This lesser known as­pect of con­tem­po­rary Sikh his­tory needs to be re­told more than ever be­fore as the Sikhs strug­gle to come to terms with grow­ing casteism and Brah­man­i­cal rites in their way of life. So­cial large-heart­ed­ness and not po­lit­i­cal short-sight­ed­ness has to be our call for sur­vival and growth.

In 1935, the British brought-up “ The Com­mu­nal Award” as an ap­pease­ment for the mi­nori­ties liv­ing in In­dia like Chris­tians, Mus­lims and Sikhs, as they were con­sid­ered as op­pressed by the Hindu ma­jor­ity. See­ing this mis­chief, Dr Ambed­kar lodged his protest, that Har­i­jans -sons of God, should also be in­cluded in this award as they were the most op­pressed class liv­ing in In­dia among the Hindu ma­jor­ity. The British Rulers, how­ever, did not agree and ar­gued that Har­i­jans were part of the Hindu re­li­gion and there­fore can­not be in­cluded in the Com­mu­nal Award.

Dr Ambed­kar clearly un­der­stood the ex­ploita­tive ide­ol­ogy of “Manusm­riti” which ver­ti­cally di­vided In­dian so­ci­ety into four –Brah­mins, Kha­tri, Vaishyas and Shu­dras. The Brah­min took over Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­li­gion and State Power. The Kha­tris were de­fined as farm­ers, land-hold­ers and war­riors to pro­tect the State and the Brah­mins. The Vaishyas took over the en­tire busi­ness of sale and pur­chase of all kinds of goods and com­modi­ties. The Shu­dras were en­trusted with jobs of the low­est cat­e­gory to act as ser­vants and slaves of the up­per castes, hav­ing no own­er­ship of lands and no ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and busi­ness.

“To­day we see that all ill-ef­fects of the caste-sys­tem of “Manusm­riti” have crept into Sikhism and the Sikh way of life dur­ing the last cen­tury. The so-called low caste Sikhs are called as Mazhbi Sikhs. There are sep­a­rate Gur­d­wara build­ings in the vil­lages of Pun­jab for the so-called up­per caste Jatt Sikhs and the so-called low caste Mazhbi Sikhs. There are even sep­a­rate cre­ma­tion grounds in some vil­lages.”

These Shu­dras, their women and chil­dren were the most ex­ploited sec­tions in so­ci­ety but were still cat­e­gorised as part of Hin­dus. They were la­belled Un­touch­ables and not al­lowed to chant Shlokas in San­skrit. Their tongues were cut-off if caught ut­ter­ing one. They were not al­lowed to lis­ten to Shlokas of Vedas in San­skrit. Their ears were filled with molten lead if caught lis­ten­ing to them.  San­skrit was de­clared as a lan­guage of the Gods. No one, ex­cept Brah­mins, was al­lowed to learn it.

This re­gres­sive sys­tem went on for cen­turies. It grad­u­ally weak­ened the cit­i­zenry and ul­ti­mately ex­ter­nal forces like Mughals and Mon­gols took over the In­dian State.

On the is­sue of in­jus­tice in the Com­mu­nal Award, Dr Ambed­kar de­cided to adopt the Sikh re­li­gion along with 50 mil­lion of his fol­low­ers. Dr Ambed­kar re­spected the Sikh ethics of equal­ity. He was an ad­mirer of the Sikh Gu­rus who used to call these Dal­its as “Ran­grete Guru Ke Bete” i.e. Dal­its are the Sons of the Guru. As this news fil­tered to Ma­hatma Gandhi, he was very up­set and to protest this, he started a fast unto death. He con­veyed to Dr Ambed­kar through Nehru and Pa­tel that it would be ac­cept­able to con­vert as a Chris­t­ian or Mus­lim, but no adop­tion of the Sikh faith, not at any cost.

His­tory tells us that Dr Ambed­kar re­mained adamant to opt Sikhism as his re­li­gion, as there was no caste sys­tem amongst the Sikhs.  It may be men­tioned that the Sikh lead­er­ship took the first steps. The SGPC took steps to es­tab­lish the Mum­bai-based Guru Nanak Khalsa Col­lege which was meant to serve as a cen­tre for Dr. Ambed­kar to teach the ideals of Sikhism to his fol­low­ers.

