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Avoiding the clash of civilisations

"I bow with love and devotion to the Holy Sword,

Assist me that I may complete this work,

Thou art the subduer of countries,

The destroyer of the armies of the wicked!"

Those words were spoken on the first day of Vaisakh, Vikrama Samvata 1756 (March 30, 1699 by the Gregorian calendar) at Anandpur, on the foundation of the Khalsa Panth. A movement beginning with just five men -- Dayaram, Dharamdas, Sahibchand, Himmatchand Kahar, and Mohkaamchand Chhimba -- is now numbered in the millions. It was, as Guru Govind Singh intended, a syncretic movement from the very start.

Of the Panj Pyaaraas, one was a barber and another a water-carrier; raising such men to high posts was something quite unheard of those days.

The Sikh faith has changed in 300 years, yet I think a man from earlier days would still find himself on familiar territory if he were to visit a modern gurdwara. He might not recognise the electric lights and microphones, but the prayers, the manners, and the rituals are still recognisably the same.

Our hypothetical time-traveller might, perhaps, be slightly bemused at the way some interested parties tried to drive a wedge between Sikhs and the larger society in which they dwell. He might remember how Guru Govind Singh himself had flashed his naked sword to the assembly, crying out, "This is Durga!" Or how later still, Maharaja Ranjit Singh bequeathed the famous Kohinoor to the temple of Jagannath at Puri. Or how the last Sikh kings used to have their ashes immersed in the Ganga at Haridwar.

While Guru Govind Singh conceived the Khalsa to be the "sword-arm of Hinduism", he was by no means anti-Islamic. Muslim soldiers such as Said Beg and Maimu Khan fought in his army, and he won the support of the Muslim seer Pir Budhu Shah of Sadhaura. Finally, unlike many of his contemporaries who were tied down to their own piece of land, the Guru consciously thought of India as a whole -- not surprising in someone who was born in Bihar, fought in Punjab, and died in Maharashtra.

If 1999 marks the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the Khalsa, it also marks the 610th anniversary of another event -- the Battle of the Field of Blackbirds. This happens to be one of those rare events, better known even to the English-speaking out for their Orthodox brethren in Serbia.

I was in Europe as the Easter weekend began. It was a weird experience. Here in India we are told how Christ was the "Prince of Peace". But in Christian Europe, Christian nations were spending what should have been a time of prayer and reconciliation in killing each other. Pope John Paul II appealed for an armistice, at least over Easter itself, but he went unheeded. (Perhaps everyone is waiting for the Orthodox Easter that falls on April 11 this year!)

Watching all this, I couldn't help remembering Samuel Huntington's famous prediction about a 'Clash of Civilisations'. His thesis was that the ideological conflict of the Cold War years would be replaced by another battle for supremacy. But this war, Professor Huntington predicted, would be between culture systems, not capitalism and communism. And these 'civilisations' would be broadly defined on the basis of religion. Watching events unfold in the former Yugoslavia, I wonder if Huntington's forecasts are coming true.

So there you have them -- two different views of where we are going. Huntington, drawing upon the history of the West, predicted a future of constant conflict. Guru Govind Singh went out of his way to prove that men of different castes and creeds could live together amicably. (Though watching Parliament in Jayalalitha-induced convulsions may lead one to think otherwise!)

Perhaps both the guru and the professor were correct -- Europe and America may be condemned to conflict, but India doesn't have to follow suit. At least, I hope not.

T V R Shenoy