A Semiological Perspective

– Bhupinder Singh –

Theoretically, a Sikh cannot be a communalist, even a nationalist - nationalism being a form of communalism - but only a universalist, one set against all artificial boundaries separating man from man and man from nature and God

Partition contravened the fundamentals of the Sikh faith. In a manner of speaking, it abolished the raison  d'être of the Sikhs qua Sikhs. The Sikh dream of a multi-centric plural society was all in a shambles and pieces

To strive for a real federation within India and, beyond that, for a confederation of all States in the Subcontinent - that is the role betting the Sikhs in the present conjuncture

In 1947, India was partitioned on the basis of the two-nation theory, which was initiated and championed by the Muslim League no doubt, but was in the end accepted, even if by implication, by the Congress as well. Ultimately, it came to be accepted by the Muslim League as well as the Congress (minus Gandhi as we shall see) that the Muslims and the Hindus could not happily co-exist within a single polity.     

Thus, in a terribly disastrous move, the Subcontinent was bisected into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The attempt of the Congress to later displace the opposition of Hindu India versus Muslim Pakistan by another opposition of secular India versus theocratic Pakistan failed, to my mind, as naturally as the effort of the Muslim separatists to find authentic Islam and enduring peace and stability in Pakistan.

The objective basis and logic of Partition, viz., the two-nation

 theory, buttressed by the holocaust at the time of Partition and the subsequent wars, gradually prevailed and overwhelmed the majority populations in the two halves of the united India. The antagonistic opposition of Hindu India versus Muslim Pakistan was deeply internalised and became part of the conscious and the unconscious of the two peoples.  Among other things, this rendered the fate of the Muslims in India and the Hindus in Pakistan tragic and precarious.

Now, to anyone even remotely familiar with the lexis and praxis of Gandhi, it is clear that the two-nation theory or the parti­tion of India could not but be totally incompatible with the structure of his world-view or his theory of normal civilisation. Gandhi believed that all religions are true and equal and that they cannot only peacefully co-exist, but also creatively inter-communicate and enrich one another. Variety in culture as also in nature is desirable as well as necessary to manifest unity.

Unfortunately, Gandhi's quest for truth and Jinnah's quest for power could not find a mediation precisely because, among other things, the then dominant Congress leadership had succumbed to the latter's problematique of power and thus become his willing or unwilling accomplice.

structures of the Sikh faith

No one, to my mind, has as yet spelt out the catastrophic implications of Partition for or in relation to the deeper structures of the Sikh faith, or its theology and cosmology as well as its anthropology. As is well-known, Sikhism had arisen so as to overcome the antagonism between Hinduism and Islam, in particular, and resolve the question of religious diversity in relation to state power (in fact all asymmetries of power), in general. Such a project obviously required, for its fulfilment, a synthesising vision and philosophy comprehensive enough to simultaneously conserve and transcend as well as mediate and validate the antagonistic religious blocs - the Aryan and the Semitic.

Thus, the Sikh Gurus offered the philosophy of unity in variety which was declared to be operative within and across the domains of spirit, man and nature. All religions as alternative routes to God, who Himself is beyond all caste and religion, were equally true and truly equal, complementary and, at the esoteric level, interconvertible. No one had the right to force his faith on others and any attempt at coercion had to be resisted with full might. The Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh, the bearers and defenders of the new revelation, ultimately came to symbolise people's kingship and resistance against any actual or potential discrimination by the State.

There are two features of Sikhism, which need emphasis in the context of the present discussion. Firstly, although Sikhism imbibed concepts and ideas from both Hinduism and Islam and perhaps could not and cannot be understood except with reference to them, it was neither of them nor both together, but a distinct religion based on a fresh revelation. In terms of its theology, if not in terms of its history, Sikhism was (and is) equally close to or equally distant from Hinduism and Islam. Secondly, Sikhism founded and encouraged the notion of a multi-centric plural society as the normal and natural mode of human social existence. Theoretically, a Sikh cannot be a communalist, even a nationalist - nationalism being a form of communalism - but only a universalist, one set against all artificial boundaries separating man from man and man from nature and God.

It is easy to see how Partition contravened the fundamentals of the Sikh faith. In a manner of speaking, it abolished the raison  d'être of the Sikhs qua Sikhs. The Sikh dream of a multi-centric plural society was all in a shambles and pieces. Bewildered and confused, the Sikhs tragically vacillated on the eve of Partition, alternately inclining towards Hindustan, Pakistan and the unreal Khalistan. While the Hindus had got their Hindustan and the Muslims their Pakistan, the Sikhs, as the third party to negotiations for the transfer of power, had got nothing.

