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

ecommended in the Upanishads, although out of expediency, as did the Mahatma, the
religious prohibitions and pacificism are often violated. Infact, by Madan's definition,
Mahatma Gandhi would be one of the first to be called a Fundamentalist.
Here a deep and meaningful contrast between Sikhism and Hinduism, need be
recorded. Despite the efforts of numerous reformers and a century of Western impact, no
one has been able to secure the unrestricted entry of even a Prime Minister or Deputy
Prime Minister of India in the Hindu temples. Entry of Sudras in them is indeed
unthinkable because of the Scriptures, Shastras and "divine ordinances." in contrast it is
well known that the objection of a Hinduised Mahant of a Sikh Gurdwara to the entry of
a few Sikhs whom they considered low caste, became the root cause of the entire class of
Mahants being removed forcibly by the Sikhs from every Sikh Gurdwara in the country,
because such a prohibition is grossly violative of the hymns in the Guru Granth. This
ethical contrast is extremely revealing of the core of the two systems. It is not merely an
ideological or scriptural contrast between the fundamentals of the two religious. It is a
cultural contrast in the ethos, the motivations, the conditioning and deep religious
responses, which the Gurus, the Sikh martyrs and Sikh history have created in the psyche
of even an ordinary Sikh. The ban against entry imposed by the Mahant of the Gurdwara,
was found so outrageous, that it provoked the moral indignation of the entire community,
since it violated the very basis of the Guru Granth. In the case of Hindus, the bar against
temple entry evokes hardly any response, much less indignation, even among the most
religious, because it is in consonance with the spiritual injunctions or divine ordinance.
Any yet, Hindu scholars like Madan, are fond of paying that Sikhism is a Hindu sect. The
scriptural, the ideological, the ethical and the historical contrasts are too glaring to be
glossed over even by a casual student of the two systems.
Indian Secularism has, thus, been only a device, which was considered necessary
in a multi-religious society. But, since its administration has to be done by the majority,
in reality, as has become evident, it has meant virtually both orthodoxy and orthopraxy,
involving a serious gap between its profession and practice. In this background of
Hinduism, Madan's use of the word, Fundamentalism, for the whole-life Sikh worldview,
reminds us of the comments of James Lewis on the Christian criticism of the socalled
early pacificism of Guru Nanak and the later militancy of Guru Gobind Singh,
"Given the popularity of this state of affairs, it would not be inappropriate to postulate
some kind of unconcious repression-projection mechanism at work that might explain the
scholar's lack of even-handedness. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to perceive
that the guilt about the gap between one's ideals and one's behaviour can be pushed out of
the light of full awareness only to re-emerge as a projection. In lieu of a better
explanation of the one-sided treatment of the Sikh religion by Westerners it appears to the
present writer that the relevant scholars are uncomfortable with the contradictions
between the theory and practice of their own religious traditions, have repressed the
problem and have projected the contradiction on to Sikhism, a tradition that apparently
(but not actually) contains the same contradiction. Thus their condemnation of Sikh
militancy is really a projection of their own (unexpressed, repressed) condemnation of the
Christian tradition. The point here is not lo criticise Christianity, but rather to once again
point out the differential treatment that the Sikh religion has received at the hands of
Western scholars. These kinds of evaluative statements would have been less