sun of democracy in the sub-continent. He ‘knows’ that Ranjit Singh was a despot.

Peace prevailed in the Sikh Commonwealth and all enlightened travellers have testified to it. For the first time in a millennium, the Sikhs and Hindus along with the Muslims had an equally effective share in the governance of this part of the country. Even a cursory investigation would have revealed to Tagore that the Sikh Commonwealth was the most just state India had ever seen. It reawakened the Indian mind to free activity for the first time in centuries. The Muslims were more satisfied then, than Sikhs, Christians and Muslims are now in the modern, secular, democratic India.

The Sikhs can be proud that jumping straight form the medieval Mughal torture dens on to the throne of the Punjab as conquerors, they did not contemplate revenge even for a moment. This reflects the true grandeur of Sikhism and the greatness of Ranjit Singh's character. This remarkably responsible behaviour was most becoming of a people spiritually trained by the Ten Masters for two centuries. Toynbee has referred to the universal reaction in other similar cases. Considering the character of Egyptiac insurrection against the Ptolemaic regime, of Jewish insurrection against the Seleucid, the Roman policy of Hellenization and several dozen other such cases the world over, Toynbee observes: "When we come to examine how these victims of injustice reacted to their fate, we shall not be surprised to find that one of their reactions was an explosion of savagery which surpassed in violence the cold-blooded cruelty of their oppressors and exploiters". (p.433) The chivalrous behaviour of the Khalsa in protecting the women of the vanquished and never resorting to killing beyond the field of battle, is indeed remarkable. Echoes of this exceptional Sikh behaviour can still be heard at the battle fields of 1971 war for Bangladesh.

When the hour of the sword came for Ranjit Singh's Sikh Commonwealth, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus stood united against the British to defend it. The fight that they gave was remarkable in many ways (the British lived through ‘a night on which the fate of India trembled in a balance' observed one Governor General and "another such victory will shake the British Empire to its very foundations" said the other Governor General at the end of war with the Punjab). By many well informed historians Ranjit Singh is hailed as the most humane potentate in the history of the East. Lord Acton praised him as a sovereign who never took life. He was completely free of cruelty, even in relation to animals and wild beasts. He designated the Empire as ‘Peoples’ Commonwealth led by the Khalsa' (Sarkar Khalsa Jio). His qualities of the head and heart are almost universally admired. Ignoring all this, Tagore chooses to dig the dirt of attributed personal failings. Personal morality is not relevant to an assessment of ruler's governance. Particularly the sexual morality, after all, is no more than the self-imposed limitation and social conduct assumed by the individual in the interest of regulating social life rationally and temperately. It may not be proper to condemn an individual for personal conduct particularly if it has not attracted wide social disapproval.

Tagore's worst is still to come. Basing himself on the above subjective analysis, he glides effortlessly to the pre-determined conclusions. The Sikh movement had to be pushed out of the reckoning and he thought he had presented enough material for doing so. He knew that the audience addressed by him would easily gloss over all irrationalities and some ‘terminological in-exactitudes’ with some gross distortions thrown in for the desired effect. It was all in the cause of Hindu Dharma. Those with sectarian devotions have often resorted to gross distortions and outright lying to promote their favourite version of the ‘truth.’

Tagore comes to the conclusion that the Sikhs "sank down for ever". The emphasis is on for ever. This has come at a time when the Sikhs were putting up one of the stiffest battles against the British occupiers of India. Singh Sabha Movement, with substantial political content and great expectations in that field, had just put the Sikh house in order. Guran Ditta Kumar and Taraknath had brought home the first rumblings of Ghadar Rebellion. From the Maratha Lodge at Calcutta, the place identified by the Criminal Investigation Department as the meeting place of revolutionaries, and a place where both these persons connected with the Ghadar used to stay.

The first tidings must have been broadcast to the anyone who mattered in Calcutta and in India. The effect of periodicals Sansar, Free Hindustan, Swadesh Sewak and Vande Mataram on the Sikhs in Canada and America was known to the British Indian Government. Ghadar activists like Bhag Singh, a veteran of Tenth Bengal Lancer Regiment had burnt his honourable discharge certificate in 1909 as that reminded him of British slavery. Bhai Bhagwan Singh connected with militant activity in the Punjab in 1907 had been arrested twice in Hong Kong for spreading disaffection amongst the Sikh troops stationed there. Babbar Akalis were poised to jump on the stage of history in a decade or so. The Kuka Sikhs had been ascending the gallows in the cause of freedom every now and then since 1850. Ever since the birth of their faith, the Sikhs have never stopped making history. The time at which Tagore's article appeared, revolutionaries had come to have a hold on the imagination of young Bengalis also. The inspiration for Tagore's present article was clearly the dread, the strong apprehension that the Sikhs, who had beaten the English in every battle of the Anglo-Sikh Wars, were preparing to intervene in history of the British colonialism in a big way; Tagore’s objective clearly was to prevent such an intervention.

