Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India

Birinder Pal Singh

• Editorial: Routledge India
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351201056
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Emigration & Immigration

This book is a major intervention in the understanding of the dynamics of internal migration in South Asia. It traces the historical roots of certain migrant Sikh communities to the south and north-east India; chronicles their social, religious and economic practices; and examines peculiar identity formations.

This first-of-its-kind empirical study examines the socio-economic conditions of Sikhs in the Deccan and the North-East who are believed to be the descendants of the soldiers in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army despatched to the two regions in the early nineteenth century. It draws on extensive ethnographic accounts to present the social realities of the different communities, including language, religion, culture, occupation, caste, marriage and kinship, and agency. It also questions the idea of Sikh homogeneity that many within the community have come to believe in, while revealing both differences and similarities.

The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh studies, cultural studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide.

1
Introduction

The Sikhs are an enterprising people found in every nook and corner of the globe notwithstanding the conditions of life and work there. Some also say, they are like potatoes: they grow everywhere! The notion of being a stranger in a place distant from home is quite alien to their temperament. Some traveller may ask the owner of a wayside Sher-e-Punjab dhaba (eatery), ‘Bai ji, aithey kiven?’ Brother, how come you are here? A usual reply is: ‘Bas ji, aithey kumm mil gaya, beh gaye.’ I got the work (occupation) here, hence settled down. It is not that one finds such dhabas on the trunk routes but even in the remote areas of the country.

Neil Armstrong’s popular anecdote sums up the adventurous and enterprising Sikh spirit and their zest for life. The anecdote goes like this: when Neil Armstrong had just put his first step on the moon, from Apollo 11 (20 July 1969), which was to be a giant leap for (hu)mankind, a sardarji walked up to him and said: ‘Badshao kithey chaln’ai.’ Sir, where would you like to go? Bemused and deflated, Armstrong asked him: ‘How come you are here? I thought I was the first one to land on the moon.’ He replied casually: ‘Bas ji, Partition pichhon aithe’i aa gaye si.’ I settled here after the partition (August 1947) of the country.

The moon is farther away, but Deccan and the North-East (henceforth NE) are not so close to Punjab either, where we find substantial Sikh populations in the urban and rural areas of the country. The socioeconomic and political conditions there are not so congenial either, especially at the latter place where the local versus outsider issue is at the core of regional politics and militant violence. It is interesting to note certain similarities between the two distant regions of the country, as far as the Sikh population is concerned, despite regional differences. We come across three types of Sikhs who believe themselves different from each other and maintain social distance despite common religious affiliation and identity.

The first type of Sikhs to reach there, both Deccan and the North-East, are those who travelled with the Sikh gurus and stayed there to further the cause of Sikh religion and complete the project launched by the respective gurus. The ninth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur visited Assam in 1669. He stayed at Dhubri on the right bank of the Brahmaputra, then in the district of Goalpara but now the headquarters of an independent district by the same name. The Guru then moved on to Guwahati and visited the famous Kamakhaya Devi temple. A part of his handwritten scroll, saved from destruction, is lying preserved with a panda (priest), whose ancestor had the privilege to meet the Guru. Framed in glass, the priest claims that it is a prized possession with that family.

One version of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s visit is that he was preaching and reviving the message of Guru Nanak Dev, the first Sikh guru who had also visited Dhubri, among other places in Assam during his first udasi, the preaching tour between 1500 and 1506. He had a discourse with Srimanta Shankradeva, a neo-vaishnavite who like him believed in one God and preached eka sarana dharma. According to another version, Aurangzeb asked Raja Ram Singh of Amber to conquer Assam, following the defeat of an earlier attempt by the Moghul forces. The Raja requested the Guru, then stationed at Patna along with his family, to accompany his army to Assam to ward off the evil and magical effects of the sorcerers there since that area had the reputation of being the land of tantra and mantra.¹ The army contingent and the Guru first went to Dacca and then to Assam. The Guru returned to Patna when he got the news of the birth of his son, later named Guru Gobind Singh.

According to this version, Ram Singh was sent there because Aurangzeb wanted to punish him for supporting Shivaji in his escape from captivity in Agra. When he was to move, his principal queen advised him to seek the protection and support of the Guru. On reaching Patna, he narrated his predicament to the Guru and sought his blessings.

