From the India Today archives (2019) | Guru Nanak: The revolutionary one

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated November 12, 2019)

In paintings, he is depicted in flowing yellow or ochre robes, with a thick-white beard, turban and a hand held up in blessing. Drawn either in Hindu or Mughal court styles, the portraits present the Guru as a figure of unassuming piety. The words we use process the world around us. Most sources, online and offline, generically describe him as the ‘founder of Sikhism’.

Humans long for tranquility. Our brains identify, quite comfortably, with peacefulness and contentment. So, imaginary paintings and elementary definitions collectively lead us into a make-believe understanding about Guru Nanak. And we then view him as a sage preaching a Buddhist-type enlightenment.

But when we sift through the Sri Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS), we meet the real Nanak. The Nanak we find here is not a mystic engaged in otherworldly, esoteric or symbolic practices. Here he emerges as a revolutionary who turns orthodox thinking inside out. He embodies the spirit of a saint-soldier, which takes root and transforms into the mighty Khalsa 230 years later in 1699.

NANAK PANTH IN GURU GRANTH

Let’s first get a clear idea about the SGGS and Guru Nanak’s mission as illustrated in it. In the English media, the Granth is loosely referred to as the Sikh scriptures. The term is borrowed from Christianity. For the Sikhs, though, the SGGS is their living Guru, holding the flame that Nanak lit. The word Guru, in the Sikh belief system, denotes perfection. The Guru is, therefore, not an ordinary teacher or an expert.

The SGGS is a standalone anthology of egalitarian conversations spanning 500 years. One may Google the disparate background of 15 writers, classified as Bhagats, whose collection of 922 hymns is incorporated in the SGGS: Jaidev, Namdev, Trilochan, Parmanand, Sadna, Ramanand, Kabir, Pipa, Beni, Dhanna, Sain, Ravidas and so forth. All were radical thinkers of their time, but most were discarded by contemporary state and religious powers because of their worldview and/or birth.

From the celebrated 12th century Sanskrit poet Jaidev and Sufi mystic Sheikh Farid to Guru Tegh Bahadur, who was executed under Mughal orders in 1675, the SGGS is a treasure of the greatest thoughts, a treasury of enduring concepts. It delivers to us the philosophies in an ever-widening stream of inspiration.

Writings in the SGGS clear up the clutter that foreign languages and localised paintings in the past couple of centuries have created around Guru Nanak. In the first place, when we read the SGGS, we discover that Guru Nanak’s dharam denotes a method, a prescription for engagement with life—political, social, familial and spiritual. His dharam, in fact, establishes a governance model, which will be elaborated on later in this piece. The Guru unveiled a panth, Sanskrit for path. And his path is by no means inferior to organised religion. Rather, it transcends spirituality.

‘Mannai magg na challeai panth; mannai dharam seti sanbandh,’ says Guru Nanak. In these lines, he articulates radically that humans need no religious rituals in their journey, or path towards dharam, his all-inclusive strong-for-life governance formula. The word panth appears some 60-odd times in the SGGS and nowhere does it mean community or group or congregation. So, Guru Nanak’s panth is a statute for living with dignity with rights and justice for all. The preamble of this statute begins with the numeral one in Gurmukhi followed by ‘Onkar’.

Theologically, one may say it means one God. But the use of a numeral before Onkar in the preamble abolishes the notions of the other at the outset. There’s no ambiguity; no room for interpretations. The numeral one turns all social ranks based on faith, class, caste, gender or race into an illusion. Unity then becomes reality. Guru Nanak’s Onkar is a single force running through the cosmos and beyond. Call it God, Ram, Hari, Waheguru, Akal Purakh, Allah per your belief or call it universal intelligence or energy if you are an agnostic.

NANAK THE SOVEREIGN

The SGGS describes Guru Nanak as the architect of a dominion. ‘Nanak raj chalaiya sach kaut sataani neev dae (Nanak set up an empire, raising the fort of truth on firm foundations),’ says a ballad in the SGGS. As the foundational constitution or charter of Nanak’s governance model, the SGGS is explicit about its jurisprudence. ‘Neecha andar neech jaat, neechi hu att neech; Nanak tin kae sang saath, vadiya sio kya rees (Nanak nurses no competition or bias for or against the higher-ups. But he stands beside the oppressed, the victims and those on the lowest rung of social order),’ wrote the Guru. ‘Grace,’ Nanak continues, ‘rains down when the lowly are cared for.’

NANAK THE COMMUNICATOR

When Guru Nanak showed his panth, he literally took to the road. Accompanied by a Muslim companion, Mardana, the Guru travelled from Punjab to Sri Lanka to Afghanistan and to Baghdad and Mecca in the West.

Some Hindutva advocates still propound that no dialogue is possible with Abrahamic religions. Guru Nanak proved those notions wrong more than five centuries ago. Every Sikh grows up seeing the artists’ depiction of the Guru asleep in Mecca, his feet facing the holy Kaaba. When an angry cleric drags him to reverse his position, the Kaaba turns too in imagery, symbolising Guru Nanak’s vision that no place is unhallowed.