Most perfidious was Tagore’s assertion that "there is no force of progress amongst the Sikhs - - they have not added any new wealth to the world's stock of knowledge, faith or action".

Let us test the veracity of his statement by, at random, recalling the Sikh contribution to world of faith and action. He missed the originality of Sikh mysticism which for the first time emphasised the human form as vehicle of God's Will and rescued human personality from the ideal of complete annihilation or final dissipation of it as hitherto believed to be the basis of mukti or nirwana. The God of Sikhi has chosen to reveal Himself on His own volition and takes interest in the development of history through the Godward inclined men and women. The ideal person of Sikhi is one who is earnestly seeking universal welfare as the vehicle for God's Will.

Sikhi for ever put an end to the concept of a `sectarian God' by promoting the doctrine of `essentially unknowable nature of Ultimate Reality'. A people who believe this do not go about waging wars of religion (as are taking place even in the twenty-first century) for they accept that all faiths are equally valid. Had Jews, Muslims and Christians believed that, there would have been no Crusades and nothing of much that can be seen looming on the not too distant horizon today. Sikhi goes one step beyond the monotheism of these two most monotheistic of faiths by asserting the totally unequivocal Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. It takes the world miles ahead of the illogical `Jew and Gentile, Christian and Heathen, Muslim and Kafir' syndromes. It widens the boundaries of faiths and creates ample meeting grounds. Most remarkable of all, it eliminates the desirability of conversion. Thus ridding religion of so much of the irreligious, faith based acrimony. When there is only one God the fountainhead of all creation, of all faiths, of all actions, of all history and of all nations, whom do you convert to what and what for? Its implication legitimately extended to abandoning belief in ‘God's own chosen people'. In spite of its philosophical soundness, this doctrine has not as yet found universal acceptance amongst even monotheistic faiths. With Sikhi it is five centuries old already. The qualitative change in peoples' psyche in consequence of the world having become a global village and the tremendous advance in rationality refreshingly bathed in the new dawn of the twenty-first century, has not brought people nearer to accepting it. Christianity and Islam are not prepared to see the futility of conversion even today when interfaith dialogue is so intense. Religious wars, in continuation of the Crusades are being waged in several theatres. Under alien influence, even Hinduism of late has been seeking conversions and re-conversions although it has been doctrinally opposed to both.

Yet this is the original, integral part of the Sikh faith and has been consistently believed in and practised ever since its inception. It is considered remarkable that during the the Sikh rule in about a dozen Sikh states, together adding up to an empire bigger than that of Ashoka, there were never any forcible conversions or even conversions by inducement or fraud as are being resorted to even today by the Roman Catholics. This was in spite of the background of gruesome medieval persecutions in which at least three times it was officially declared that the Sikhs had been completely wiped out, ‘the name of a Sicque was not heard of in the Mughal dominion'. The Sikhs are so totally devoid of religion based hatred that during the last disturbed decade, although literally at a thousands of places, Hindu mobs killed individual Sikhs, at no place was ever a single Hindu killed by a Sikh mob. Every Sikh considers this to be the glory of Sikhism. So it is. Where else has Tagore noticed all this? Why did these not appear to him to be the profoundest contributions, holding immense potential for world peace and harmony?

Had Tagore delved deep into Sikh doctrines, he would have noticed that Sikhi for the first time accepted that the human female is capable of highest spiritual experience and has the innate capacity to give guidance in the field of religion. Guru Amardas appointed women to manage religious institutions and they continue to head seminaries and Gurdwaras even today. The Sikh belief that addresses God also as a female is still to be appreciated.

Since he was working for a sectarian purpose and for a desired effect, Tagore did not notice the equally benign concept of miri-piri which is another Sikh gift to the world social and political order. It did away with asceticism and monasticism for ever and went ahead to promote the fixation of social, spiritual and mundane responsibility on each and every believer of any faith. The remarkable vision of the Guru which made him embrace martyrdom for the freedom of faith went totally unnoticed by Tagore. Its implication, that the Order of the Khalsa is the defender of freedom of worship of all people everywhere, was also lost on him. The astonishingly original nature of the Order of the Khalsa has been highlighted even by Toynbee. If we probe further into the political field, we will find a dozen fresh concepts which owe their origin to the teachings of the Gurus. To name only two, the concept of Open Diplomacy and a political party wedded to carrying out a universal idea in history, are no mean achievements. Neither is the establishment of primacy of the spiritual and moral needs of society over the coercive authority of the political state, thus laying the foundations of a pluralistic society as the ideal political organization. No unbiased person setting out to read Sikh history can miss all that and much more to draw attention to which more space is required than is available here for this purpose.

