editorial articles reviews news & views - Institute of Sikh Studies
editorial articles reviews news & views - Institute of Sikh Studies
editorial articles reviews news & views - Institute of Sikh Studies
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MCLEOD & FENECH AS SCHOLARS ON SIKHISM<br />
AND MARTYRDOM *<br />
SANGAT SINGH **<br />
Falsehood gets dissipated, O Nanak,<br />
And, truth ulitimately prevails.<br />
– Guru Nanak Ramkali Var, 13.2 SGGS, p. 953<br />
Here is another genre <strong>of</strong> McLeodian literature. It seeks to follow<br />
the precepts laid down by Louis Emanuel Fenech’s mentor and guide,<br />
W H McLeod.<br />
I<br />
Before going into Fenech’s enunciations, it will be <strong>of</strong> interest to<br />
briefly highlight his guide McLeod’s inspirations and formulations that<br />
have gone into his makeup to emerge as the guru <strong>of</strong> the anti-<strong>Sikh</strong><br />
school <strong>of</strong> thought, out to denigrate and demolish <strong>Sikh</strong> values and<br />
concepts. In building up his school <strong>of</strong> thought, McLeod, like Trumpp<br />
in the 19th century, was assisted by Brahminical forces: these, at the<br />
time, were involved in suppressing the <strong>Sikh</strong>s and their aspirations,<br />
revolving around their demand for linguistic re-organisation <strong>of</strong> Punjab.<br />
The process started shortly after January 1961 Nehru-Tara Singh<br />
stand<strong>of</strong>f at Bhavnagar, when Nehru hurled threats to liquidate the<br />
small <strong>Sikh</strong> community in India, as Greeks had, once, done to Melians<br />
around 410 BC. Tara Singh’s discomfiture led Partap Singh Kairon,<br />
then Punjab’s Chief Minister and a willing Nehruvian tool in Punjab,<br />
to, firstly, play upon the supremacy <strong>of</strong> distinct Jat culture, vis-à-vis,<br />
* This paper was read over at a seminar organized in May 2000 at Los Angeles, CA,<br />
USA<br />
** Dr, # S-181, Greater Kailash II, New Delhi