Origin of Non Violence

Origin of Non-Violence

Adapted from original article by Alice Basarke

</STRONG>As fate would have it, Mahatma Gandhi is credited with starting the non-violent movement to oust the British from India, which later was to inspire leaders all around the world, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the United States, in the liberation of other oppressed peoples. Gandhi deserves a little praise since he did have a later role in the implementation of nonviolence, but he certainly was not the originator of that concept. He learnt that from the Sikhs. The Sikhs, in turn, drew their inspiration from their Gurus, two of whom had willingly and peacefully accepted execution when it was appropriate to make their point about the tyranny of the Islamic regime. Over time, when the situation deemed it necessary and appropriate, the Sikhs used the principle of nonviolence again and again.

In 1861, the British introduced the Waqf Act which gave control and management of holy places back to their respective communities. The Hindus and Muslims were given control of their places of worship. But in the case of the Sikh Gurdwaras, the Act was not applied. The British knew full well that the Sikhs drew their strength and inspiration from their Scripture and ideology. They also knew that Sikhs had a long history of fighting oppression and injustice no matter what the cost. They were the very last community in all of India to be conquered by the British, years after the rest of India had already submitted. Previously, when India had been ruled by a foreign Muslim empire, only the Sikhs had dared to raise the voice of protest, and it was the Sikh community that successfully overthrew the Muslim Empire. Hence the British feared, correctly, that any threat to the continued success of their colonization would come from the Sikhs.

For well-planned political reasons, the properties of Sikh places of worship were transferred to Hindu caretakers (udasi mahants), who were paid agents of the British government. Most of these mahants had very little understanding of Sikh religion and its practices. These caretakers received their instructions from the Deputy Commissioner, a Britisher. The government needed to maintain the Gurdwaras as channels of indirect control of the Sikhs. Naturally the Sikhs were not happy with this arrangement. It was a major factor in the first uprising against the British.

At that time there was a small group of Sikhs known as the Namdharis. Ram Singh (1815-1885) was their leader. He once served in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1849, when the British annexed Punjab, his army unit was disbanded. He was further concerned at the takeover of the Gurdwaras in 1861 by the British, and the fact that under the non-democratic and brutally violent British regime, nobody was able to do anything about this. He was very perturbed at the British intrigue and duplicity all around him.

After the collapse of the Sikh state, Ram Singh turned to religion and meditation on God's name; hence the name Namdhari. Due to his intense piety, he had many admirers. His political feelings soon emerged as the main topic of his discussions. He started the non-violent movement to oust the British from India. He preached the Sikh Scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, with great fervor. He asked the people to boycott all British goods:

Do not accept service with the government; do not send children to government schools; do not go to royal courts of law, but settle disputes by reference to panchayats (village councils); do not use foreign goods; do not use government postal services.

His followers spun their own cloth and dressed in pure white cotton, and boycotted all that was even remotely British. His following grew very rapidly, which alarmed the British imperialists. The East India Company had a great monopoly going. Cotton was being shipped to England, where it was processed and made into cloth. The British economy was booming. Everyone had a job. The cloth manufactured in England was shipped back to India and sold at great profit. Ram Singh's protest was a threat to the British system of exploitative profit.

In response, L. Cowan, the Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana, arrested 68 Sikhs on trumped-up charges. Cowan sent a note to his commissioner, T.D. Forsythe, and without any further formality or pretense of trial, blew up 66 of the prisoners by tying them to the mouths of cannons. The other two were hacked to pieces with a sword. Forsythe then joined Cowan at Malerkotla, where 16 more Sikhs were rounded up and blasted off by cannons. Cowan explained the reason for his actions in his own words:

I propose blowing away from guns, or hanging the prisoners tomorrow morning at daybreak. Their offense is not an ordinary one. They have not committed mere murder and dacoity; they are open rebels, offering resistance to constitutional authority, and, to prevent the spreading of this disease, it is absolutely necessary that repressive measures should be prompt and stern. I act for the best, this incipient insurrection must be stamped out at once.

The commissioner T.D. Forsythe supported the action of his deputy. He wrote in a letter dated January 18, 1872:

My dear Cowan, I fully approve and confirm all you have done. You have acted admirably.
For those who may wonder just what blowing from guns means, the following graphic description is provided by Christopher Hibbert in his book The Great Mutiny, which makes clear that the British engaged in this terrorism in order to terrorize Sikhs into submission to the British Crown:

Only those with the strongest stomachs, however, could remain unaffected when prisoners were blown away from the mouths of cannon, a punishment inflicted by the British in India. This was a 'frightful sight', Dr. John Sylvester thought; and for the victims a peculiarly horrible punishment. The victim was lashed to a gun, the small of his back or the pit of his stomach against the muzzle, then 'smeared with the blood of someone murdered by a member of his race if such could be procured.' (Sylvester's diaries) When the gun was fired, the body was dismembered. Usually the head, scarcely disfigured, would fly off through the smoke, then fall to the earth, slightly blackened, followed by the arms and legs. The trunk would be shattered, giving off 'a beastly smell', and pieces of the flesh and intestines and gouts of blood would be splashed not only over the gunners but also over any spectators who stood too close. Vultures would hover overhead and with grisly dexterity catch lumps of flesh in their beaks. 'The pent up feelings of the bystanders found vent in a sort of loud gasp like ah-h!' wrote an artillery officer who was required to supervise such an execution. Then many of them came across the ditch to inspect the remains of the legs, and the horrible affair was over.