Much can be said about each one of Tagore's observations being quoted in this paragraph. Sikh message is universal and the Guru lays claim to being the Jagadguru, of course with perfect justification. The Guru lays stress on values valid for all regions and all times. Yet Tagore says, "- Sikh history had lost its aim at the attraction of revenge or some other petty object and had slipped down from the plane of human perfection, but it failed to achieve any glory even in the lowest stage of national success". For commenting on this aspect, let us recall the most remarkable career of Banda Singh Bahadur. He ravaged Sarhind where the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh, aged nine and seven had been bricked alive in a wall. This is the oft quoted example of revenge seeking Sikhs. He established his Capital on the other side of the present railway line and yet did not touch the mausoleum of Shaikh Ahmed Sarhandi Mujjadad Alif-e-Sani, the sworn enemy of Hindus and Sikhs, the man responsible for the judicial murder of the Fifth Guru and almost all subsequent acts of oppression on the Sikhs by the Mughal administration. Banda’s was clearly not revenge venture though it presented itself as one to the crude and the ill-informed. It was a living man’s reaction to tyranny, it was righting the historical wrong. It was an attempt to do away with the regime that had become oppressive to the extreme even in the eyes of the co-religionists of the ruling despot. The killing of minor sons for the imaginary sins of the father is opposed to the principles initiated in the last preaching of Prophet Muhammad. The execution of children who are deemed (innocent) ‘masoom’ in Islamic jurisprudence is tyranny. It is a crime according to any jurisprudence prevalent in any civilised country.

Tagore did not consider the alternate proposition. The Hindus temples were destroyed by the Mughals and other invaders before them. Their sacred statues doctrinally deemed as gods, went to build steps to mosques from Calcutta to Baghdad or became butcher’s stones in that region. Hindu women and young boys were routinely carried away as slaves. The name Hindukush is a memorial to the countless massacres of Hindus enacted there. Hind lay prostrate before alien invaders for many thousand years. No Hindu contemplated revenge or had a dream of putting an end to the oppression. On the contrary the most honourable in Hindudom, including the much eulogised Rajputs established family ties with Mughal despots. It is universally known that in this respect it did not slip from the ‘pinnacle of human perfection.’ Can it be said that thereby, Hinduism reached the pinnacle of national glory? No Hindu organisation celebrates the occasion of Jodhabai entering the Mughal emperor’s harem.

For the purpose of dwarfing the universal Sikh spirit he talks of the Sikh "race" which to him was "a petty sect." Sikhs were not a race. Sikhi attracted adherents from all races and countries. Neither was it a petty sect. As early as the time of Guru Arjun, it had followers from Bay of Bengal to Baghdad and no major city was without its adherents. Sikhi for Tagore failed completely in every possible way. This is the course his wishful thinking takes. To an objective observer, it had achieved every object placed before it by the Gurus. His assertion "the end of Sikh history appears very sad to me," is the imaginary sankhnaad (auspicious conch blowing) of a race poised to inherit political power in India with collaboration of the colonial power then ruling over it. It is also despicable expression and of most hideous-faced ingratitude, possible only from a representative of the Hindu race. It appears as if wiping out of Sikhi is being determined by him as a goal for the future rulers of India. It is no wonder that having been founded by such a person, the Shantiniketan soon came to be seen as “the original hot-bed of all that is weak, false and pretentious in contemporary Bengali life.” (Nirad C. Chaudhuri, From the Archives of a Centenarian, Mitra Ghosh Publishers Pvt Ltd, Calcutta, 1997, 96.)

He expresses sadness but that appears to be a deceptive mode of communication. He appears to relish the idea that he is sounding the death knell of a people inconvenient to his scheme of things. Even with the sort of material and the sort of use he decided to make of it, the conclusion he draws is hardly possible. In spite of the finality of his judgment the Sikhs have continued to make history all these years. The idea of a commonwealth led by the non-sectarian Khalsa was the truest example of democratic functioning and heralded the modern age in Indian politics. This much we can say on Tagore’s own authority. To justify the construction suggested here, we need to recapitulate his interpretation of Maratha history.