It may be argued that the Sikhs were not so much concerned with their theology and truth as with political economy and power, very much like other groups and communities. Despite over-simplification, there is some substance in the argument. The Sikhs never collectively or consistently resisted the two-nation theory or Partition from a right perspective. But then, they, too, had been overcome and over-run by the logic of history, or the dialectics of Hindu and Muslim communalism unfolded by the intended and un-intended consequences of the imperialist policies. The Sikhs got concerned, like others, with the identity, security and well-being of their own community.

Partition signified the triumph of the subordination of the principle of truth to power or of religion to politics. The lone voice and exhortation of Gandhi to the people to do precisely the reverse, that is, to subordinate politics to religion or ethics, was ignored.  The seeds of insecurity and mutual suspicion and hatred had been planted. Thenceforward, there was not to be any peace within or between the countries of the Subcontinent. I think by now it should be realised that Partition was an act against God and until and unless the peoples of the Subcontinent show penitence and dismantle the partition, at leaset within their own minds, a curse will continue to hover over and afflict them from eternity to eternity.

In a situation fundamentally distorted by Partition, the Sikhs have been questing for their identity and role in independent India, where in the Constitution, they were clubbed with the Hindus and declared against their theology as a Hindu sect. Now, while the Sikh aspiration to defend their revelation and maintain their identity is wholly legitimate and understandable, it has not remained untainted by the distortions introduced into the historical situation by Partition. Thus, the Sikh definition of identity has been either unclear or conceived on the lines of the two-nation theory, with the negative emphasis on separation, cultural or territorial, from Hindu India. The elementary distinction between Khalsa raj, the perfect equivalent of Gandhi's swaraj, and Khalistan was never clearly apprehended or spelt out. The Sikh ideal of cultural and religious pluralism or the other radical idea of people’s power and sovereignty as a counterweight to any arbitrariness and tyranny of the State did not receive due attention and emphasis as the core of  Sikh identity and fundamentalism.

But then the Sikh confusion and disorientation, partly the result of the politics of power and partition, was worse confounded by the rising tide of Hindu communalism in independent India. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to understand the Sikh problem except in relation to the Hindu communal response to even the legitimate Sikh aspirations. The Sikhs were included or excluded from the Hindu fold, just like the Dalits and the Dravidians, depending upon the shifting definitions of the Hindus of the Aryavrata.

Let us take stock: Partition marked the culmination of a long process of communal polarisation, which had resulted from a complex of factors including the imperialist policy of divide and rule, the positivist logic of social classification (destructive of all mediations) followed by the British, competition among the ‘salariat’ and other elite groups for scarce jobs and other opportunities that had been thrown up in the wake of the Raj, and so on. Ever since the Subcontinent has been arrested within a communal framework and ever since the Sikhs have felt radically ambivalent and torn between their truth of pluralism and the reality of communalism. At least this is one way of viewing the semiotics of Partition in relation to the continuing Sikh problem.

The Sikh problem today is how to correctly conjoin piri and miri, or the quest for truth and identity and the quest for power. And the appropriate solution is not for the Sikhs to seek power for themselves alone and thus surrender to the logic of communalism, power and partition once again, but seek a structural solution and strive for a truly federal and decentralised polity, where they can flourish together with other communities. Such a decentralised polity will entail a transfer of power not only from the Centre to the states, but also from the State to the people, on way to the establishment of an authentic swaraj, or Khalsa raj. To strive for a real federation within India and, beyond that, for a confederation of all States in the Subcontinent - that is the role betting the Sikhs in the present conjuncture  [1991

Author’s  Postface

This short essay was written more than two decades ago and was first published in Guru Nanak Journal of Sociology, Guru Nanak Dev University, and Seminar (Oct, 1992). It was later reproduced in Kehar Singh’s Perspectives on Sikh Polity (Dawn Publishers, 1993).  The essay formed part of a larger text entitled ‘The Sikh Question’, which, for unfortunate reasons, has remained unfinished to date.

My view of Sikhism was articulated in greater detail in a subsequent paper entitled ‘Raj Karega Khalsa: Understanding the Sikh Theory of Religion and Politics’ published in Punjabi Identity in Global Context (Oxford University Press, 2000).  Ideally, the two essays should be read together. Mahatma Gandhi’s role in relation to Partition is best discussed in Rajmohan Gandhi’s The Good Boatman (Penguin, 1997).  My own contribution to Gandhian studies consists of two research articles, namely, ‘Three responses to Modernity: Goethe, Marx and Gandhi’ and  ‘Sarvodaya versus Populism and Elitism’ that appeared respectively in the Journal of Religious Studies, Punjabi University, and Guru Nanak Journal of Sociology, 1983-84. •