The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I Part 22

7. Customs of the Satnamis.

The social customs of the Satnamis resemble generally those of other Chamars. They will admit into the community all except members of "the impure castes, as Dhobis (washermen), Ghasias (gra.s.s-cutters) and Mehtars (sweepers), whom they regard as inferior to themselves. Their weddings must be celebrated only during the months of Magh (January), Phagun (February), the light half of Chait (March) and Baisakh (April). No betrothal ceremony can take place during the months of Shrawan (August) and Pus (January). They always bury the dead, laying the body with the face downwards, and spread clothes in the grave above and below it, so that it may be warm and comfortable during the last long sleep. They observe mourning for three days and have their heads shaved on the third day with the exception of the upper lip, which is never touched by the razor. The Satnamis as well as the Kabirpanthis in Chhattisgarh abstain from spirituous liquor, and ordinary Hindus who do not do so are known as Saktaha or Sakta (a follower of Devi) in contradistinction to them. A Satnami is put out of caste if he is beaten by a man of another caste, however high, and if he is touched by a sweeper, Ghasia or Mahar. Their women wear nose-rings, simply to show their contempt for the Hindu social order, as this ornament was formerly forbidden to the lower castes. Under native dynasties any violation of a rule of this kind would have been severely punished by the executive Government, but in British India the Chamar women can indulge their whim with impunity. It was also a rule of the sect not to accept cooked food from the hands of any other caste, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, but this has fallen into abeyance since the famines. Another method by which the Satnamis show their contempt for the Hindu religion is by throwing milk and curds at each other in sport and trampling it under foot. This is a parody of the Hindu celebration of the Janam-Ashtami or Krishna's birthday, when vessels of milk and curds are broken over the heads of the worshippers and caught and eaten by all castes indiscriminately in token of amity. They will get into railway carriages and push up purposely against the Hindus, saying that they have paid for their tickets and have an equal right to a place. Then the Hindus are defiled and have to bathe in order to become clean.

8. Character of the Satnami movement.

Several points in the above description point to the conclusion that the Satnami movement is in essence a social revolt on the part of the despised Chamars or tanners. The fundamental tenet of the gospel of Ghasi Das, as in the case of so many other dissenting sects, appears to have been the abolition of caste, and with it of the authority of the Brahmans; and this it was which provoked the bitter hostility of the priestly order. It has been seen that Ghasi Das himself had been deeply impressed by the misery and debas.e.m.e.nt of the Chamar community; how his successor Balak Das was murdered for the a.s.sumption of the sacred thread; and how in other ways the Satnamis try to show their contempt for the social order which brands them as helot outcastes. A large proportion of the Satnami Chamars are owners or tenants of land, and this fact may be surmised to have intensified their feeling of revolt against the degraded position to which they were relegated by the Hindus. Though slovenly cultivators and with little energy or forethought, the Chamars have the utmost fondness for land and an ardent ambition to obtain a holding, however small. The possession of land is a hall-mark of respectability in India, as elsewhere, and the low castes were formerly incapable of holding it; and it may be surmised that the Chamar feels himself to be raised by his tenant-right above the hereditary condition of village drudge and menial. But for the restraining influence of the British power, the Satnami movement might by now have developed in Chhattisgarh into a social war. Over most of India the term Hindu is contrasted with Muhammadan, but in Chhattisgarh to call a man a Hindu conveys primarily that he is not a Chamar, or Chamara according to the contemptuous abbreviation in common use. A bitter and permanent antagonism exists between the two cla.s.ses, and this the Chamar cultivators carry into their relations with their Hindu landlords by refusing to pay rent. The records of the criminal courts contain many cases arising from collisions between Chamars and Hindus, several of which have resulted in riot and murder. Faults no doubt exist on both sides, and Mr. Hemingway, Settlement Officer, quotes an instance of a Hindu proprietor who made his Chamar tenants cart timber and bricks to Rajim, many miles from his village, to build a house for him during the season of cultivation, their fields consequently remaining untilled. But if a proprietor once arouses the hostility of his Chamar tenants he may as well abandon his village for all the profit he is likely to obtain from it. Generally the Chamars are to blame, as pointed out by Mr. Blenkinsop who knows them well, and many of them are dangerous criminals, restrained only by their cowardice from the worst outrages against person and property. It may be noted in conclusion that the spread of Christianity among the Chamars is in one respect a replica of the Satnami movement, because by becoming a Christian the Chamar hopes also to throw off the social bondage of Hinduism. A missionary gentleman told the writer that one of the converted Chamars, on being directed to perform some menial duty of the village, replied: 'No, I have become a Christian and am one of the Sahibs; I shall do no more _bigar_ (forced labour).'

