THE SIKHS
By Patwant Singh, 2000
Knopf
Pages : 276; Price : $27.50


There are only about 20 million Sikhs in the world and most of them live in India. Many North Americans often confuse Sikhs with Iranians, Iraqis or other Arabian people who, like Sikhs, wear turbans. Why then should a historical account of the Sikhs elicit much interest outside India?

Sikhs have been in the news during the past sixteen years but not always for the good they oft might attempt. Readers will recall that just last year Sikhs were wrongfully blamed in initial reports for hijacking an Indian Airline jet to Afghanistan. Earlier in 1984, the Indian government had launched a full-scale army assault on the Sikh Golden Temple to stamp out "terrorists and extremists" which led, some months later to the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister and the former Chief of the Indian Army by Sikhs. This was immediately followed by the killings of thousands of Sikhs all over India in reprisal.

There are global implications as well that matter. Punjab - the homeland of the Sikhs - sits astride the Indian subcontinent between India and Pakistan, two sovereign nations that have fought three wars in the past fifty-three years. Both have now become nuclear powers, perpetually ready for another war with mutually assured destruction. India won its wars with Pakistan largely on the backs of Punjabis and Sikhs. The next war, too, will be fought in Punjab. Some North American Sikhs have also been lobbying for a Sikh country, independent of India, in a campaign that sometimes finds an echo in the U.S. Congress.

Sikhs are not new to North America. The first Sikh settlers arrived in Canada in 1897. A year later they were in the United States. Some of the workers who helped construct the Panama Canal were Sikh. Although almost three-quarters of a million Americans and Canadians profess Sikhism as their religion and Sikhism is now one of the six largest religions of the world, this faith and its adherents remain relatively unknown to most observers outside India. Patwant's work, therefore, is both timely and ambitious.

Sikhism is relatively young and started with Guru Nanak and his message just over 500 years ago in Punjab. It matured under the tutelage of ten Gurus or Masters over 200 years, achieving its final form in 1699. Last year in 1999 Sikhs worldwide celebrated 300 years of that event.

Briefly summarized, Sikhism holds for one God - a single cause - common to all creation, irrespective of gender, race, religion or national origin. This fundamental belief delineated Sikhism from the caste based Indian society. In 1699 Sikhism also decreed that its followers wear five articles of faith, including long unshorn hair and a short sword. Also, in their names all male Sikhs were to incorporate "Singh" meaning lion while women would use "Kaur" or princess. The hope was that they would embody in their lives the courage and grace inherent in their names, while removing the stigma of caste and the inferior place of women inherent in the traditional Indian society.

Patwant attempts a grand sweep of history, providing a view of the expanse of 500 years in just under 300 pages. There are historians who dot all the i's and cross all the t's, and there are others, like H.G. Wells or Gibbon who provide a lucid story that comes to life with the reading. It would be futile to look for the former in this book, but Patwant provides an enviable rendering of good history in excellent, attractive style.

His detractors are sure to note that Patwant is a Sikh and will, therefore, want to dismiss many of his critical comments about the caste system, which forms the fundamental structure of the traditional Indian Hindu society. But to sidestep that issue in order to appease the dominant Hindu society would be intellectual dishonesty. Sikhism arose in part as a revolt against the caste system and the place of the Brahmin who ruled Indian society from atop a pyramid of privilege guaranteed by his birth. Sikhism also promised women an equal place - this in a society where female infanticide was common and is not so rare even today.

Patwant briefly explains the five articles of faith by which a Sikh proclaims his presence, and these include a small sword and long unshorn hair covered by a turban. These two often attract the most attention and controversy in North America. There have been several landmark cases where Sikhs have won the right to wear these symbols at the work place without hindrance and discrimination, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Air Force, as well in many district courts across America.

Emerging from an epic struggle replete with a tradition of martyrdom, sacrifice and war, in the nineteenth century Sikhs, under Ranjeet Singh, established a kingdom in much of northwestern India, extending from Afghanistan, Kashmir, Punjab including much of modern Pakistan, and extending to Tibet. Ranjeet Singh's rule was noted for its even-handed treatment of all religions and for the abolition of capital punishment. His death was soon followed by internecine warfare by his descendents, and his empire swallowed by the British. The British ruled Sikh territories for almost a hundred years while they ruled the rest of India for 200 years.

Patwant traces at considerable length the checkered history of Sikhs in independent India since 1947. During the struggle for India's independence from the British, of all the Indians who were sentenced to life imprisonment or death, over two thirds were Sikh although they form only 2% of India's population. Within two decades of independence Punjab's farmers had wrought a green revolution in agriculture such that India became self-sufficient in food for the first time in centuries. But Sikhs have struggled to define successfully their own place and identity in the face of what they see as an inimical government and a hostile Hindu dominated society.

Many books provide coherent and detailed accounts of early Sikh history but Patwant captures the past fifty years of turbulence for Sikhs in modern India remarkably well and with great sensitivity. This book is a very useful focus on a minority that often finds itself under siege but is a growing, productive presence in Europe and North America.


Dr. Inder Jit Singh is Professor & Co-ordinator in Anatomy, New York University. Among other publications, he is the author of two books: 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias' and 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress'.
I.J. Singh is on the editorial advisory board of 'The Sikh Review', Calcutta and 'The Encyclopedia of Sikhism', Punjabi University, Patiala.