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14/ Bhai Vir Singh
theydo notburntheirdead,becausethatwouldassimilate
them to the Hindu; nor bury them, because that would
make them too much like Christians andMusulmans, but
throw them into the river. 1
The Nirankari andthe more actively protestantNamdhari
movement which followed it had but limited impact. What
touched Sikhism to its very roots and made it a living force
once again was the Singh Sabha reformation. Unlike other
Indianreform movementsoftheperiodwhichwerethecreation
ofoutstandingindividualleaders, the SinghSabhawasa mass
upsurge. There were three factors mainly responsible for it-an
awareness born of the general awakening in the
atmosphere that Sikhism as commonly practised was a
corruption of what it originally was, a reaction to what was
happening in the neighbourly religious traditions and
defensiveness generated byChristian proselytization andthe
odium theologicum started by some Hindu critics.
Typical of the mood which gave birth to the Singh Sabha
wasthis notewhichappearedintheKhalsaAkhbar,launched
a few years later to serve the objects of the movement:
An English newspaper writes that the Christian faith is
making rapid progress and makes the prophecy that,
withinthe nexttwenty-five years, one-third of the Majha
area would be Christian. The Malwa will follow suit. Just
as we do not see any Buddhists in the country except in
images, in the same fashion the Sikhs, who are now, here
andthere, visible intheirturbans andtheir otherreligious
forms like steel-bracelets and swords, will be seen only
inpictures inthemuseums. Their ownsons andgrandsons
turning Christians and clad in coats and trousers and
sporting mushroom like caps, will go to see them in the
museums and say in their pidgin Punjabi, "Look, that is
the picture of a Sikh--the tribe that inhabited this country
1. AnnualReport of the Lodiana Mission, American Presbyterian Mission
Press, Ludhiana, 1853, pp. 22-23.
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