Sikh Religion

List of Paragraphs

1. _Foundation of Sikhism--Baba Nanak._ 2. _The earlier Gurus_.

3. _Guru Govind Singh_.

4. _Sikh initiation and rules_.

5. _Character of the Nanakpanthis and Sikh sects._ 6. _The Akalis._ 7. _The Sikh Council or Guru-Mata. Their communal meal._

1. Foundation of Sikhism--Baba Nanak.

_Sikh, Akali_.--The Sikh religion and the history of the Sikhs have been fully described by several writers, and all that is intended in this article is a brief outline of the main tenets of the sect for the benefit of those to whom the more important works of reference may not be available. The Central Provinces contained only 2337 Sikhs in 1911, of whom the majority were soldiers and the remainder probably timber or other merchants or members of the subordinate engineering service in which Punjabis are largely employed. The following account is taken from Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Census Report of the Punjab_ for 1881:

"Sikhism was founded by Baba Nanak, a Khatri of the Punjab, who lived in the fifteenth century. But Nanak was not more than a religious reformer like Kabir, Ramanand, and the other Vaishnava apostles. He preached the unity of G.o.d, the abolition of idols, and the disregard of caste distinctions. [390] His doctrine and life were eminently gentle and unaggressive. He was succeeded by nine _gurus_, the last and most famous of whom, Govind Singh, died in 1708.

"The names of the _gurus_ were as follows:

1. Baba Nanak 1469-1538-9 2. Angad 1539-1552 3. Amar Das 1552-1574 4. Ram Das 1574-1581 5. Arjun 1581-1606 6. Har Govind 1606-1645 7. Har Rai 1645-1661 8. Har Kishen 1661-1664 9. Teg Bahadur 1664-1675 10. Govind Singh 1675-1708

2. The earlier Gurus.

"Under the second Guru Angad an intolerant and ascetic spirit began to spring up among the followers of the new tenets; and had it not been for the good sense and firmness displayed by his successor, Amar Das, who excommunicated the Udasis and recalled his followers to the mildness and tolerance of Nanak, Sikhism would probably have merely added one more to the countless orders of ascetics or devotees which are wholly unrepresented in the life of the people. The fourth _guru_, Ram Das, founded Amritsar; but it was his successor, Arjun, that first organised his following. He gave them a written rule of faith in the Granth or Sikh scripture which he compiled, he provided a common rallying-point in the city of Amritsar which he made their religious centre, and he reduced their voluntary contributions to a systematic levy which accustomed them to discipline and paved the way for further organisation. He was a great trader, he utilised the services and money of his disciples in mercantile transactions which extended far beyond the confines of India, and he thus acc.u.mulated wealth for his Church.

"Unfortunately he was unable wholly to abstain from politics; and having become a political partisan of the rebel prince Khusru, he was summoned to Delhi and there imprisoned, and the treatment he received while in confinement hastened, if it did not cause, his death. And thus began that Muhammadan persecution which was so mightily to change the spirit of the new faith. This was the first turning-point in Sikh history; and the effects of the persecution were immediately apparent. Arjun was a priest and a merchant; his successor, Har Govind, was a warrior. He abandoned the gentle and spiritual teaching of Nanak for the use of arms and the love of adventure. He encouraged his followers to eat flesh, as giving them strength and daring; he subst.i.tuted zeal in the cause for saintliness of life as the price of salvation; and he developed the organised discipline which Arjun had initiated. He was, however, a military adventurer rather than an enthusiastic zealot, and fought either for or against the Muhammadan empire as the hope of immediate gain dictated. His policy was followed by his two successors; and under Teg Bahadur the Sikhs degenerated into little better than a band of plundering marauders, whose internal factions aided to make them disturbers of the public peace. Moreover, Teg Bahadur was a bigot, while the fanatical Aurangzeb had mounted the throne of Delhi. Him therefore Aurangzeb captured and executed as an infidel, a robber and a rebel, while he cruelly persecuted his followers in common with all who did not accept Islam.