This horrendous slaughter took place on January 11-12, 1872. Cowan was right. The Sikhs were dangerous. Had they not been dealt with promptly and "sternly", they would have gone down in history as the real fathers and mothers of the nation, for the British would have been thrown out almost a hundred years sooner. Long afterwards, Mohandas Gandhi merely copied the plans of Ram Singh to earn this title. Even the boycott of British cloth was copied. The spinning of cotton, and the wearing of only white, handspun cotton, was exactly as the Sikhs had prescribed.

The second major nonviolent revolt against the British was again enacted by the Sikhs. It was known as the Singh Sabha Movement and was started in 1873, just one year after the massacre of Sikhs by the British. Due to active and aggressive intervention by the British it took some time to develop, but the Singh Sabha Movement nevertheless steadily gained momentum. British government headquarters were moved from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911. In 1914, in order to complete the secretariat complex of the new government buildings, the British demolished a wall of the Gurdwara Rakab Ganj in order to make room, without any consideration of Sikh sentiments. The Sikhs protested strongly in large gatherings all over the state. The government promised that this wall would be rebuilt after the First World War, but even this promise was not fulfilled. Sikhs were especially angered by this because Sikh contributions to the British war effort in terms of both fighting men and money had been very high, far out of proportion to their numbers in the population of India. Sikhs announced that if the government failed to rebuild the wall, they would build it themselves. This threat of Morcha (moral struggle) forced the British to construct the wall at their own cost in 1921 at the original place. This was a great symbolic victory for the Sikhs.
</SPAN>
The early 1920s were very difficult times for the Sikhs in Punjab. In 1919, over fifteen hundred unarmed civilians were shot dead by British General Dyer at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. The Sikhs suffered great losses in struggle after struggle during this period. Thousands of Sikhs would march to the Gurdwaras in protest, and British guards defending the Hindu mahants would systematically shoot them down. Yet the waves of protesters, which included numerous women, kept on coming. Eventually, mounds of bodies piled high developed in front of the Gurdwaras, yet protesters kept on coming. The British soldiers climbed on top of the mounds and used them as firing positions to continue killing the unarmed Sikhs. The British deposed the Maharaja of Nabha because he made no secret of his sympathy for the Sikh protesters. A batch of passive resisters, who marched to Jaito to offer prayers for the deposed Maharaja, was machine-gunned by the British. At least 40 were murdered. At Nanakana Sahib, visitors to the Gurdwara were often insulted and women even raped by the mahant. The mahant had many criminal vices. However, he felt free to ignore Sikh sentiments because of the open support he received from the British. On February 20, 1921, about 150 unarmed Sikhs went to the Gurdwara early in the morning. The mahant's supporters, who had been kept in the Gurdwara to teach the Sikhs a lesson, closed the main gate behind them. They shot, knifed, and even burnt alive this group of Sikh pilgrims. When the Sikh population heard of this massacre, thousands walked long distances to Nanakana Sahib. They were forced to go by foot because train travel was prohibited to them. The Sikhs were determined to take charge of the Gurdwara and of the dead bodies of the Sikhs who had been massacred the day before.
However, when the British learned of the massacre they quickly ordered their army to occupy the Gurdwara before Sikh protesters could arrive, in order to protect the mahant's interests. They had no intention of turning the Gurdwara over to the Sikhs. The Sikhs, determined to sacrifice their lives if necessary, organized themselves into Jathas or groups. They pressed forward, group after group, in spite of army threats to gun them down. Finally the soldiers yielded, unable to face killing so many innocent Sikhs. The mahant and his men were not harmed, but rather taken into custody by the police. Sikhs took charge of the Gurdwara and of the corpses of the massacred Sikhs which were partly burnt and scattered everywhere.
On November 22, 1921, the British confiscated the keys to the Tosha Khana, a fortified room which contained many valuables from the Harmandar Sahib complex in Amritsar. The Sikhs protested and hundreds of them, including Baba Kharak Singh, the leader of the movement, were sent to jail. The government finally agreed to hand back the keys if a representative of the Sikhs was sent to the office of the Deputy Commissioner in Amritsar. The Sikhs declined the obvious pretense. They demanded that, since the keys had been stolen by the government, they should be returned in the same way with the British representative bringing the keys to the Harmandar Sahib complex. At last, on January 17, 1923, in spite of the British claim of total control, a representative of the empire returned the keys in person to the Akal Takht. This was an incredible victory by the Sikhs, the fruit of their sacrifices.