Ram Singha then received from Guru Teg Bahadur formal initiation as a Sikh by the ceremony of Charan-pahul. The Raja then requested the Guru to accompany the expedition, to which he agreed. The Guru admitted afterwards that he had accompanied Raja Ram Singha in the triple capacity of friend to the Raja, preacher of God’s word, and averter of bloodshed.

(Bhuyan 1994: 113–14)

This in short is the story of the Axomiya Sikhs of Nagaon district in Assam. Likewise, the Dakhani Sikhs argue that they are a progeny of those Sikhs that accompanied Guru Gobind Singh to Nanded. No doubt, some of them returned to Punjab with Banda Bahadur to accomplish the task assigned to him by the Guru, but others stayed put to look after the gurdwara there and to further the cause of Sikh religion, such is the belief of people there. They claim that they are carrying out that task still with sincerity and commitment. The Sikh religion or sikhi, colloquially, is surviving there due to them only.

The Sikligar Sikhs are particular in keeping their Sikh form and are widely spread all over the southern peninsula. They believe to have accompanied Guru Gobind Singh while he was passing through Rajputana. These nomadic tribal people of Rajput origin used to saiqal swords. It is an Arabic word that means to polish. This community specialised in the manufacturing of swords, knives and daggers. The swords are no longer in use since the wars are being fought by other means. Yet they are continuing with their manufacture, as a Sikh bridegroom at the time of marriage must have a sword in his hand. Thus, each Sikh household has a sword or two. These are, however, also used on ceremonial occasions like nagar kirtan jaloos (religious procession in the city). Thus, Sikligars at Nanded, given the greater demand there, are still engaged in this task. They maintain the Sikh form intact even if their living conditions are dismal.² They have been constrained by the forces of modernisation and urbanisation to shun nomadism and adopt a settled way of life. They still hover around the place of their settlement carrying out chores of their traditional occupation and selling products in the neighbouring area extending up to a couple of kilometres.

There are also tribal Banjara Sikhs in the Deccan who had specialised in the salt trade traditionally, hence they are called Lavana, or Labana in Punjab or Lambada in the Deccan. At some stage, they also carried armaments and ammunitions for the marching armies. Their caravan comprising a convoy of bullock carts loaded with material is called a tanda. Their encampment is also known as tanda.³ They had taken to Sikhism, and believe that Makhan Shah Labana, who recognised the ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur at Baba Bakala in Punjab, was a Banjara. Another noted and revered one is Lakhi Shah Banjara who cremated the beheaded body of Guru Tegh Bahadur after his martyrdom at Delhi. It is also a nomadic tribe distributed throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is quite likely that some of them might have travelled with the Guru’s contingent, carrying and supplying food and munitions. The tribal Banjaras around Nanded and Bidar are also converting to Sikhism through formal training in Sikh seminaries at the aforementioned places. For instance, at Banda Ghat, Nanded, they learn to recite gurbani with and without musical instruments.⁴ In 2012, Banda Ghat had 80 students on its rolls.

Another type of Sikhs in both the Deccan and the NE are those who believe themselves to be the descendants of a contingent of Sikh soldiers despatched there by Sher-e-Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh to support the local rulers. The Axomiya Sikhs believe themselves to be the progeny of those soldiers sent there to support the Ahom King Chandrakanta Singha against the Burmese invasion in 1820.

Similarly, the Dakhani Sikhs believe (and each one has this story to narrate) that they are the descendants of the soldiers sent there to maintain law and order in the erstwhile state of Hyderabad-Deccan. The oral history informs that 14 Risalas were sent by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1830 at the request of the then Nizam of Hyderabad. The present study focuses largely on the Axomiya and the Dakhani Sikhs who had been there for about two centuries and there are significant parallels of a sort between them.

There is yet another kind of Sikh people who call themselves Punjabi Sikhs. The local people address them similarly. They are high caste entrepreneurs and business people who came to the two regions not for employment but for business. They are further categorised into two groups. One group belonging to the peasant stock has adopted business in the recent past, whereas the other one belonging to the khatri caste had been doing so traditionally. The latter settled there following the partition of the country in 1947. These khatri Sikhs uprooted from Pakistan migrated to large cities like Hyderabad and Guwahati, and to small towns as well, to earn livelihood through business and trade of wholesale and retail.