3. Guru Govind Singh.

"Teg Bahadur was succeeded by the last and greatest _guru_, his son Govind Singh; and it was under him that what had sprung into existence as a quietist sect of a purely religious nature, and had become a military society of by no means high character, developed into the political organisation which was to rule the whole of north-western India, and to furnish the British arms their stoutest and most worthy opponents. For some years after his father's execution Govind Singh lived in retirement, and brooded over his personal wrongs and over the persecutions of the Musalman fanatic which bathed the country in blood. His soul was filled with the longing for revenge; but he felt the necessity for a larger following and a stronger organisation, and, following the example of his Muhammadan enemies, he used his religion as the basis of political power. Emerging from his retirement he preached the Khalsa, the pure, the elect, the liberated. He openly attacked all distinctions of caste, and taught the equality of all men who would join him; and inst.i.tuting a ceremony of initiation, he proclaimed it as the _pahul_ or 'gate' by which all might enter the society, while he gave to its members the _prasad_ or communion as a sacrament of union in which the four castes should eat of one dish. The higher castes murmured and many of them left him, for he taught that the Brahman's thread must be broken; but the lower orders rejoiced and flocked in numbers to his standard. These he inspired with military ardour, with the hope of social freedom and of national independence, and with abhorrence of the hated Muhammadan. He gave them outward signs of their faith in the unshorn hair, the short drawers, and the blue dress; he marked the military nature of their calling by the t.i.tle of Singh or 'lion,' by the wearing of steel, and by the initiation by sprinkling of water with a two-edged dagger; and he gave them a feeling of personal superiority in their abstinence from the unclean tobacco.

"The Muhammadans promptly responded to the challenge, for the danger was too serious to be neglected; the Sikh army was dispersed, and Govind's mother, wife and children were murdered at Sirhind by Aurangzeb's orders. The death of the emperor brought a temporary lull, and a year later Govind himself was a.s.sa.s.sinated while fighting the Marathas as an ally of Aurangzeb's successor. He did not live to see his ends accomplished, but he had roused the dormant spirit of the people, and the fire which he lit was only damped for a while. His chosen disciple Banda succeeded him in the leadership, though never recognised as _guru_. The internal commotions which followed upon the death of the emperor, Bahadur Shah, and the attacks of the Marathas weakened the power of Delhi, and for a time Banda carried all before him; but he was eventually conquered and captured in A.D. 1716, and a period of persecution followed so sanguinary and so terrible that for a generation nothing more was heard of the Sikhs. How the troubles of the Delhi empire thickened, how the Sikhs again rose to prominence, how they disputed the possession of the Punjab with the Mughals, the Marathas and the Durani, and were at length completely successful, how they divided into societies under their several chiefs and portioned out the Province among them, and how the genius of Ranjit Singh raised him to supremacy and extended his rule beyond the limits of the Punjab, are matters of political and not of religious history. No formal alteration has been made in the Sikh religion since Govind Singh gave it its military shape; and though changes have taken place, they have been merely the natural result of time and external influences.

4. Sikh initiation and rules.

"The word Sikh is said to be derived from the common Hindu term Sewak and to mean simply a disciple; it may be applied therefore to the followers of Nanak who held aloof from Govind Singh, but in practice it is perhaps understood to mean only the latter, while the Nanakpanthis are considered as Hindus. A true Sikh always takes the termination Singh to his name on initiation, and hence they are sometimes known as Singhs in distinction to the Nanakpanthis. A man is also not born a Sikh, but must always be initiated, and the _pahul_ or rite of baptism cannot take place until he is old enough to understand it, the earliest age being seven, while it is often postponed till manhood. Five Sikhs must be present at the ceremony, when the novice repeats the articles of the faith and drinks sugar and water stirred up with a two-edged dagger. At the initiation of women a one-edged dagger is used, but this is seldom done. Thus most of the wives of Sikhs have never been initiated, nor is it necessary that their children should become Sikhs when they grow up. The faith is unattractive to women owing to the simplicity of its ritual and the absence of the feasts and ceremonies so abundant in Hinduism; formerly the Sikhs were accustomed to capture their wives in forays, and hence perhaps it was considered of no consequence that the husband and wife should be of different faith. The distinguishing marks of a true Sikh are the five _Kakkas_ or _K's_ which he is bound to carry about his person: the _Kes_ or uncut hair and unshaven beard; the _Kachh_ or short drawers ending above the knee; the _Kasa_ or iron bangle; the _Khanda_ or steel knife; and the _Kanga_ or comb. The other rules of conduct laid down by Guru Govind Singh for his followers were to dress in blue clothes and especially eschew red or saffron-coloured garments and caps of all sorts, to observe personal cleanliness, especially in the hair, and practise ablutions, to eat the flesh of such animals only as had been killed by _jatka_ or decapitation, to abstain from tobacco in all its forms, never to blow out flame nor extinguish it with drinking-water, to eat with the head covered, pray and recite pa.s.sages of the Granth morning and evening and before all meals, reverence the cow, abstain from the worship of saints and idols and avoid mosques and temples, and worship the one G.o.d only, neglecting Brahmans and Mullas, and their scriptures, teaching, rites and religious symbols. Caste distinctions he positively condemned and inst.i.tuted the _prasad_ or communion, in which cakes of flour, b.u.t.ter and sugar are made and consecrated with certain ceremonies while the communicants sit round in prayer, and then distributed equally to all the faithful present, to whatever caste they may belong. The above rules, so far as they enjoin ceremonial observances, are still very generally obeyed. But the daily reading and recital of the Granth is discontinued, for the Sikhs are the most uneducated cla.s.s in the Punjab, and an occasional visit to the Sikh temple where the Granth is read aloud is all that the villager thinks necessary. Blue clothes have been discontinued save by the fanatical Akali sect, as have been very generally the short drawers or Kachh. The prohibition of tobacco has had the unfortunate effect of inducing the Sikhs to take to hemp and opium, both of which are far more injurious than tobacco. The precepts which forbid the Sikh to venerate Brahmans or to a.s.sociate himself with Hindu worship are entirely neglected; and in the matter of the worship of local saints and deities, and of the employment of and reverence for Brahmans, there is little, while in current superst.i.tions and superst.i.tious practices there is no difference between the Sikh villager and his Hindu brother." [391]