Maratha endeavour under Shivaji is much lauded. For Tagore, it had a universal import` chiefly, ‘because’ the Hindu race and Hindu creed, which Shivaji was supposedly resolved to emancipate from Muslim rule' was more widespread. ‘Hence it is beyond a doubt that Shivaji's aim was to reconstruct the history of all India'. That Shivaji’s field of operation and main concern was a part of South India, is ignored. This compliment is paid to Shivaji merely because his aim appears to be in favour of one religion and definitely against the other. Shivaji is, however, most lauded in India for his imaginary bid to humble Islam. He supposedly acted to establish hegemony of Hinduism and is therefore admired for his `pure ideal'. Much superior approach of Guru Gobind Singh under the same circumstances ‘appears desolatory’ to the deliberately blind. Shivaji's battles ‘were not mere outbursts of passion, not mere wrangles’ but had been endowed by a ‘grand sequence’ at the poet’s command and were only the primary steps of a vast plan’ (that existed nowhere except in Tagore’s imagination). Careful comparative study of the two situations would reveal the remarks he makes about Shivaji to be truer of actions and intentions and actions of Guru Gobind Singh. It is he who had a catholic universal approach. His primary aim was to establish the rule of Dharma and not that of any favoured denomination. Politically, it was the Guru's aim to empower the most backward, the most deprived and the most downtrodden. He had no quarrel with Islam but the oppressive Mughal rule. That, he declared to be the aim of his pontificate. In comparison with Shivaji's movement, Guru’s was certainly the most humane, democratic and universal in character.

Shivaji's experiment failed because ‘road' had not been ‘opened for spreading the idea among the general public of the land'. And because, of ‘our mutual separation' that is because ‘in our society there are endless differences - in religion, work, food, pleasure, social intercourse, everywhere we have diversity'. In contrast the Guru, ‘totally rooted up the caste system which was a strong obstacle' and yet when he took the next step that Shivaji took without it, he somehow ended up merely, converting ‘this spiritual unity of the Sikhs into a means of worldly success' and ‘dwarfed the unity---into an instrument of political advancement'. The political advancement sought by the Guru was that of people at large and not personal, dynastic or that of a caste, of an ethnic entity or a favoured religious denomination.

For him stopping of ‘the succession of Gurus' was the source of dethroning of Sikhi from commanding spiritual heights to a complete failure in every way. The Guru, however, stopped the succession of an individual human Guru and bestowed the Guruship on Guru Granth, that is, the Doctrine and upon the Khalsa Panth or of the Sikh people collectively. This, along with the creation of the Khalsa, have been hailed as two of the most revolutionary steps in the history of religion and therefore, of humankind. This arrangement has been the most potent force in Sikh history and has imparted the life impulse to the Sikh people at several crucial moments. It raised them to superhuman plane of activity at the Great Holocaust. It is, however, significant that the Indian political establishment since 1947, has been consciously working to establish individual human Gurus amongst the Sikhs. Namdharis, Radhaswamis, Nirankaris, and host of others are a product of this thought. It is reasonable to see a co-relation between the pronouncement of Tagore, the echoes of which are constantly heard in the writings and deeds of Gandhi and the faithful follow up by the government of decolonised India.

Surprisingly Tagore sees the creation of the Khalsa as highly retrogressive: ‘Sikhs who had been advancing gloriously for several centuries to be true MEN, now suddenly stopped short and became mere SOLDIERS; and here their history ended’. The announcement of end of Sikh history embodies Tagore’s hope and is not the observation of a fact. One whole century, in which the Sikhs continued to make history in a significant way, emphatically belies his assertion. The use of capital letters points to Tagore's strong feelings against militancy. Later on, after demitting power in behalf of the British, Lord Mountbatten the last Viceroy would say that the British never could have ruled over India for so long without the consent of Indians. The small number of Englishmen in India throughout the colonial period is also a pointer in the same direction. Later day historians would affirm that the western style revolutionary activity was what the British in India dreaded the most. It must also be remembered that the first decade of the present century was the time of unrest in India and was sure to end up in revolutionary activity as it eventually did. The Sikhs, with whom militant activity was a part of the practise of religion, had never given up violent resistance to the British occupation of their homeland and were likely to become involved in such activity in a big way in future. First rumblings of the impending Ghadar movement had already reached the Indian shores. Tagore, with his ear to the ground, must surely have heard its earliest whispers, the government he served was certainly aware of it. The first national agitation against the British rule had already taken place in opposition to the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905. Dark clouds were gathering from the British point of view and drastic remedies were required.

