Fundamentalism and the Sikh Religious Tradition by T.N. Madan

you want to play the game of love, enter my lane with your head on thy palm" and "Truth
is higher than every thing; higher still is truthful living."
Further, there are four clear responsibilities of the spiritual man, which are
specifically prescribed by Guru Nanak. First is the duty of maintaining equality between
man and man, and man and woman. His call that there is 'No Hindu nor any Mussalman',
and his taking a Muslim Marasi (a low caste in the Brahminical system) as his first life
companion, was a major blow to the hierarchical caste ideology. Caste ideology and
immobility of caste duties governed the entire empirical life in Hinduism. An allied step
he took was the creation of the institution of Langar, (community kitchen), involving help
to the poor and equality of status for one and all. The second responsibility which he
prescribed was that of work, involving production and the sustenance of life. He wrote
"The person incapable of earning his living gets his ears split, and becomes a mendicant.
He calls himself a guru or a saint. Look not upto him and touch not his feet. He knows
the true path who earns his living and shares his earnings with others." He further
emphasizes the religious necessity and responsibility of equitable distribution of wealth,
saying, "God's bounty belongs to all but in the world it is maldistributed" and, 'riches
cannot be gathered without sin, but do not keep company after death. He, thus,
condemned exploitation and accumulation of wealth, and demonstrated his censure of it,
by acceptance of the invitation of Bhai Lalo, a poor carpenter, and rejecting that of Malik
Bhago, the wealthy local chief. The most significant responsibility, which is often missed
by casual scholars, is that of confrontation with the unjust and the oppressors. This
responsibility logically follows from his description of God, whom he calls the "True
Emperor", the 'Protector', the 'Shelter of the Shelterless', the 'Helper of the helpless', and
what is very significant, the 'Destroyer of the Evil', 'the Destroyer of the Demonical', and
'the Slayer of the Inimical."
In this context, two aspects of the Bani of Guru Nanak, are very important. First,
he is critical of the failure of the rulers to secure justice, fairness and safety for their
subjects, and to resist and repel the invaders whose butchery and tyranny he condemns.
He goes to the extent of ridiculing religious persons who were depending upon Mantras
lo make the invading hordes blind or invoking the protection of the Devis and Devitas
against the enemy. He criticised corruption at all levels of the administration and social
life. The second fact is his complaint to God for allowing the weak to be oppressed by the
strong and the consequent failure of the Master to protect his flock. This Bani of Guru
Nanak is not idle rhetoric, but it lays down an emphatic direction as to what is necessary
and virtuous for the religious man to do and the targets for which his Panth has always to
struggle to achieve. It is in this background, that Guru Nanak directed the futility of some
earlier ethical injunctions saying that people did not know what was sin and what was not
sin, and if there was any piety involved in avoiding meat-eating. He wrote : Men
discriminate not and quarrel over meat-eating. They do not know what is flesh or nonflesh
and what is sin or non-sin". This being his stand regarding Ahimsa, he explained
that there was life in every grain of food man ate. The obvious inference is that since he
envisages his society to confront and resist injustice and oppression, and since injustice
and oppression are greatest by the rulers, the State or the invaders, it is he who clearly
removes the hurdle of Ahimsa in the life and development of his society that could
possibly arise in its pursuing or fulfilling its responsibilities of resisting or removing
social injustice.