Those belonging to the peasantry are largely the transporters who came later, over the last 40 years. They handle all kinds of surface transport companies, from passenger transportation through cabs and buses to trucks carrying goods of all sorts including tankers. It is a consequence of the development of roads and proliferation of business. The motor parts are virtually their monopoly in the two metropolises – Hyderabad and Guwahati. The Punjabi Sikhs in both the Deccan and the NE consider themselves superior to the local Dakhani, Axomiya and other Sikhs.

There is yet another type of Punjabi Sikhs and some Christian converts in the erstwhile Assam who had been there for about the past century. They are safai karamcharis belonging to the Scheduled Castes, also called Mazhabi Sikhs. They were brought to Shillong, then capital of Assam, by the colonial army. Their ancestors were employed in the municipal council/committee and other government offices. These are concentrated still in urban areas, especially in Guwahati/Dispur (Assam) and Shillong (Meghalaya). Their residential area is called the Punjabi colony in official records as well.

Besides these broadly common features with respect to their migration patterns at the regional levels, there are similarities at the level of intra-community characteristics as well. The Sikhs – Axomiya and Dakhani – at both the NE and the Deccan, respectively, have immersed themselves completely in the local language and culture. They are fluent and comfortable in Axomiya as in Assam, in Telugu as in Andhra Pradesh (now Telengana), in Marathi and Kannada too, which are the languages of their residential districts in the respective states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, respectively. The Axomiya Sikhs living in the rural areas of the district of Nagaon know only Axomiya, not even Hindi. It is true of the elderly generation, though others as residents of multilingual urban spaces are also fluent in languages other than their mother tongue. The educated and employed Axomiya Sikhs are an exception. The Sikligar and Banjara Sikhs speak their own languages as is true of the tribal communities. One common and significant feature of these people that is not appreciated by the Punjabi Sikhs is their ignorance of the Punjabi/Gurmukhi language. Some of the respondents do understand it but could neither read nor write. On this count, they are an object of ridicule for the Punjabi Sikhs who consider them low in economic status and social prestige.

The safai karmacharis of the NE – Assam and Shillong (Meghalaya) – are an exception in this respect. They speak Punjabi well despite prolonged stay there, and they are also proficient not only in the local languages Axomiya and Khasi, respectively, but in Hindi too. Their complete command of their mother tongue, Punjabi, is exceptional, so much so that they maintain the dialect/accent of their native region (Majha) in Punjab. They, however, converse with local people in their language and with the outsiders in Hindi, but always use Punjabi among themselves.

The localisation of the Axomiya and the Dakhani Sikhs has been possible because their ancestors married local women in Assam and the Deccan and did not force their spouses to adopt their language (Punjabi) and culture, if they had been sent from Punjab. It could not be possible either. The ignorance of the Punjabi language, however, has started bothering them lately in the two regions. It is seemingly a consequence of their encounter with the Punjabi Sikhs who are rich and affluent. The Axomiya and Dakhani Sikhs, including others are eking out their living with low income. Those in employment or service have low level jobs. Paradoxically, the Punjabi Sikhs call them ‘duplicate’ Sikhs and ridicule them: ‘Eh keho jihey Sikh ne, Punjabi nahin jande.’ What sort of Sikhs are these who do not know Punjabi – thus suggesting they are lesser Sikhs.

The Axomiya Sikhs of Nagaon do not speak or understand Punjabi but many Dakhani Sikhs do understand it but cannot speak it. They are more comfortable speaking the local language – Telugu, Marathi or Kannada, as the case may be – and Hindi. During my fieldwork in the Deccan, a respondent would converse with me in Hindi but would switch to Telugu with my project fellow, unmindful of my presence and lack of my understanding of their conversation. The same was the case in Assam with the Axomiya Sikhs. It is not a case of language chauvinism. Anyone familiar with Punjabi words would attempt to insert these in their conversation with me. This is suggestive of their comfort level with the local language. It is certainly a good and healthy sign of their localisation that the Punjabi Sikhs must appreciate.

