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

minimum force, if necessary. We, therefore, stress that Sikhism is a whole-life religion,
without a split in its ideology and that the concept of there being two ideologies, one of
Guru Nanak, pacificist and of interiority, and the other of Guru Gobind Singh, militant
and fundamentalist, is just a misconception or misunderstanding of persons, drawn from
pacificist or dichotomous religions, because they tend to view other religions through the
glasses of their own system. For, by his method and measure the learned scholar brands
those who strongly reacted in 1975- 77, against encroachments on the rights of man in the
country, following imposition of the Emergency, as Fundamentalists, and those who did
not react, as Secularists. Such hasty views, based on selective use of material, and serious
omission of fundamentally relevant facts and factors, can hardly help any understanding
of events.
The Sikhs, as we have emphasized, represent an entirely new religion with its
own world view, ethics and culture. It is the product of the culture of those who as Gupta
says, brought freedom and peace to the North West of India from a thousand year wave
of invasions. They led Punjab with their sacrifices to a realm of health and justice. It is
that ethos, which seriously changed the caste and power structure, and brought the lowest
in society to the highest level, and gave them social prestige and power. Again, it is the
same culture and ethos that made preponderant sacrifices in sufferings, blood and
martyrdoms for the freedom of the country. Again, it is because of the same ethos that,
despite its earlier struggle with the Centre, in the 1965 War the Sikh soldiers and the
people of rural Punjab made maximum sacrifices. Again, they were the only people, who
resisted in an organised manner the inhuman abrogation of all rights of freedom and man
in the country as a whole during the long years of the Emergency imposed in 1975.
It is also equally significant that the Green Revolution in Punjab, is the result of
the ethos for work, production and sustenance of life, created by the Gurus and the Sikh
culture. Every factor that brought about the Green Revolution, was available for adoption
and practice by not only other parts of the country, but also by other countries that were
deficient in food. It is thus not just an accident or incident that the Green Revolution
caught its roots and became a success in the Punjab. This shows modernity but not
fundamentalism.
As against this it is significant and relevant to record that Vinobha Bhave the
truest non-violent and accepted spiritual heir of Mahatma Gandhi, on the one hand,
supported the imposition of the Emergency as a festival for the observance of discipline,
and, on the other hand, sought to stake his life by a fast, like his mentor, for the safety of
the cow. Hence what the Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi has been
pursuing, is the maintenance of the caste structure of the majority community and a
desire to look back to the Hindu past, for inspiration and revival. Hence Indian
Secularism is either a myth or a cmaouflage or apolitical expedient or a mixture of all
three, with a view to pursuing a parochial policy Mahatma Gandhi had initiated in the
first quarter of the century. That it has since then alienated the minorities and created a
loss of faith in the professions of the majority is, as narrated above, a historical fact. It is
obvious that increasing power and support to the BJP, involving the presence of over 110
MP's in the Parliament, and their control of four important states in the Cow Belt, is a
clear and logical result of the policies pursued and the imagery raised by the Congress in
the early twenties.