Now followed a debate as documented by Bhai Gurdas, a marvellous poet, scholar and the original Sikh theologian, whose writings are the second most authoritative source of Sikh doctrine. ‘Puchhan gal imaan di kaajee mulaan ikathhay hoee/ Vadaa saang vartaaiaa lukh na sakai kudarat koee. Puchhan fol kitaab nau Hindu vadaa ki Musalamaanoee/ Baba aakhay haajeeaa subh amalaa baajhahu dono roee.’ This ballad centres around a question-and-answer session that Muslim religious leaders in Mecca had with an adult Nanak, referred to as Baba Nanak. They ask him what still is a key question locking civilisations in perpetual conflict: ‘Which of them is greater or truer, the Muslims or the Hindus (Indian/ non-Abrahamic)?’ they ask, as quoted by Bhai Gurdas.

Guru Nanak’s response to them, in the hub of Islam, was uncompromisingly egalitarian. “None,” he replied. “Both sulk, caught as they are in meaningless rituals and not in meaningful deeds.”

FREE CHOICE, NO APPEASEMENT

Guru Nanak was a fierce proponent of freedom of choice. He opposed the social restraints that Islamic and Hindu authorities sought to impose on the masses back then. As a young boy, he rebelled and refused to wear the janeyu, the sacred Hindu thread. Guru Nanak exercised his freedom of choice—preferred internal changes over external things that the clergy decreed.

‘Dya kapaah santhok soot jatt ganddi satt vatt; Ehu janeyu jea ka hai ta padde ghatt (Get me the sacred thread, if you have, of the soul, made up of compassion, contentment, modesty and truth),’ the Guru would write later.

Guru Nanak’s writings illustrate that he protested the obstruction of free choice by those in command. He disapproved of acts aimed at appeasing the authority in equal measure. ‘Neel bastra le kapde pehrey turk pathani amal kiya,’ Guru Nanak said, referring to men who switched to blue dresses in order to please the Islamic invaders in power.

The Guru rejected the tendencies to surrender one’s free choice to imperial regimes. He opposed tyranny when other so-called spiritual leaders of the time had coiled into their shells. When Babur invaded the subcontinent, the yogis and pirs refused to give spiritual leadership to the victims; but Guru Nanak spoke, and spoke fearlessly. He denounced Babur harshly; his writings were graphic about the plunder and violations the invading forces let loose on the people.

‘Jaisi mai aavai khasam kee bani, taisarraa karee giaan vae Laalo; Paap ki jannj lai Kaablo dhhaaiaa, Joree mangai daan vae Laalo; Saram dharam due chhap khaloae; Koor firay pardhan vae Laalo (As the divine word comes to me, so do I express it, O Laalo; Babur, the invader from Kabul, has brought in a wedding party of sin, demanding our lands in gift, O Laalo. Modesty and righteousness have vanished. Falsehood struts around like a leader, O Laalo),’ the Guru wrote about the dark times.

Basic freedoms, therefore, are at the core of Guru Nanak’s raj. That probably explains why Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Nanak, stood for the janeyu-wearing Kashmiri Pandits when they were persecuted during the reign of the then Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb. Guru Tegh Bahadur spoke out, refused to surrender to the mighty Mughal power who wanted him to convert. Under Aurangzeb’s order, he was finally beheaded in Delhi in 1675.

PANTH AND KHALSA

In over two centuries, the Khalsa emerged in 1699 out of Guru Nanak’s panth. This revolutionary journey transformed the oppressed and the downtrodden into sovereigns reporting solely to the one eternal force. One jyot or the light of wisdom, travelled from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh. ‘Jot roop har aap Guru Nanak kahaayo (The embodiment of divine light is Guru Nanak himself)’ says one ballad; another goes ‘Nanak tu Lehanaa tuhai Gur Amar tu veechaariaa (You are Nanak, you are Angad, and you are Amar Das)’.

As mentioned earlier in the essay, the word Guru denotes perfection. So the perfect Guru foresaw people going adrift over Nanak’s worldview. ‘Mittar pyara Nanakji mein chhadh gawaiyaa rang kasumbhey bhulli (I abandoned my beloved friend, Nanak, and deluded into coloured beliefs),’ wrote the fifth Nanak, Guru Arjan.

But when the goggles are removed, the illusory jargon and imagery uncluttered, the real Nanak appears. ‘Tau sajjan ki mein keem na paudi hao tudh bin add na lahdi (I am unable to value you. My friend (Nanak), I am not worth of half a shell without you),’ continues Guru Arjan. The real Nanak challenged corrupt, hegemonic and complacent authorities, in politics and religion alike. The real questions now are: do we really want him in 2019? Or are we content with worshipping his manufactured sage-like image? We will have to make a choice between a revolution and the submissive status quo.

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