AN ESSAY FROM THE BOOK “WHY I SUPPORTED EMERGENCY” :: Essays and Profiles
“ON RELIGION” By KHUSHWANT SINGH
“ON RELIGION” By KHUSHWANT SINGH
Have you seen God? No, I have not. Nor do I
believe that anyone, at any time, past or present, has seen Him. As for me,
even if I come face to face with Him, I would not recognize him. Were He to
give me His visiting card and say, `I am God', I would say in utter disbelief,
`Tell me another'.
However, there have been,
and are today, people who claim to have seen Him and can give graphic
descriptions of Him. I am not talking of people who give airy-fairy answers
like, `God is everywhere; you only have to have eyes to see him', or as is more
common now, `God is within you'. No X-ray of the human body shows the presence
of anything resembling God. `God is truth; God is love,' say many others, as
did Bapu Gandhi. I do not know what truth and love look like-one is a principle
of social behaviour, the other an emotion.
In our country most people
believe in gods taking human form. There is, of course, the trinity of Brahma,
Vishnu and Mahesh (creator, preserver and destroyer), but that is more of a
concept of divinity than people who are visible. To many Hindus, Rama was, and
is, God. To others it is Krishna . Many believe
Satya Sai Baba is God incarnate; others believe Osho was bhagwan. All were and
are mortals, some have gone, others are on their way out. Yet everyone insists
that God is immortal. I am baffled.
For whatever they're worth,
some people have given vivid descriptions of what God looks like. He is
invariably portrayed as a patriarch with a flowing snow-white beard, in His
sixties or seventies. Did He age over the years or was He always an old 210 - man? Perhaps by depicting
Him as old the artist meant to convey wisdom and experience.
Some of the Old Testament
prophets claimed to have seen God. Ezekiel describes Him thus: `Above the
firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the
appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the
likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the colour of
amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it . . . and it had
brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in
the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was
the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.'
Daniel added his own description: `The Ancient of
days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like
the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning
fire.' The poet-painter, William Blake, painted God as the venerable father of
humanity.
Our sacred scriptures do not venture to depict
God. Even Krishna 's self-portrait in the Gita,
extolling His omniscience and omnipotence, does not describe His physical
features. The one thing that all descriptions of divinity have in common is
light at its most dazzling.
There is also a charming description of God in
Bhai Bula's Janamsakhi (life story) of Guru Nanak, which scholars have spurned
as spurious and written much after the guru. It describes God as a long-bearded
old man draped in white clothes, sitting on an ornate charpoy, and surrounded
by fat buffaloes bursting with milk-a peasant's concept of a rich Punjabi
zamindar.
Right
from the time life began on earth people have been asking themselves who or
what made us, what was His, Her or Its purpose, where do we go, when do we die.
Nobody has yet been able to give satisfactory answers to these questions. It
seems no one will ever be able to do so. All we have are assertions about a God
who one fine day decided to create life, gave different creatures different
names, different spans of life and then made
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SINGH
them
disappear for ever. At first they conjectured that the elements that created
life-the sun, rain, earth, air, etc.-were their creator's and therefore worthy
of worship. They raised temples in their honour. Sometime later people thought
there must be hundreds of thousands of creators who looked after different
aspects of life; others argued there should be one creator. They called it God.
Still later came philosophers and prophets. Philosophers speculated on the
origin and purpose of life; Prophets asserted they knew the ultimate truth. In the Middle East we had Zoroaster,
Abraham and Moses, Jesus Christ and Mohammed. Then: followers banded themselves into separate
groups and sought to impose their views on others. In India
Different
religions, though they preached love and brotherhood of mankind, fought wars
against each other. In India
Perhaps the most quoted lines to prove that Islam accepts the validity of
other faiths is: `To you your faith, to me mine.' Nevertheless it cannot be
denied that the two religions most engaged in converting other people to their
beliefs are Islam and' Christianity.
They assume they have more viable answers to vital
questionsthe existence of the Creator, the purpose of life, the codes of
conduct to be observed towards our fellow creatures, life after death if there
is any-than other religions. Whether or not this is so remains to be
established.
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and Profiles
At some time or the other in their lives, all humans ask themselves these
questions. Most often it happens when they lie on their backs on moonless
nights gazing at the countless stars that stretch across the black sky. `Where
have they come from?' they ask. `Where have I come from?'
Most often it is people who live in deserts, undisturbed by electric
lights and city noises, and sleep in the open under the deafening silence of
the stars, whose minds are triggered off to ponder over these problems. That is
why so many of the prophets were people of deserts or waste lands.
All Semitic religions believe that God is one: so
do Sikhs and Arya Samajis. Most Hindus believe in the multiplicity of gods and
goddesses but give the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva supreme status;
Jains and Buddhists discard belief in God.