Yet the British failed to handle their power tactfully and appropriately, even after it became apparent their control over the Sikhs was slipping. Even though many Gurdwaras had already been brought back under the control of the Sikhs, Guru Ka Bagh was still controlled by a mahant. The government felt he could be used to defeat the Sikhs. The British invited a confrontation by encouraging the mahant to prohibit Sikhs from obtaining wood from Guru Ka Bagh. Wood from Guru Ka Bagh had been used as fuel for cooking Langar in the Gurdwara at Amritsar for more than three centuries, since the time of the Gurus. Of course, the Sikhs asserted their right to cut wood for Langar, the free community kitchen. The British sent a heavy force to murder the Sikhs. Sikhs with hands folded and heads lowered suffered cruel and merciless beatings. Several were trampled alive by horses. Many more were shot dead. Government medical facilities barred entrance to the wounded, forcing Sikhs to treat themselves in the field. Amputations of crushed limbs were conducted in the open. These activities continued not for a few days or weeks, but for months. Participants claimed seeing small rivers of blood flowing across the ground, with sounds of human wailing filling the air. And yet the Sikhs kept coming. Winston Churchill described the massacre:

A monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation in the annals of British history.

Father Andrews, a Christian missionary brought over during the British Raj in a concerted attempt to spread Christianism, witnessed the event. He cried when he saw the cruelties being inflicted on the unarmed, hymn-singing Sikhs and declared:

I see hundreds of Christs being crucified every day.
This statement of Father Andrews shook the British leadership back in Britain to its core.

Madan Mohan Malviya, a top Hindu leader and protector of the Hindu faith, said:

The freedom movement has been born at Guru Ka Bagh. It will lead to freedom for the whole of India. Each family in India should make a child adopt the Sikh faith.

Moti Lal Nehru, father of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, said:
I salute the Sikhs who are fighting for freedom.

Dr. Saffudin Kitchlu commented:
Our Sikh brothers have taught us the way to achieve freedom. No power can stop us now, from becoming a free nation.

Mohandas Gandhi, who did not participate in the Guru Ka Bagh event, telegrammed from afar his "congratulations" at the thousands of Sikh casualties:
Congratulations! The first battle for Indian freedom has been won.


The Guru Ka Bagh massacre, which occurred at the center of the Sikh religion in Amritsar, is widely recognized as the turning point in India's struggle for Independence. In this charged atmosphere the Sikhs continued their struggle to regain control of the Gurdwaras.
During the course of the Guru Ka Bagh struggle, Sikhs were involved in another confrontation elsewhere. On October 30, 1922, an incident occurred which shook India to its core. Sikh prisoners seized by the British during the peaceful Guru Ka Bagh struggle were being transported by train out of the area. The British refused to feed these prisoners and they were starving, locked inside the railway cars. The train carrying them was to pass through Punja Sahib, a Sikh holy place. The Sikhs requested that the British stop the train at this place so they could feed the prisoners, at Sikh expense and with food served by the Sikhs themselves. The British refused. In response, several Sikhs sat directly on the railway tracks in the path of the train, in order to force it to stop.
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Amazingly, the British still refused to stop the train. But the Sikhs did not budge. The train crushed two people before coming to a halt at orders of the conductor. The Sikhs achieved their goal of distributing food to the starving prisoners, of course, at great sacrifice.

By 1925, the British were forced to pass the Sikh Gurdwara Act and return control of all Gurdwaras to the Sikhs. In the last five years of agitation, 30,000 men and women had gone to jail. 400 had been killed and over 2,000 seriously wounded. The political results were far reaching.

The struggle for independence continued, and Sikhs made a tremendous contribution. Before independence, the Sikh community was only 1.1% of the the total population of India, yet what they achieved is nothing short of phenomenal. In total, 2,125 Indians were sentenced to prison terms at least one year in length due to their participation in the freedom struggle. Of that number, 1,550, or 75%, were Sikhs. In total, 2,646 Indians were deported (exiled). Of that number, 2,147, or 80%, were Sikhs. In total, 127 were given formal death sentences (many more were killed extrajudicially). Of that number, 92, or 80%, were Sikhs. Given these facts, it becomes clear Gandhi was given credit for the freedom movement only as a revision of history by the overwhelming Hindu majority, long after Independence had been won. There is simply no question that the freedom struggle was conceived by, led by, and followed by, Sikhs.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/essays-on-sikhism/14132-origin-of-non-violence.html
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

Finally, with the outbreak of World War II, the British relented and agreed to grant India its independence, in return for Indian support during the war. The Sikhs readily agreed. Close to 90,000 Sikhs sacrificed their lives fighting for the Allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, again far out of any proportion to their numbers in the Indian population (the entire American loss during WWII was only 400,000, in a population orders of magnitude larger than the Sikhs). Several British warships were named in honor of the Sikh contribution. Mohandas Gandhi, however, refused to participate. When confronted with the fact that the Axis powers were engaged in large-scale genocide, Gandhi commented that while he could not stand by and watch such atrocities, he also would not oppose them, so the only solution was to contemplate suicide. However, Gandhi never actually followed through with killing himself in the face of the Axis threat.

On January 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist, Nathuram Godse, who shot him three times in the chest for not being pro-Hindu enough, even though Gandhi was a Hindu and had done much to ensure the Hindu low castes would never be able to escape to a different religion like Sikhism, Christianism, or Muhammedanism. At a time when low castes desired to convert to other religions because of their extreme poverty and poor treatment under the Hindu system, Gandhi initiated policies whereby some government benefits would be targeted specifically to low castes. In this manner, Gandhi was successful in keeping the low castes in their hierarchical place, because converting to a different religion by definition removed a person from any caste, and thereby barred them from receiving desperately needed government aid. Perhaps Gandhi's greatest contribution to the freedom struggle was his numerous symbolic fasts, where he would sit in a room and starve himself with the thought that this would bring support to the movement, while unarmed people were dying in large numbers outside.