Another common thing between the Axomiya and Dakhani Sikhs is their commitment to maintain the Sikh form in letter and spirit. They mince no words in claiming that ‘Hamney sikhi ko sambhala hai, Punjab mein to bura haal hai.’ Literally, we have conserved the Sikh religion (form) that is in ruins in Punjab. They know well that the Sikh form is vanishing in Punjab through the media besides the fact that some of them have also travelled there. Moreover, they encounter them especially at Nanded and Bidar where pilgrims from Punjab visit regularly and in huge numbers. It is relevant to note that religious tourism has picked up in a big way over the last two decades. The ‘conducted tours’ from Punjab to all the important pilgrim centres of Sikhism is a flourishing business which has increased the possibility of contact between the local Sikhs and those from Punjab, hence this reaction. Gurdwara Sach Khand at Hazoor Sahib (Nanded) is next to Harmandar Sahib at Amritsar in importance and adoration. Nanak Jhira at Bidar (Karnataka) has also been added lately to the circuit. It is an integral part of the Hazoor Sahib (Nanded) itinerary. In this respect, the NE is lagging. The pilgrims from Punjab do not go beyond Patna Sahib, the birth place of Guru Gobind Singh, and one of the five takhts of Sikhism. They hardly think of Dhubri Sahib and never of Gurdwara Mata Ji at Chaparmukh, both in Assam.

For a local non-Sikh person, the aforementioned distinctions among Sikhs are neither existent nor relevant. The Sikhs for them are all those with a beard and a turban who visit a Sikh mandir (temple). They are a helpful and generous people. They think all Sikhs are alike. Their presence, of course, is conspicuous not only in terms of their Sikh form but also because of their general well-being and thrifty lifestyle, and some among them have made their name there. For instance, wherever one may go, a huge advertisement of Bagga Wines is there to greet you. A professor at Hyderabad mentions that ‘in case of need a Sikh neigh-bour is the first among others to extend a helping hand.’ A similar comment came from a professor of anthropology at Guwahati. These Sikhs are still living with certain essential tenets of the Sikh religion and philosophy, it seems. The Sikhs keep their word, and women especially feel secure with Sikh drivers. The local non-Sikh persons attest to this observation.

One may analyse and explain the data collected along the lines of types of classification suggested above, that is, for each kind of Sikh community like Dakhani, Sikligar, Banjara, Axomiya and safai karamcharis. But that would do us no good since the socio-economic status indices and the living conditions of the respondents across the two regions – the Deccan and the NE – are so similar that they pass off well as a single homogeneous group, which is why all types have been discussed together for an easy and smooth reading. Despite differences between the two regions at the socio-cultural, economic and political levels that are at times no doubt glaring, yet given the nature of study, these have not proved to be of much significance insofar as explanation of the poverty level of the respondents is concerned. The cultural and religious practices of the Sikhs also are quite different with respect to the Punjabi Sikhs but similar in many ways between the two regions. This is not to claim that inter-regional differences have not impacted their orientation and practices given different socio-economic conditions. Such patterns of similarity and differences between the two communities, especially Axomiya and Dakhani in the NE and the Deccan, respectively, make the present study significant and comparison between them interesting.

The five types of Sikhs that are the subject of this study, sociologically speaking, are unique and distinct from one another. If the Axomiya and Dakhani Sikhs belong to the trading, agricultural castes and the service class including some from the Other Backward Classes (OBC), the Sikligar and Banjara Sikhs are the Scheduled Tribes in the Deccan. The safai karamcharis in the NE, on the other hand, are the Scheduled Castes from Punjab. The different communities in different socioeconomic conditions call for separate explanations no doubt, but given the objectives of the study to profile them for purposes of government’s welfare measures these have been clubbed and discussed together. And, it makes sense. The regional differences do not matter in terms of their conditions of material living, such as low income level, slum dwelling, lack of basic amenities and so forth that are central to situate them on the lower indices of socio-economic status. The cultural practices are always region-specific, yet we may have similarities of a sort that are important sociologically. The responses on issues relating to culture, language, religion and so forth are also showing strong parallels in many ways. This is what makes the present study worthwhile and calls for further research and probing. This is a broad survey, given the requirements of the National Commission for Minorities, which has shown such patterns of similarity and difference. On...

Índice

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Dakhani and other Sikhs in the Deccan
• 3 Axomiya and Mazhabi Sikhs in the North-East
• 4 Socio-economic profile of the Sikhs in the Deccan and the North-East
• 5 Local is authentic
• 6 From material to the mental
• 7 In lieu of conclusion
• Glossary
• References
• Index