Most religions that subscribe to God make Him the creator, preserver and
destroyer of life. They also believe in life after death-either in the form of
the day of judgment or as rebirth. However, though Islam preaches belief in one
God and in the day of judgment, Muslim poets do not hesitate to express their
disbelief in either the genesis of life or in the day of judgment. To quote
Omar Khayyam:
Into this world and why
not knowing And like water willy-nilly flowing.
He admitted that he did not understand the mystery of life and death:
There was a door to which I found
no key, There was a veil beyond which I could not see; Talk awhile of thee and me
there was
Then no more of thee or
me.
Ghalib, Zauq and other Urdu poets expressed similar
beliefs. Azim Jahanabadi put it succinctly-Na ibtada ki khabar hai, na intihaa maaloom-we
know not the beginning, we know not the end.
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Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 215
Although we have to concede that if the earth exists, somebody or some
force must have created it and maintains it for whatever it is worth. As
Voltaire said, if there is a watch, there must be a watchmaker. The analogy is
misleading because while we can trace the watchmaker, the world-maker remains
as elusive as ever. To wit:
Tu dil mein to aata hai
Samajh mein nahin aata; Bas jaan gayaa yehi hai pehechaan teri. (The heart believes You are
there The brain does not comprehend You; That perhaps is the only way of
knowing You.)
Why not be honest and admit
we don't know whether God exists or not?
Epicurus (circa 300 BC) was a Greek philosopher who
denied the existence of God and emphasized that since we do not know why we
were born, for what purpose and know nothing about what would happen to us
after we die, we should enjoy life as best as we can. Epicureanism was later
summed up as a motto: eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. It is
also known as hedonism, the philosophy of good living.
We have been very unfair to Epicurus by equating his
beliefs with an amoral way of living. In rejecting the existence of God, he
made a series of assertions, for which I cannot find the answers. All
God-believers (theists) affirm that the world was created by God (exactly when,
we do not know), that He is omnipotent (sarvshaktimaan) as well as merciful
(raheem), just (aadil) and has compassion (karuna). Epicurus argues as follows:
If God is willing to
prevent evil, but is not able to Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and
willing Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing Then why call Him
God?
The logic
cannot be refuted. But it leaves an important question unanswered: What is the
entire world about-the earth, sun, moon, stars, seas, mountains, humans and
beasts? I admit I don't know and hence call myself an agnostic. I reject theism
as well as atheism which answers this question with either a positive `yes' or
a positive `no'.
Since I have
often questioned the existence of an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent
(all-powerful), just and merciful God, I get a lot of letters from believers
who denounce me as an ignorant, self-opinionated man ever bent on
mischief-making and provoking controversy. They quote religious texts, founders
of religions, savants and scholars' theology to me. Most of these letters are
in the form of assertions without reasons to back them up. I pity and envy them for
having a blind faith that God exists.
Some time ago I received a
longish article on the subject from T. Gopal Iyengar of Hyderabad. It made a
lot of sense to me. He was logical, lucid and examined the subject from
different angles. He spelt out his doubts and wrote to the sankaracharya of
Kanchi and the head of the Ramakrishna Muth in Belur. From both of them he
received terse replies brushing aside his queries and advising him to read this
or that. Evidently they did not have the answers.
Iyengar
starts by asserting that we are nurtured on religious beliefs from day one as
we start imbibing our mother's milk.
Page 216 KHUSHWANT SINGH
By the time we are old enough to think for
ourselves, we are thoroughly brainwashed into accepting the existence of God
and are incapable of questioning it. The very few who ponder over the matter
try to define God. How do you define someone or something you can't see, hear,
touch or smell? Nevertheless the feeling persists that there must be someone or
some power that created the earth and life on it, and then takes it away, we
know not where.
Two distinct approaches to the
problem of defining God are available; the Hindic comprising Jain, Buddhist,
Hindu and Sikh, and the Judaic (Jewish, Christian and Muslim). A good example
of the Hindic approach is in the Vishnu Purana: `O! Who can describe him who is
not to be apprehended by the senses; who is the best of all things and the
Supreme Soul, self-existent, who is
devoid of all distinguishing characteristics of complexion, caste or the like,
and is exempt from birth, vicissitude, death or decay; who is always alone; who
exists everywhere and in whom all things here exist; and who is thence named
Vasudev-the resplendent one in whom all things dwell.'
Right from the Vedic times to the advent of
Sikhism, the pattern of the definition of God, with minor variations, has been
the same. It should be noted that in none of them are justice, benevolence and
mercy attributes of God as they are in Judaic religions where benevolence and
mercy are important attributes of the Almighty. Indeed, in common Punjabi
parlance, God is often described as `vadda beparvaah'-the Great One who could
not care less about human suffering.