Gandhi's name has since been trumpeted throughout India and later throughout the world, yet the Sikhs have been virtually forgotten. Many people have never even heard of them. The time has come to give credit where it is due. The concept of nonviolence, which has led to extraordinary changes across the globe, originated with the Sikhs.

 
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Origin of Non-Violence

Adapted from original article by Alice Basarke

</STRONG>As fate would have it, Mahatma Gandhi is credited with starting the non-violent movement to oust the British from India, which later was to inspire leaders all around the world, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the United States, in the liberation of other oppressed peoples. Gandhi deserves a little praise since he did have a later role in the implementation of nonviolence, but he certainly was not the originator of that concept. He learnt that from the Sikhs. The Sikhs, in turn, drew their inspiration from their Gurus, two of whom had willingly and peacefully accepted execution when it was appropriate to make their point about the tyranny of the Islamic regime. Over time, when the situation deemed it necessary and appropriate, the Sikhs used the principle of nonviolence again and again.

In 1861, the British introduced the Waqf Act which gave control and management of holy places back to their respective communities. The Hindus and Muslims were given control of their places of worship. But in the case of the Sikh Gurdwaras, the Act was not applied. The British knew full well that the Sikhs drew their strength and inspiration from their Scripture and ideology. They also knew that Sikhs had a long history of fighting oppression and injustice no matter what the cost. They were the very last community in all of India to be conquered by the British, years after the rest of India had already submitted. Previously, when India had been ruled by a foreign Muslim empire, only the Sikhs had dared to raise the voice of protest, and it was the Sikh community that successfully overthrew the Muslim Empire. Hence the British feared, correctly, that any threat to the continued success of their colonization would come from the Sikhs.

For well-planned political reasons, the properties of Sikh places of worship were transferred to Hindu caretakers (udasi mahants), who were paid agents of the British government. Most of these mahants had very little understanding of Sikh religion and its practices. These caretakers received their instructions from the Deputy Commissioner, a Britisher. The government needed to maintain the Gurdwaras as channels of indirect control of the Sikhs. Naturally the Sikhs were not happy with this arrangement. It was a major factor in the first uprising against the British.

At that time there was a small group of Sikhs known as the Namdharis. Ram Singh (1815-1885) was their leader. He once served in the army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1849, when the British annexed Punjab, his army unit was disbanded. He was further concerned at the takeover of the Gurdwaras in 1861 by the British, and the fact that under the non-democratic and brutally violent British regime, nobody was able to do anything about this. He was very perturbed at the British intrigue and duplicity all around him.

After the collapse of the Sikh state, Ram Singh turned to religion and meditation on God's name; hence the name Namdhari. Due to his intense piety, he had many admirers. His political feelings soon emerged as the main topic of his discussions. He started the non-violent movement to oust the British from India. He preached the Sikh Scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, with great fervor. He asked the people to boycott all British goods:

Do not accept service with the government; do not send children to government schools; do not go to royal courts of law, but settle disputes by reference to panchayats (village councils); do not use foreign goods; do not use government postal services.

His followers spun their own cloth and dressed in pure white cotton, and boycotted all that was even remotely British. His following grew very rapidly, which alarmed the British imperialists. The East India Company had a great monopoly going. Cotton was being shipped to England, where it was processed and made into cloth. The British economy was booming. Everyone had a job. The cloth manufactured in England was shipped back to India and sold at great profit. Ram Singh's protest was a threat to the British system of exploitative profit.

In response, L. Cowan, the Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana, arrested 68 Sikhs on trumped-up charges. Cowan sent a note to his commissioner, T.D. Forsythe, and without any further formality or pretense of trial, blew up 66 of the prisoners by tying them to the mouths of cannons. The other two were hacked to pieces with a sword. Forsythe then joined Cowan at Malerkotla, where 16 more Sikhs were rounded up and blasted off by cannons. Cowan explained the reason for his actions in his own words:

I propose blowing away from guns, or hanging the prisoners tomorrow morning at daybreak. Their offense is not an ordinary one. They have not committed mere murder and dacoity; they are open rebels, offering resistance to constitutional authority, and, to prevent the spreading of this disease, it is absolutely necessary that repressive measures should be prompt and stern. I act for the best, this incipient insurrection must be stamped out at once.