His analysis indicated that Shivaji failed and ended up weaving ‘ropes of sand' essentially because of the caste system. The “heterogeneous society he wanted to make triumphant over all India" was an ‘impossible undertaking.’ Tagore’s desire to preserve a caste based society ruled by the ‘twice born’ as the ideal form of social organisation comes out clearly from this observation.

Where does the poet's analysis leave us? According to him, both Guru Gobind Singh and Shivaji reacted to the same situation, their responses were identical, but the work of Shivaji was commendable and that of Guru Gobind Singh was deplorable. Shivaji failed because of the divisive caste system the Guru brought about the end of Sikh history although he eradicated the caste reckoning from human affairs. It is amply clear from the facts of history that the Maratha appeal was severely limited in this that it left even many whole caste groups in Maharashtra cold, was certainly oppressive to Sudras, and yet it is lauded as a great effort on a wider, almost universal scale. Both failed, according to Tagore, but one for want of eradicating the caste system and the other in spite of eradicating it. The Guru created the Khalsa in accordance with the logical goal of Sikh effort of two and half centuries and still was deemed to have cut himself asunder from the past. On the other hand, Shivaji was who wove ropes of sand around the innocuous sayings of saints describable as belonging to the neo-Vaishnavism school although much separated by time and space and imaginatively clubbed together in the so called Bhagti Movement, was supposed to have sponsored a patriotic endeavour having roots in antiquity.

The above discussion leaves no doubt that the purpose of R. N. Tagore in writing this article was two-fold. One was to make it possible for the British to lay down their own schedule for the de-colonisation process in India, undisturbed by Western style revolutionary activity. It served to make their remaining stay comfortable and free from violence. Secondly, it was to eliminate the Sikhs and Sikhi from the contest of providing a model for the free Indian society which had already been conceived in the womb of time. He charted out non-violent expression of political opinion for the future Indian freedom fighter. This only he could have done with the background of his immense prestige in the field of letters and his support of the British administration. He thus provided three or four vital clues for the future ‘struggle for India's independence' to Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. For once (and perhaps for the only time) Gandhi was telling the truth when he acknowledged Tagore as Gurudev. The British in India were no less grateful. Their expression of gratitude came two years later (1913) in the form of the Nobel Prize for literature. Incidentally, the mystery of his writing of the “Jan Gan” in praise of the British sovereign and its adoption as the national anthem by the Indian National Congress, also stands explained to a very large extent. It is a vital link or rather a missing link of the collaboration thesis.

It must be observed that had the Sikhs understood the true import of Tagore's formulations in time, they could perhaps have avoided spilling too much blood in the spurious struggle for independence and would have been able to gauge the hollowness of the liberal political promises being then made to them. Alternative measures could have been taken. There would not now be cause to lament that these have been falsified. Should they, today come to form a correct appraisal of it, they could salvage the remnants of their nation and build upon it in future to emerge as the model society for the oppressed and the depressed in India and everywhere else.

(II )

Englishmen generally believed that they had erected Bengal into an intellectual capital of India. They hoped that its westernising influence would spread to the rest of the country. Henry Maine who had been an Executive Member of the Viceroy’s Council, wrote in 1871 that the educated class in Bengal and “its peculiar set of ideas is probably the chief source from which the influence proceed which are more or less at work everywhere.” (Nirad C. Chaudhuri, From the Archives of a Centenarian, Mitra Ghosh Publishers Pvt Ltd, Calcutta, 1997, 95). They had a grand design of maintaining order in India through the influence of Bengali culture, the leaders of which they were in a position to nurture and build into intellectual giants by patronage of the state. The trick was tried also subsequently in India.

There is some direct evidence that R. N. Tagore was treated as a benefactor of the white colonial race by all concerned. His aristocratic birth and his dislike by the Bengali intellectuals as a class, made him additionally vulnerable to British manipulation. In his address after receiving the Nobel Prize, he expressed special thanks to the West through which God had recognised his talent. “--He to whom I had offered my handful of worship – was extending His right hand to accept it from the western shores.” He was pro-British at heart and after receiving the Nobel Prize, went on a Western tour to project a favourable image of the colonial administration. This becomes particularly significant when seen in the context of the tempers against the British running high both in the Punjab and Bengal. The Ghadar Party had been formed by Indians, mainly Sikhs and Bengalis, in the United States with an aim of expelling the British from India by violent means.

