Jagdeesh Singh ex­presses a heart-felt ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the unique sac­ri­fices given by Guru Gob­ind Singh through his four beloved sons. His pen is steeped in the blood that runs through his veins, in­fus­ing and vi­brat­ing an in­tense Sikhi spirit.  From Akalpu­rakh -God Almighty, the de­vout au­thor seeks to share a yearn­ing for a global recog­ni­tion of these sac­ri­fices and the mon­u­men­tal role played by the Ten Gu­rus in not just South Asian his­tory but for global hu­man de­vel­op­ment!

I em­brace the eter­nal and au­then­tic Kings –Sacha Pad­shahs of Pan­jab. As the Sikh world com­mem­o­rates the mon­u­men­tally-grip­ping death-de­fy­ing sac­ri­fices of the chil­dren of Guru Gob­ind Singh, it is time to re-en­gage with the gi­gan­tic con­tri­bu­tion of the Gu­rus in shap­ing our thoughts, form and com­mit­ment to truth, jus­tice and wel­fare of hu­man­ity.

Mark­ing the mar­tyr­doms which are re­plete across the Sikh cal­en­dar, should be much more than just mo­men­tary and pass­ing re­mem­ber­ing of events in his­tory. They should be oc­ca­sions to en­gage the long-term, eter­nal pur­pose and mean­ing of those sac­ri­fices into our cur­rent hu­man cir­cum­stances and in­spire us to shape our com­ing de­vel­op­ment as a peo­ple in this chaotic and com­mo­tion rid­den world of ‘ja­gat tamasha’.  Any­thing oth­er­wise, is just rit­ual com­mem­o­ra­tion.

The Ten Gu­rus, Nanak to Gob­ind Singh (the ten ex­pres­sions of the orig­i­nat­ing Guru Nanak, 1469-1708), demon­strated in prac­tise the true and over­whelm­ing kingly qual­i­ties in every as­pect of their lives, ded­i­cated from the in­di­vid­ual to the col­lec­tive  (emo­tion­ally, men­tally, phys­i­cally, ter­ri­to­r­ial and self gov­ern­ment) up­lift­ment, em­pow­er­ment and lib­er­a­tion of their beloved Pan­jabi peo­ple. This made them the true kings of Pan­jaab –Sacha Pad­shahs, who so com­pre­hen­sively pro­vided their trail­blaz­ing mis­sion, ac­tions and rev­o­lu­tion­ary vi­sion for the hu­man­ity of Pan­jaab.

In­vari­ably, their life-trans­form­ing deeds and sac­ri­fices over 1469-1708, have left an in­deli­ble im­print on the men­tal and phys­i­cal at­trib­utes of the Pan­jaabi civil­i­sa­tion and its in­dige­nous peo­ple; which is man­i­fest amongst the ‘Sikhs’ the in­dige­nous Pan­jaabis who have dared to em­brace and main­stream the Gu­rus into their day to day so­ci­ety and in­di­vid­ual lives.

“Which king in the en­tire global his­tory has sent his own chil­dren into di­rect phys­i­cal and fa­tal en­dan­ger­ment for the sake of land, na­tion, re­li­gion, em­pire or peo­ple? None! Which King has watched his bi­o­log­i­cal sons die in the thick of ac­tion, and then still held pos­i­tively to the psy­che that there still re­mains thou­sands more of his sons alive to fight on! Which King has treated his kin and the rest of his peo­ple alike in af­fec­tion and im­por­tance? These are the very qual­i­ties of true king­ship in ac­tion, as against king­ship by hered­i­tary lin­eage and birth.”

The un­prece­dented and mind-blow­ing sac­ri­fices of Guru Gob­ind Singh’s four chil­dren, whom we have just been com­mem­o­rat­ing, are un­matched in global his­tory; let alone ‘In­di­an’ his­tory. Which king in the en­tire global his­tory has sent his own chil­dren into di­rect phys­i­cal and fa­tal en­dan­ger­ment for the sake of land, na­tion, re­li­gion, em­pire or peo­ple? None! Which King has watched his bi­o­log­i­cal sons die in the thick of ac­tion, and then still held pos­i­tively to the psy­che that there still re­mains thou­sands more of his sons alive to fight on! Which King has treated his kin and the rest of his peo­ple as equals in af­fec­tion and im­por­tance? These are the very qual­i­ties of true king­ship in ac­tion, as against king­ship by hered­i­tary lin­eage and birth.

Would the cur­rent UK Queen send her sons or grand­sons to die for the UK? Never! Would the kings and queens of Eu­ro­pean na­tions or the Arab world ven­ture into do­ing such an act? No way!

The Gu­rus -au­then­tic and eter­nal wor­thy kings, in earthly life and death, ex­em­pli­fied the high­est and op­ti­mum form of saint-sol­dierly hu­man qual­i­ties, which they shared and in­spired amongst the Pan­jaabi civil­ians amongst them. The Gu­rus made no claim to be gods. They humbly and de­ter­minedly de­clared and demon­strated their res­olute con­vic­tion to the nat­ural prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, kind­ness, equal­ity, car­ing and shar­ing, pro­tec­tion of the earth. They drew this in­spi­ra­tion from the one com­pre­hen­sive, benev­o­lence source of all ex­is­tence ‘Ek Onkar’ -name­less, shape­less, in­vis­i­ble, yet pre­sent and man­i­fest in all things and om­nipresent.