The commissioner T.D. Forsythe supported the action of his deputy. He wrote in a letter dated January 18, 1872:

My dear Cowan, I fully approve and confirm all you have done. You have acted admirably.
For those who may wonder just what blowing from guns means, the following graphic description is provided by Christopher Hibbert in his book The Great Mutiny, which makes clear that the British engaged in this terrorism in order to terrorize Sikhs into submission to the British Crown:

Only those with the strongest stomachs, however, could remain unaffected when prisoners were blown away from the mouths of cannon, a punishment inflicted by the British in India. This was a 'frightful sight', Dr. John Sylvester thought; and for the victims a peculiarly horrible punishment. The victim was lashed to a gun, the small of his back or the pit of his stomach against the muzzle, then 'smeared with the blood of someone murdered by a member of his race if such could be procured.' (Sylvester's diaries) When the gun was fired, the body was dismembered. Usually the head, scarcely disfigured, would fly off through the smoke, then fall to the earth, slightly blackened, followed by the arms and legs. The trunk would be shattered, giving off 'a beastly smell', and pieces of the flesh and intestines and gouts of blood would be splashed not only over the gunners but also over any spectators who stood too close. Vultures would hover overhead and with grisly dexterity catch lumps of flesh in their beaks. 'The pent up feelings of the bystanders found vent in a sort of loud gasp like ah-h!' wrote an artillery officer who was required to supervise such an execution. Then many of them came across the ditch to inspect the remains of the legs, and the horrible affair was over.

This horrendous slaughter took place on January 11-12, 1872. Cowan was right. The Sikhs were dangerous. Had they not been dealt with promptly and "sternly", they would have gone down in history as the real fathers and mothers of the nation, for the British would have been thrown out almost a hundred years sooner. Long afterwards, Mohandas Gandhi merely copied the plans of Ram Singh to earn this title. Even the boycott of British cloth was copied. The spinning of cotton, and the wearing of only white, handspun cotton, was exactly as the Sikhs had prescribed.

The second major nonviolent revolt against the British was again enacted by the Sikhs. It was known as the Singh Sabha Movement and was started in 1873, just one year after the massacre of Sikhs by the British. Due to active and aggressive intervention by the British it took some time to develop, but the Singh Sabha Movement nevertheless steadily gained momentum. British government headquarters were moved from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1911. In 1914, in order to complete the secretariat complex of the new government buildings, the British demolished a wall of the Gurdwara Rakab Ganj in order to make room, without any consideration of Sikh sentiments. The Sikhs protested strongly in large gatherings all over the state. The government promised that this wall would be rebuilt after the First World War, but even this promise was not fulfilled. Sikhs were especially angered by this because Sikh contributions to the British war effort in terms of both fighting men and money had been very high, far out of proportion to their numbers in the population of India. Sikhs announced that if the government failed to rebuild the wall, they would build it themselves. This threat of Morcha (moral struggle) forced the British to construct the wall at their own cost in 1921 at the original place. This was a great symbolic victory for the Sikhs.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
</SPAN>
The early 1920s were very difficult times for the Sikhs in Punjab. In 1919, over fifteen hundred unarmed civilians were shot dead by British General Dyer at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. The Sikhs suffered great losses in struggle after struggle during this period. Thousands of Sikhs would march to the Gurdwaras in protest, and British guards defending the Hindu mahants would systematically shoot them down. Yet the waves of protesters, which included numerous women, kept on coming. Eventually, mounds of bodies piled high developed in front of the Gurdwaras, yet protesters kept on coming. The British soldiers climbed on top of the mounds and used them as firing positions to continue killing the unarmed Sikhs. The British deposed the Maharaja of Nabha because he made no secret of his sympathy for the Sikh protesters. A batch of passive resisters, who marched to Jaito to offer prayers for the deposed Maharaja, was machine-gunned by the British. At least 40 were murdered. At Nanakana Sahib, visitors to the Gurdwara were often insulted and women even raped by the mahant. The mahant had many criminal vices. However, he felt free to ignore Sikh sentiments because of the open support he received from the British. On February 20, 1921, about 150 unarmed Sikhs went to the Gurdwara early in the morning. The mahant's supporters, who had been kept in the Gurdwara to teach the Sikhs a lesson, closed the main gate behind them. They shot, knifed, and even burnt alive this group of Sikh pilgrims. When the Sikh population heard of this massacre, thousands walked long distances to Nanakana Sahib. They were forced to go by foot because train travel was prohibited to them. The Sikhs were determined to take charge of the Gurdwara and of the dead bodies of the Sikhs who had been massacred the day before.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
However, when the British learned of the massacre they quickly ordered their army to occupy the Gurdwara before Sikh protesters could arrive, in order to protect the mahant's interests. They had no intention of turning the Gurdwara over to the Sikhs. The Sikhs, determined to sacrifice their lives if necessary, organized themselves into Jathas or groups. They pressed forward, group after group, in spite of army threats to gun them down. Finally the soldiers yielded, unable to face killing so many innocent Sikhs. The mahant and his men were not harmed, but rather taken into custody by the police. Sikhs took charge of the Gurdwara and of the corpses of the massacred Sikhs which were partly burnt and scattered everywhere.
On November 22, 1921, the British confiscated the keys to the Tosha Khana, a fortified room which contained many valuables from the Harmandar Sahib complex in Amritsar. The Sikhs protested and hundreds of them, including Baba Kharak Singh, the leader of the movement, were sent to jail. The government finally agreed to hand back the keys if a representative of the Sikhs was sent to the office of the Deputy Commissioner in Amritsar. The Sikhs declined the obvious pretense. They demanded that, since the keys had been stolen by the government, they should be returned in the same way with the British representative bringing the keys to the Harmandar Sahib complex. At last, on January 17, 1923, in spite of the British claim of total control, a representative of the empire returned the keys in person to the Akal Takht. This was an incredible victory by the Sikhs, the fruit of their sacrifices.