Tagore appears to have been deliberately built up as a good-will ambassador for the British colonial power. A question may be legitimately asked whether procuring the Nobel Prize for him was a part of the build up? It can also be asked whether the subsequent western tour was a part of the price for the Prize that he had agreed to pay? It is certain that he was seriously engaged in the business of providing safeguards to the violent overthrow of the British Empire in India. Was that why he visited San Francisco, the headquarters of the Ghadar Party? It was the fear of violence which has eventually convinced the British to withdraw from India. Mainly, it was the suspected disloyalty of the Sikh forces which had come under the influence of the militant propaganda that made the British finally decide on quitting.

The poet visited the United States in 1916. He was staying in San Francisco at a local hotel. On October 5, 1916, while he was giving an interview to a journalist of the local paper, The Portland, a group of armed men tried to force their way up to him. The British government blamed the members of the Ghadar Party for the attempted attack. This incident was widely reported in all the American papers. Next day the following report appeared about the incident in The World Tribune, “Hindu poet safe after wild fight under bodyguard.” The San Francisco California Examiner wrote, “plot to slay Sir Rabindranath Tagore nipped in San Francisco.” The Los Angeles California Express noted, “Detectives guard Hindu philosopher.” The Birmingham Alabama Ledger was more explicit, “Hindu poet Tagore threatened by Indian assassins. Pro British utterances of Nobel Prize winner endanger his life. – As a result Tagore has cancelled some of his speaking engagements in California. Prof. Bishen Singh – from Stockholm was seeking to persuade Tagore to refrain from his pro-British utterances – was assaulted in the street. ” On October 7, 1916, The Examiner, wrote an editorial condemning the attack on the poet. The strangest part is that according to the Asian Age, this story has “remained a closely guarded secret all these years.” The documents relating to it are still not available to the general public. (See, The Asian Age, April 11, 2003, p.1)

The Tribune, (April 15, 1999, quoting The Hindustan Times, says, “But few are aware that the poet – was also the president of the Bengal Provincial Congress conference at Pabna, now in Bangladesh, in 1907. It was just a year after the Surat Congress when the party was sharply divided between the moderates and the extremists. – Tagore presiding over the Bengal Provincial Congress (the Bengal party was known by that name then) delivered a rousing speech in which he compared the Congress with a big living tree sprouting afresh from the point where it is hacked. Tagore’s name for the office was proposed by Sri Aurobindo Ghose and seconded by Abdullah Rasul the leading barrister of Bengal and later a state Congress president.” This certainly helps to explain the exact position of Tagore and his role in dousing the fires of militarism.

(III)

R. N. Tagore has disapprovingly written about the moral laxity of Ranjit Singh. He has cited Ranjit Singh’s supposed sexual misdemeanour although he did not care to find out how much of it was official propaganda of the British usurpers of the People’s Commonwealth that they advertised as the Sikh Empire for tactical reasons. The severity of his condemnation and the far reaching conclusions he draws upon the attributed trait of Ranjit Singh appears to indicate that the poet was a very strict moralist, at least a monogamist if not a celibate. It would be interesting to put some known facts of his personal sexual behaviour together in an endeavour to know whether he was using this misinformation stick to beat Ranjit Singh with or he was really perturbed about his laxity in that field. The following is condensed from: Stanley Thomas, “Lord of the butterflies,” The Week, April 22, 2001, Kochi, 48-50 and Nityapriya Ghosh, “Cupid’s Confusion,” 54, and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s interview by Tapash Ganguly, 51-53.

He particularly comes out as the most reluctant one at confessing. He did confess to one pre-marital affair eventually in his Chhelebela (My Boyhood Days). That was perhaps because he had alluded to it in his interview with a composer Atulprasad Sen and singer Dalip Ray at the age of sixty-six (in 1927) and had skipped it in his Jivansmriti (My Rememberances) written when he was fifty. He was visiting a Bombay family “for a few days,” (actually six weeks in August and September 1878). He composed songs in praise of the girl of that family and sang one to her to please her and gain favours.