5. Character of the Nanakpanthis and Sikh sects.

It seems thus clear that if it had not been for the political and military development of the Sikh movement, it would in time have lost most of its distinctive features and have come to be considered as a Hindu sect of the same character, if somewhat more distinctive than those of the Nanakpanthis and Kabirpanthis. But this development and the founding of the Sikh State of Lah.o.r.e created a breach between the Sikhs and ordinary Hindus wider than that caused by their religious differences, as was sufficiently demonstrated during the Mutiny. In their origin both the Sikh and Nanakpanthi sects appear to have been mainly a revolt against the caste system, the supremacy of Brahmans and the degrading ma.s.s of superst.i.tions and reverence of idols and spirit-worship which the Brahmans encouraged for their own profit. But while Nanak, influenced by the observation of Islamic monotheism, attempted to introduce a pure religion only, the aim of Govind was perhaps political, and he saw in the caste system an obstacle to the national movement which he desired to excite against the Muhammadans. So far as the abolition of caste was concerned, both reformers have, as has been seen, largely failed, the two sects now recognising caste, while their members revere Brahmans like ordinary Hindus.

6. The Akalis.

The Akalis or Nihangs are a fanatical order of Sikh ascetics. The following extract is taken from Sir E. Maclagan's account of them: [392]

"The Akalis came into prominence very early by their stout resistance to the innovations introduced by the Bairagi Banda after the death of Guru Govind; but they do not appear to have had much influence during the following century until the days of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. They const.i.tuted at once the most unruly and the bravest portion of the very unruly and brave Sikh army. Their headquarters were at Amritsar, where they const.i.tuted themselves the guardians of the faith and a.s.sumed the right to convoke synods. They levied offerings by force and were the terror of the Sikh chiefs. Their good qualities were, however, well appreciated by the Maharaja, and when there were specially fierce foes to meet, such as the Pathans beyond the Indus, the Akalis were always to the front.

"The Akali is distinguished very conspicuously by his dark-blue and checked dress, his peaked turban, often surmounted with steel quoits, and by the fact of his strutting about like Ali Baba's prince with his 'thorax and abdomen festooned with curious cutlery.' He is most particular in retaining the five _Kakkas_, and in preserving every outward form prescribed by Guru Govind Singh. Some of the Akalis wear a yellow turban underneath the blue one, leaving a yellow band across the forehead. The yellow turban is worn by many Sikhs at the Basant Panchmi, and the Akalis are fond of wearing it at all times. There is a couplet by Bhai Gurdas which says:

Siah, Sufed, Surkh, Zardae, Jo pahne, sot Gurbhai;

or, 'Those that wear black (the Akalis), white (the Nirmalas), red (the Udasis) or yellow, are all members of the brotherhood of the Sikhs.'

"The Akalis do not, it is true, drink spirits or eat meat as other Sikhs do, but they are immoderate in the consumption of _bhang_. They are in other respects such purists that they will avoid Hindu rites even in their marriage ceremonies.

"The Akali is full of memories of the glorious day of the Khalsa; and he is nothing if he is not a soldier, a soldier of the Guru. He dreams of armies, and he thinks in lakhs. If he wishes to imply that five Akalis are present, he will say that 'five lakhs are before you'; or if he would explain he is alone, he will say that he is with 'one and a quarter lakhs of the Khalsa.' You ask him how he is, and he replies that 'The army is well'; you inquire where he has come from, and he says, 'The troops marched from Lah.o.r.e.' The name Akali means 'immortal.' When Sikhism was politically dominant, the Akalis were accustomed to extort alms by accusing the princ.i.p.al chiefs of crimes, imposing fines upon them, and in the event of their refusing to pay, preventing them from performing their ablutions or going through any of the religious ceremonies at Amritsar."