Yet the British failed to handle their power tactfully and appropriately, even after it became apparent their control over the Sikhs was slipping. Even though many Gurdwaras had already been brought back under the control of the Sikhs, Guru Ka Bagh was still controlled by a mahant. The government felt he could be used to defeat the Sikhs. The British invited a confrontation by encouraging the mahant to prohibit Sikhs from obtaining wood from Guru Ka Bagh. Wood from Guru Ka Bagh had been used as fuel for cooking Langar in the Gurdwara at Amritsar for more than three centuries, since the time of the Gurus. Of course, the Sikhs asserted their right to cut wood for Langar, the free community kitchen. The British sent a heavy force to murder the Sikhs. Sikhs with hands folded and heads lowered suffered cruel and merciless beatings. Several were trampled alive by horses. Many more were shot dead. Government medical facilities barred entrance to the wounded, forcing Sikhs to treat themselves in the field. Amputations of crushed limbs were conducted in the open. These activities continued not for a few days or weeks, but for months. Participants claimed seeing small rivers of blood flowing across the ground, with sounds of human wailing filling the air. And yet the Sikhs kept coming. Winston Churchill described the massacre:

A monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation in the annals of British history.

Father Andrews, a Christian missionary brought over during the British Raj in a concerted attempt to spread Christianism, witnessed the event. He cried when he saw the cruelties being inflicted on the unarmed, hymn-singing Sikhs and declared:

I see hundreds of Christs being crucified every day.
This statement of Father Andrews shook the British leadership back in Britain to its core.

Madan Mohan Malviya, a top Hindu leader and protector of the Hindu faith, said:
The freedom movement has been born at Guru Ka Bagh. It will lead to freedom for the whole of India. Each family in India should make a child adopt the Sikh faith.

Moti Lal Nehru, father of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, said:
I salute the Sikhs who are fighting for freedom.

Dr. Saffudin Kitchlu commented:
Our Sikh brothers have taught us the way to achieve freedom. No power can stop us now, from becoming a free nation.

Mohandas Gandhi, who did not participate in the Guru Ka Bagh event, telegrammed from afar his "congratulations" at the thousands of Sikh casualties:
Congratulations! The first battle for Indian freedom has been won.


The Guru Ka Bagh massacre, which occurred at the center of the Sikh religion in Amritsar, is widely recognized as the turning point in India's struggle for Independence. In this charged atmosphere the Sikhs continued their struggle to regain control of the Gurdwaras.
During the course of the Guru Ka Bagh struggle, Sikhs were involved in another confrontation elsewhere. On October 30, 1922, an incident occurred which shook India to its core. Sikh prisoners seized by the British during the peaceful Guru Ka Bagh struggle were being transported by train out of the area. The British refused to feed these prisoners and they were starving, locked inside the railway cars. The train carrying them was to pass through Punja Sahib, a Sikh holy place. The Sikhs requested that the British stop the train at this place so they could feed the prisoners, at Sikh expense and with food served by the Sikhs themselves. The British refused. In response, several Sikhs sat directly on the railway tracks in the path of the train, in order to force it to stop.
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Amazingly, the British still refused to stop the train. But the Sikhs did not budge. The train crushed two people before coming to a halt at orders of the conductor. The Sikhs achieved their goal of distributing food to the starving prisoners, of course, at great sacrifice.

By 1925, the British were forced to pass the Sikh Gurdwara Act and return control of all Gurdwaras to the Sikhs. In the last five years of agitation, 30,000 men and women had gone to jail. 400 had been killed and over 2,000 seriously wounded. The political results were far reaching.

The struggle for independence continued, and Sikhs made a tremendous contribution. Before independence, the Sikh community was only 1.1% of the the total population of India, yet what they achieved is nothing short of phenomenal. In total, 2,125 Indians were sentenced to prison terms at least one year in length due to their participation in the freedom struggle. Of that number, 1,550, or 75%, were Sikhs. In total, 2,646 Indians were deported (exiled). Of that number, 2,147, or 80%, were Sikhs. In total, 127 were given formal death sentences (many more were killed extrajudicially). Of that number, 92, or 80%, were Sikhs. Given these facts, it becomes clear Gandhi was given credit for the freedom movement only as a revision of history by the overwhelming Hindu majority, long after Independence had been won. There is simply no question that the freedom struggle was conceived by, led by, and followed by, Sikhs.

Finally, with the outbreak of World War II, the British relented and agreed to grant India its independence, in return for Indian support during the war. The Sikhs readily agreed. Close to 90,000 Sikhs sacrificed their lives fighting for the Allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, again far out of any proportion to their numbers in the Indian population (the entire American loss during WWII was only 400,000, in a population orders of magnitude larger than the Sikhs). Several British warships were named in honor of the Sikh contribution. Mohandas Gandhi, however, refused to participate. When confronted with the fact that the Axis powers were engaged in large-scale genocide, Gandhi commented that while he could not stand by and watch such atrocities, he also would not oppose them, so the only solution was to contemplate suicide. However, Gandhi never actually followed through with killing himself in the face of the Axis threat.