Sunil Gangopadhyay is a novelist author of Ranu-O-Bhanu, First Light a translation of Pritham Aloe, has something to say on the same subject. The Week, dated April 22, 2001, 51-53, “Cupid’s confusion,” carries excerpts from his books as well as his interview. He has talked of several of Tagore’s love affairs. It is notable that he was accused of trying “to tarnish Rabindranath’s image by portraying him as a sex maniac.” (1) One affair he mentions is with Lady Ranu Mukherjee younger to Tagore by 47 years. She came in contact with him (“with no clothing on my person”) when she was just 12 years old. “It was known to everyone that Tagore used to write songs for her and would sing them in her presence. He dedicated his play Rakta Karabi (Red Oleander) to her. In her unpublished autobiography -- Ranu mentioned an incident that took place on February 3, 1933 when Tagore was 72 and she 25. She was in Santiniketan with her husband. ‘I was supposed to go to (Rabindranath) again, but I dared not -- what the poet wants from me I can’t give it to him, I can’t, I can’t.” The poet’s act of seducing a young child of 12 when he was 59 is as disgusting as his attempt to seduce a married woman by weaning her away from her husband by taking advantage of his capacity of a host. (2) Tagore who pretended to be an advocate of women’s liberation and authored Streer Patra, married Mrinalini who was 10 years old at the time of marriage. He also gave dowry to get his daughters married off. (3) Indira Devi Chowdhury, was the poet’s niece and was 11 years younger than him. “Tagore’s letters hint at an affair” with her. From his letters to her preserved at Santiniketan, “Words or lines that could reveal something,” are carefully obliterated and “can hardly be deciphered today.” (4) He had an affair with a girl from Argentina. She was Victoria Ocampo (thirty years junior to him) in whose villa he recuperated from illness. In Ocampo’s diary we find the words, “He (Tagore) touched my breast like plucking a flower.” (5) Perhaps as disgusting as the incestuous affair and the Ranu affair was his attachment to Kadambari, his elder brother’s wife. Surely as a highly cultured person familiar with cultural traditions of the east, he knew that an elder brother’s wife was to be regarded as almost a mother. Here we may recall Laxman’s regard for Sita. (6) A recent book by one of Gandhi’s descendants affirms that both Tagore and Gandhi shared a common mistress.

Such is the person who cast the first stone at Ranjit Singh. Now we know what to make of his accusing finger. It was nothing but character assassination of a Sikh having an eminent position in Sikh history.

(IV)

There is a considerable amount of literature commenting on the ‘nobility’ of the Nobel Prize for literature. It appears as if the Prize has always been so inextricably mixed up with politics that some competent commentators have constantly tried to unravel the mystery about how it was given away.

Award for peace and literature, have always been suspected of being influenced by political considerations. They are deemed to be rewards for correct political stances by the authors to whom it has been awarded. This suspicion persists to this day. In the year 2006, it was awarded to a Turkish novelist Arhan Pamak who wrote in Turkish, a language severely limited in its geographic spread. The citation mentioned that the author had become a symbol for those opposing restrictions on freedom of expression. For many years in the past the award has always gone to those poets and novelists who have bitterly criticised the administration and the political set up in their own countries. In 2005, it went to the British dramatist Herald Painter who had criticised the role played by the prime minister, Tony Blair in the Iraq War. In his speech at the crucial ceremony connected with the prize, he advocated prosecution of George Bush and Tony Blair for crimes against humanity.

One doesn’t have go whole hog with Roger Strauss that the Nobel Prize is “a joke” but the highly euphemistic characterisation of it by Charles McGrath editor New York Times Book Review, as “a great mystery” is difficult to discount. Knut Ahnlund, one of the eighteen members of the Swedish Academy, commented on the 2004 Prize to Elfriede Jelinek the Austrian feminist to say in the Svenska Dagblat, “degradation, humiliation, desecration and self-disgust, sadism and masochism are the main themes of Jelinek’s work” to the exclusion of all other aspects of human life. The New Criteria magazine agreed that the selection of Jelinek was “a new low” of the Prize that had already been “cheapened” by being given away to James Morrison in 1993. The more one goes back in time, the truer the statements become, until dawns the realisation that “the Prize is indeed a platform for sending political messages.” In 1999, Marks Gellerfelt agreed with a New Yorker article that “the ideal candidate for a Nobel Prize today would be a lesbian from Asia.” The New Criterion is nearer to the truth when it says that more and more, it “has gone to a person who has the correct sex, geographical address, ethnic origin and political profile.” Direct evidence of it having been given away for political considerations, has never been scarce. Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz won it in 1980 and the Solidarity movement took birth the same year. W. B. Yeats won it in 1923 and a year later Ireland won its independence. [The information contained in this paragraph is borrowed from Susan Salter Reynolds, “Nobility lost,” (LA Times-Washington Post, reproduced in The Tribune, October 4, 2006, 11)].