The ‘four sahib­s­hazde’ (the four beloved sons), came from a lin­eage of Gu­ru­ship in which the vig­or­ous psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tions of Sikhi ran from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Their young lives and homely en­vi­ron­ment, their kith and kin, their fa­ther, grand-fa­ther, mother, grand-mother; all ex­pressed the full-blown Sikhi spirit. In such a fer­tile and proac­tive en­vi­ron­ment, po­tent seeds will in­vari­ably have the best nur­tur­ing and of course the in­gre­di­ents.

The names of these four saint-sol­dierly souls are, by no ac­ci­dent, a com­bi­na­tion of in­tense strug­gle, res­o­lu­tion and sac­ri­fice. Ajeet for in­vin­ci­ble! Zo­rawar for in­tensely brave! Fateh for af­fir­ma­tive vic­tory! Ju­jhaar for vig­or­ous cru­sader!

Over the cen­turies, in the face of mas­sive state per­se­cu­tion, geno­cide and op­po­si­tion, those who have earnestly em­braced this rev­o­lu­tion­ary in­spi­ra­tion of Sikhi gifted es­pe­cially to the in­dige­nous Pan­jaab by the Ten Gu­rus as­pire in their minds and phys­i­cal ex­pres­sions to pop­u­larise and main­stream this beau­ti­ful lifestyle across their Pan­jaabi hu­man­ity and be­yond through acts of shar­ing and in­spir­ing (not ‘con­ver­sion’ or im­pos­ing). Such peo­ple, the ‘Sikhs’, de­scribed by Pro­fes­sor Gurharpal Singh as the ‘avant­garde’ of Pan­jaabi civil­i­sa­tion, carry forth a spe­cial and unique na­tional civil­i­sa­tion, un­equalled and un­matched, open and en­gag­ing to all!

The names of these four saint-sol­dierly souls are, by no ac­ci­dent, a com­bi­na­tion of in­tense strug­gle, res­o­lu­tion and sac­ri­fice. Ajeet for in­vin­ci­ble! Zo­rawar for in­tensely brave! Fateh for af­fir­ma­tive vic­tory! Ju­jhaar for vig­or­ous cru­sader! 

To­day, in the global world, mul­ti­ple as­pects of that deep-rooted, em­bed­ded and so­cially in­sti­tu­tion­alised lifestyle, from lan­gar to sol­dierly bat­tle, to in­fi­nite hos­pi­tal­ity to equal­ity, to Keer­tan to sub­lime Gur­bani po­etry, to all em­brac­ing pas­sion for jus­tice to sac­ri­fice is slowly but surely be­ing seen and ap­pre­ci­ated by a non-Sikh world afar.

The Gu­rus were not just ‘re­li­gious teach­ers’, which is a gross un­der­state­ment, but re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal brave­hearts and vi­sion­ar­ies. They were not just mo­men­tary per­sons in time. They acted and spoke with a long-term vi­sion for Pan­jaab and its peo­ple, in­tended to con­tinue be­yond their ten lives. They nur­tured and shaped the rise and growth of a be­lea­guered peo­ple and trans­formed them from ‘jack­als into li­ons’ and ‘spar­rows into ea­gles’, a life-trans­form­ing change un­seen hereto­fore.

The Gu­rus came not just with a one-time, pass­ing mes­sage of truth and jus­tice. They lived through ten lives, to prac­tise and give head-on sac­ri­fice in per­son, to demon­strate the hu­man vi­a­bil­ity of their vi­sion of a trans­formed so­ci­ety and hand to the Pan­jaabi peo­ple, proven ex­am­ples and in­sti­tu­tions to carry through into their com­ing gen­er­a­tions and cen­turies. Into the bro­ken, bat­tered and heav­ily bruised Pan­jaabi peo­ple­hood, they in­jected a pow­er­ful tonic of awak­en­ing and as­pi­ra­tions and a will and de­sire to be de­ci­sion-mak­ers and sov­er­eigns of their own ter­ri­tory and so­ci­ety.

If we fol­low the Gu­rus, we be­come like them in thought, per­son­al­ity and ac­tion. We awaken and ac­ti­vate the in­ner strengths buried and smoth­ered within our psy­che and soul.  If we fol­low the cor­rupted, way­ward, morally bro­ken wider world of Trump, Modi, Putin and such-like that are preva­lent and fash­ion­able in the world around us, then we can­not truth­fully bear the royal em­blem­atic names of the Gu­rus of ‘Singh’ and ‘Kaur’. We can­not pre­tend to be li­ons and ea­gles.

The Gu­rus made us eth­i­cal and re­spon­si­ble guardians of planet earth, look­ing to­wards Akalpu­rakh -almighty God, be­ing so­ci­etal yet un­at­tached, earn­ing through eth­i­cal work, be­ing hon­est and pure, liv­ing and work­ing as part of the big­ger pic­ture of be­ing a re­spon­si­ble world cit­i­zen.

This is our free choice. I wish to be a wor­thy ex­am­ple of the Gu­rus. I wish to be a Sant-Sipahi.  May I be granted such a good for­tune, emo­tion, men­tal and phys­i­cal strength and wis­dom to be that!