On January 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist, Nathuram Godse, who shot him three times in the chest for not being pro-Hindu enough, even though Gandhi was a Hindu and had done much to ensure the Hindu low castes would never be able to escape to a different religion like Sikhism, Christianism, or Muhammedanism. At a time when low castes desired to convert to other religions because of their extreme poverty and poor treatment under the Hindu system, Gandhi initiated policies whereby some government benefits would be targeted specifically to low castes. In this manner, Gandhi was successful in keeping the low castes in their hierarchical place, because converting to a different religion by definition removed a person from any caste, and thereby barred them from receiving desperately needed government aid. Perhaps Gandhi's greatest contribution to the freedom struggle was his numerous symbolic fasts, where he would sit in a room and starve himself with the thought that this would bring support to the movement, while unarmed people were dying in large numbers outside.

Gandhi's name has since been trumpeted throughout India and later throughout the world, yet the Sikhs have been virtually forgotten. Many people have never even heard of them. The time has come to give credit where it is due. The concept of nonviolence, which has led to extraordinary changes across the globe, originated with the Sikhs.

Thanks for posting the article taranbir.

The Hindu's have forgotten what the Sikhs went through for mother land India through out history.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

We can all see how India is repaying the Sikh's. ..NOT..
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

Hindus = BAD NEWS.

To all Sikhs out there, next time the hindus need help for mother land India, LET THEM ROT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They dont deserve any help.

Thanks for sharing... This made a good read. Baba Ram Singh and the Namdhari movement has another major thing to their credit i.e. preservation of Raag vidya.

To be a survivor in India you got to play your cards well

That is what I say in India you need three things Brains , Brawns and today Babies.

India has outgrown its sentimentality and memories and the past mushy relation it has with you.

Your fixed deposit which your forefather left for you is over.

You will have to work again in India to shine.

New set of rules are in place.

History is replete in Roman civilization with examples when warriors were outmanouvered by people back at home.

Warriors in all civilization have invariably found there wives and glory being taken away by the non warriors at home so dont cry.

Device method that you get your due share of glory.

India has been robbed from Sikhs by the clever manipulation by people who replicate at a rate which is unimaginable ( see the populationm growth of India ).

I guess you would be playing in their hand by aborting your rights and fleeing to some distant country.

I also agree it is good not to have all your eggs in one basket and that your genome should be distributed far and wide so that Sikhism can survive in event of worst disaster.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

India how ever I feel we must not leave unmanned .

It is too crazy and cool country not to be around their.

I guess Sikhs would miss a lot of exciting life if they abort the Indian ship totally.

It is your home turf ; the 84 genocide , Golden temple invasion and the scorch punjab earth policy can only happen in India.
These are to be taken as trimming of a plant . Fit to grow back with more vigour. It should be used as a tonic for growth rather than being glum about it.

I guess we would have enjoyed the 1984 genocide had we expected it . It was the unexpected which was problably hurting. We are quite used to being masacred by different set of races for we speak the truth of one GOD for all his children.

Inspite of all that we must not be upset for India has still managed to give you its very first PM and army chief.

It will take atleast 100 years for you to get these post in UK , USA , Canada .

It will take a 1000 years fto get these posts in Pakistan , afghanistan where too you will come back in a significant way if you play your cards well.

Sikhi is the correct way of life.

Also non violence is OK if you are up against people like Britishers who have a value system. They could atleast see Christ ( GOD ) in each sikh who was masaccred. UP against Islamic philosophy you would be no more than a animal to be slaughtered.

Non violence wont work against AL -Quaida , Nazis and Cheingaz Khan kind of Philosophy.

Guru Govind singhs philosophy is the only thing that will work against these set of people.

So dont gobble up the fact that Non violence is the only truth;

you need violence some times.

As far as not helping hindu in distress is concerned .

I think it does not make any sense. It sounds like a rutha baccha.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

It is part of our legacy to help them. Lot of Sikhi spirit would fizzle away of we did not help them.

They are some thing like the Crown in UK.
It is always fun helping the Britisher inspite of the Anglo-sikh war , the Jallianwall bagh and Guru ka bagh incidence.

Sikhs yin spirit would wilt if their is not these of Britisher and hindus.

Fun helping these blokes when they are in trouble.

They will still continue to blow with cannons and do 84 genocides.

But then their is a saying :-

"No body kicks a dead dog "

Being a new religion you will have to create a space for your self on this planet .

It is already Jostling with Gods and you seem to have found the ultimate spiritual truth

"Nanak Nam chadi kala ter bana sarvat tha bhalla "

WGKWGF

hps62

Das feel's that the Hindu's/Government should ask for Waheguroo's forgiveness in public/TV/News and should also give an official and public apology to the Sikhs for:



THEY WENT AGAINST WAHEGUROO not only against the Sikh community BUT WAHEGUROO - GOD!!! thats the point!!!!!!!!!

Their actions showed the whole world that they are not scared of the almighty God - Waheguroo!!!!

I say let them rot until they ask for forgiveness. Dont forget everything BELONGS TO WAHEGUROO. NOTHING belongs to us.

p/s: Oh dont forget killing, burning whilst still alive, raping and looting innocent Sikh men, women and children.

Most of this is still going on even now.