The two factors that favoured Tagore winning the Nobel Prize for Literature can now be easily identified. England had the best of relations with Norway in the relevant years. Secondly, the position of the British in India was destined to become more and more precarious with the rise of the militant movements in the Punjab and Bengal. It was perceived that this had the potential of developing into a dangerous situation. Agitation against the partition of Bengal must have been fresh in the minds of the colonial power. A collaborator, who ostensibly was an intellectual leader, was required. His projected brief was ability to condemn the Sikh tradition of militarism and at the same time to influence the Bengali patriots with his pacifism. Choice of Tagore was a master-stroke of British policy. So also was that of M. K. Gandhi’s, the political leader chosen to laud and follow him. Both were ably assisted by Aurobindo Ghosh the sage. Now it is known that Gandhi had almost bagged the Nobel for Peace had he not faltered at Chaura Chauri and had he not connived at violence during the Quit India Movement. These doings convinced the Swedish Academy that Gandhi had revised his views on pacifism. The most charitable explanation of the denial is given by the Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad is that the Academy did not want to destroy the good relations existing between its country and Great Britain. (See, “Why Gandhi was denied Nobel Peace prize,” The Times of India, October 17, 2006, 7). It certainly is significant. The Nobel Prize for Literature is to politics what the Miss Universe title is to fashion industry: it follows the clientele.

What the Academy did not know was that Gandhi had always been a violent person in thought and deed, rascist to the core and when his feigned patience was exhausted, he had reverted to his innate nature that was red in tooth and claw. Gandhi ought to be assessed by what he did to the Sikh people, the Zulus during the Zulu ‘war’ and the Pathans rather than by what he professed. His role in partition of the country leading to six million deaths and the uprooting of much larger number of people was the cruellest act perpetrated by any individual in history. The still continuing violence in Kashmir stems directly from his views on the subject. The roots of all these happenings must be traced to Tagore, Gandhi and Aurobindo if it is true, as is generally held and almost universally implied, that the ‘country’s ethos (1900-1921) was built around the thought mainly of Aurobindo, Tagore and Gandhi.’ (See, Adwaita P. Ganguly, Netaji Subhas and the Indian Ethos 1900-1921, Vedantic Research centre for Comparative Civilisations, Dehra Dun, 2003. The book seeks to delineate ideological basis of India’s ‘struggle for freedom’). Now we know for certain that Tagore chose to malign the Gurus and to denigrate the Sikh movement in order to see the caste based Hindu padpaadshahi (Hindu orthodox rule) established in India.

(V )

Now a word about Sir Jadunath Sarkar will be in order. His other sarcastic comments and uncritical, unfounded observations about the Gurus and Sikh history are equally notorious. Together they bear testimony to his perverse nature, shallowness of his thought and above all to deep rooted hatred of the Sikhs. For instance, Guru Arjan, the martyr Guru, was for him a common revenue defaulter who met his gruesome fate by refusing to pay the fine imposed by authorities. His other comments are as untrue as they are derogatory. Many of them find an echo in Tagore’s (?) present essay.

Very significantly, this thesis came at a time when the dread of revolutionary activity was beginning to grip the British administration. From about 1870 onwards, India experienced the expansion of Western education. It provided clerks and junior officials for the administration, but it also helped spread extremism. While the moderates of the Indian National Congress whom the British patronised, remained faithful under all circumstances, some of the educated, who could not be accommodated as clerks, became resentful against the British. They turned revolutionary and sought to overthrow the British and to undermine the moderates. During Lord Minto’s viceroyalty (1905-1910) the danger from such disgruntled elements advocating violence as means of liberation from an alien and unsympathetic government was perceived as great. The government responded by extending concessions to the moderate nationalists. This found expression in the Morley–Minto Reforms of 1909. (See, Michael Edwardes, The Last Years of British India, (1963), The New English Library, 1967, pp. 19-20). As a corollary of the same, various methods of combating the deadly revolutionary virus appear to have been devised.

In a commemorative volume on Sarkar, K. R. Qanungo quoted him as saying, if “—I had not used my discretion in omitting much of what Irvine had written against the Sikh community, I would have by now become a martyr.” (H. R. Gupta, Life and Letters of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Panjab University, 1958, p.62) This statement was repeated by several uncritical historians thereafter.

Surinder Singh examined Sarkar’s remark. He looked up two of William Irvines articles on the Sikhs written by him prior to 1894 in the Asiatic Review and the Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. He found that in the work of Irvine edited by Sarkar, he had merely reproduced the above mentioned writings regarding the Sikhs without any editing whatsoever. (See, Sikh Studies Quarterly, July-September 2000, Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh, pp. 72-78)

The richly decorated, much acclaimed and highly evaluated (a “Bengali Gibbon;” the “greatest historian of India beyond comparison”) turned out to be just a base calumniator endowed with tricks that bear him out to be a common trickster as his very name (Jadunath – ‘master magician’) suggests. It is a little wonder that he cooperated with Tagore to provide an anti-Sikh theme to Gandhi and his cohorts looking for crumbs from the table of the imperial British enslaving their land.