Alas this was an­other “if” in his­tory. This was not to be. Sens­ing the sit­u­a­tion go­ing out of hands, Pan­dit Nehru and Sar­dar Pa­tel played a treach­er­ous game. They took the then Sikh lead­ers (Mas­ter Tara Singh, Gi­ani Kar­tar Singh and in­dus­tri­al­ist Baldev Singh) into their con­fi­dence. The pop­u­la­tion of the Sikhs at that time was be­low 20 mil­lion, whereas the pop­u­la­tion of Har­i­jans was more than 70 mil­lion.

A treach­er­ous game-plan of brain­wash­ing was hatched and played out with the my­opic and fool­ish Sikh lead­ers. Their minds were poi­soned in such a man­ner that if 50 mil­lion Har­i­jans are con­verted as Sikhs, who will be the lead­ers of the Sikhs?

“Neechan an­dar neech jaat, neechi hoon att neech
Nanak tinke sang saath vad­hyan syon kya rees.

Guru Nanak be­friends and as­so­ci­ates with the lowli­est of the lowli­est, there is no need to im­i­tate those con­sid­ered mighty, big and pow­er­ful.
”

They were fooled that by sheer num­bers, Dr Ambed­kar will have the ma­jor­ity and he will be­come the leader of the Sikhs. This was not ac­cept­able to the then Sikh lead­ers. In con­nivance with Pan­dit Nehru and Sar­dar Pa­tel, the Sikh lead­ers called the ‘Sar­bat Khal­sa’ at Am­rit­sar, in or­der to dif­fuse Dr Ambed­kar’s Sikh con­ver­sion plans. Some hench­men were pre­pared, mo­ti­vated and planted in the ‘Sar­bat Khal­sa’ to raise ob­jec­tions and to shout anti-Ambed­kar slo­gans. The in­evitable hap­pened and the plan was scut­tled.

In this man­ner, the then Sikh lead­ers re­fused and ditched Baba Sahib to con­vert to the Sikh faith. As a con­se­quence, the hunger strike of Ma­hatma Gandhi was brought to an end by Nehru and Pa­tel. This re­fusal to Dr Ambed­kar was against Sikh tenets. Baba Sahib Dr Ambed­kar and his fol­low­ers adopted Bud­dhism in 1956. Dr Ambed­kar was heart-bro­ken and re­marked in his book that “if such is the pre­sent-day lead­ers of the Sikhs, whose Gu­rus called Dal­its as “Ran­grete Guru he Bete” -then this re­li­gion is en­dan­gered.”

To­day we see that all ill-ef­fects of the caste-sys­tem of “Manusm­riti” have crept into Sikhism and the Sikh way of life dur­ing the last cen­tury.  The so-called low caste Sikhs are called as Mazhbi Sikhs. There are sep­a­rate Gur­d­wara build­ings in the vil­lages of Pun­jab for the so-called up­per caste Jatt Sikhs and the so-called low caste Mazhbi Sikhs. There are even sep­a­rate cre­ma­tion grounds in some vil­lages. Short-sighted petty politi­cians have di­vided the Sikh com­mu­nity like never be­fore. The In­dian po­lit­i­cal sys­tem which sees the over­whelm­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Sikhs has ru­ined the so­cio-re­li­gious base of the Sikhs.

The Sikh peo­ple of all shades and hues have to make a by shun­ning all Brah­man­i­cal rit­u­als that have crept into the lives of Sikhs. They have to go to the roots. Lest the Sikhs for­get that the Khalsa Panth was cre­ated by Guru Gob­ind Singh for the wel­fare and dig­nity of the down­trod­den. Ide­o­log­i­cally and fra­ter­nally, Sikhs need to be closer to the so-called lower castes and Dal­its, more than ever be­fore.  The Sikh ide­ol­ogy re­quires us to start a re­form move­ment for so­cial, ed­u­ca­tional, re­li­gious, cul­tural and po­lit­i­cal up­lift­ment of all sec­tions of so­ci­ety, es­pe­cially the un­der-re­sourced and un­der-priv­i­leged. My Guru was crys­tal clear. He said,

Neechan an­dar neech jaat, neechi hoon att neech

Nanak tinke sang saath vad­hyan syon kya rees.

Guru Nanak be­friends and as­so­ci­ates with the lowli­est of the lowli­est, there is no need to im­i­tate those con­sid­ered mighty, big and pow­er­ful.