Even todate as you read this topic Human right violations is still going on against the Sikhs in India.!

see http://www.sikhgenocide.org/
http://www.neverforget84.com/
http://www.neverforget84.com/feature...-On-Sikh-Women

Help India again - I DONT THINK SO.

We will never forget 84.

Dear hps62,
Your thoughts are great and progressive but unfortunately your ideas are misplaced. Even if the sikhs want to stay in India the jealous/corrupt Indian govt./bureaucracy will make you subservient and a 2nd class citizen. They will deplete and take all your resources to feed their greedy coffers. They will distort your history, kill your ethics and moral and eventually your religion that you are so proud of. Just like Budhism and Jainism. It is just a matter of time. "Raaj bina nahin dharam chale hain" remember Guru Gobind Singhji's word. As an example in the last 20 years 70pct of the sikhs have cut their hair to assimilate themselves with the Indians and 60 pct don't even speak or read punjabi/gurmukhi. This will continue happening if you keep living in India. After about 2-3 generations there will be no visible sikh left in the Indian mosaic. How Unfortunate.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

By the way, what are you talking about 'fixed deposit of your forefathers.........' Punjab still feeds the whole of India,
it contributes 60pct of Wheat and 40pct of Rice to the Central govt. pool. Sikhs are still giving their lifes for India starting from partition, 62 war, 65 war and 71 war and don't forget the latest kargil '99. Also don't forget that the govt. has taken the most percious resource from us, OUR RIVER WATERS, and awarded them to neighbouring states. Taken away our capital and made it a UT...........I can go on and on and on..........please have your facts clear before you answer over zealously.

I hope you don't take offence to my reply, I thought that your were sincere in your thoughts but didn't know history. God Bless you and your spirit.

WGKWGF!!!!!!!!!

Gurfateh

As mnay of the member live outside India and say 20 behind the time.Many things have since changed.Govt of 1984 is not the one of 2006.

Yes there is big class of racil guys who is Anti Sikh as they want to let majrotiy of so called illetrate or lower hindus live under them.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132

often they will provoke Sikhs acting as Hindu so that Sikhs be anti Hindu ir Anti Indian.Instead of our getting provoked,we need to foli there attempts by still loving Hindus and preaching them Gurmat.

At presetn Hindu masses are educated and due medea and information revelution,they are well informed.And there life style is becoming more near to that of Sikh then that of Hindu.Let them follow that faith which is in accordance to thier life.

Das can just request the people who often try to find fault with Indian system or Govt. to let them leave thier cushy cost rooms in US or europe and let them come here with mony and set up Industires or carry out social srevies or let help institutions worsking in India to uplift the life of poors.Say Scottish Sikh council.

We have poverty,lazyness and urge to go abroad among many thing and worst is unsikh ritualism ie more specific to code then say faith or God or ideolgy,which makes peopple cut thier hairs.Then another gruop lacks faith but dry logic,there also it is not poosbile to keep young one with faith.

Yet there are people who still work for upliftment even single handedly.

taranbir vbmenu_register("postmenu_45444", true);
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14132
SPN Sewadaar

Dear Taran Bir

hay

I know all facts you have quoted.
Stealing of various resources from the proud punjabis.
Still see what you have today.

Many small Punjab all over the globe with your dear friend the Britisher and to some extent Italian.

If you were given the comfort of security and plentifulness then you would be only in Punjab and our muscic would not be heard from different part of world.

Also these incidence has given you indirectly your first PM and army chief.

True to the spirit of SIKHI we have risen to the challenge in a very nice way.

You could have gone the Al queda way into terrorism which would erode a of lot of Sikhis great inner strength " "Nanak Nam chadi kala ter bana sarvat tha bhalla "

Till the people become enlightened to this truth we got to survive and thrive in India.

You cannot abandon your own mother land not after being around since time of Alexander.

A true warrior shall always respect you and your philosophy as it is a philosophy of warrior saint as is given in wikepedia.

To quote Alexander the great In a letter to his mother he wrote:--

"I am involved in the land of a leonine and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a well of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander”.

and as per British preacher after witnessing the Guru ka bagh massacre :--


Father Andrews, a Christian missionary brought over during the British Raj in a concerted attempt to spread Christianism, witnessed the event. He cried when he saw the cruelties being inflicted on the unarmed, hymn-singing Sikhs and declared:
I see hundreds of Christs being crucified every day

So if India can be made into a land of crores of Alexander and Christ then I feel it is a worthy goal.

The new set of rules in India requires four "Bs" for survival

1 ) Brains
2 ) Brawns
3 ) Babies
4 ) Bihari like thinking , working and living.

love

hps62

[quote=taranbir]
Dear hps62,
Your thoughts are great and progressive but unfortunately your ideas are misplaced. Even if the sikhs want to stay in India the jealous/corrupt Indian govt./bureaucracy will make you subservient and a 2nd class citizen. They will deplete and take all your resources to feed their greedy coffers. They will distort your history, kill your ethics and moral and eventually your religion that you are so proud of. Just like Budhism and Jainism. It is just a matter of time.



I guess the scenario can be answered in three ways.

1 ) Deserting India
2 ) Converting and looking like any other Indian
3 ) Rising to the challenge.

It is upto our inner genomic structure and spiritual strength which will make us choose among the three choices.

what do you say.

WGKWGF

hps62