That makes sense to
me. Or how do you explain catastrophes like earthquakes and cyclones that take
as heavy a toll on the innocent, upright and the God-fearing as they do on
others? Why are so many children born blind, retarded or stricken with cancer?
When there is so much injustice and cruelty in the world,. why does the
Almighty God not punish tyrants and the corrupt? Explanations like `paying for
deeds done in past lives' or
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`punishments to be meted out in lives to come'
have no provable rational basis and should be rejected.
So what is the answer? Iyengar does not give
one. But from the way he argues I am inclined to conclude that we do not know
whether or not God exists or ever existed. I go one step further and hold that
his existence or non-existence is of no consequence to human beings.
Why do the innocent suffer? The question was
put in different words by a Jewish rabbi whose only child was afflicted by
terminal cancer. He and his wife were a god-fearing couple who had never harmed
anyone. So why were they being punished by having their son taken away from
them? The rabbi wrestled with the problem and put down his thoughts in a highly
readable little book, Why Bad Things Happen
to Good People. For inspiration he turned to the classic on the
subject: the Book of Job in the Bible. I have read the Book of job over and
over again because it is beautifully worded but remain totally unconvinced with
the arguments set out. Job was a good man without blemish. He was prosperous,
had many sons, daughters, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law. Also, land,
vineyards and herds of cattle. He was a man of conviction and believed that he
owed his good fortune to God. Satan took on a bet with God that if job was
deprived of his family and possessions, he would lose his faith in God. Job
assured himself, `Whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright
ever cut off ? Even as I have seen those who plough iniquity and sow trouble
reap the same ... God will not cast away the blameless, nor will He uphold the
evil-doers.'
Job lost everything:
his children, lands, herds of cattle and was himself afflicted with body sores
and thrown out of his home. His wife pleaded with him, `Curse God and die.'
Three of his friends (Job's comforters) tried to argue him out of his faith.
`Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth
like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue.'
Job held fast to his faith but longed to present his case to God as his mouth
was full of arguments. `Great
218 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 219
are not always wise, nor do
the aged always understand Justice.' God appeared before job and reminded him
that it was He who created everything on earth. He was all-knowing and
all-powerful. God won the bet against Satan and job was restored to good health
and got back his family and property.
Does an
unshakable faith in God really explain why the innocent suffer? Not to me; it
is no different from accepting what happens with good grace: Tera bhaanaa meetha la.agey
(What You
[God] ordain tastes sweet). It does not. More often it leaves a bitter taste in
the mouth and in the mind.
The fact of the
matter is that we have as little comprehension of why the innocent suffer as we
have of why the wicked prosper. Can anyone give rational answers to these
questions without resorting to theories about karma, evil deeds committed in
previous births, and punishments to come in lives hereafter? They are absolute
hogwash, unworthy of consideration by people with serious minds.
One of the most
cherished myths that mankind has clung to from time immemorial is that everyone
pays for his misdeeds: as you sow, so shall you reap. People cite instances of
individuals who acquired wealth by corrupt means, were later brought to book,
or were afflicted with some incurable disease or their progeny turned out to be
bad. For every such instance of an evil person paying for his sins, I could
adduce twenty where they went unpunished. They did not suffer from pangs of
guilt, remained in good health, ate well, lived well, enjoyed life and
the esteem of their fellow citizens, sent their children to the best schools
and colleges and saw them settled in plum jobs, married into rich families
which ensured their future prospects. `There is a just man who perishes in his
righteousness, and a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness,' says the
Bible.
When faced with
hard evidence that more often evil persons get a.better deal in life
than good people, upholders of the myth resort to inane explanations like
`honesty is its own reward', `in the end, truth always triumphs'. They have
even more devious
explanations when
confronted with cases of suffering inflicted on the good and the god-loving
such as their children being born blind, mentally deficient or spastic. `It is
karma. They are paying for the sins they committed in their past lives.' And
they explain the prosperity of evil-doers with `They will surely pay for their
sins in their lives to come: may they be reborn as snakes, pigs or vermin'.
Such explanations are offered in the assurance that no one knows anything about
past lives or the lives to come. As Ghalib said about paradise, I say about
past and future lives: `Dil kay behallaney koyeh kha,yaal acchu UP. My friends don't suffer from
the delusions that people suffer from for their misdeeds. How many paid the
penalty for the crimes they had committed in November 1984? How many were
punished for the destruction of the Babri Masjid? Far from being punished,
three of them became members of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet and the man who
soured the wind by his mischievously conceived rath yatra from Somnath to
Ayodhya and spread the whirlwind of communal violence, which has not abated to
this day, is the man-in-waiting to be the next prime minister. Do J.
Jayalalithaa and Laloo Prasad Yadav feel guilty for squandering public money on
weddings in their families? Do stockbrokers who fiddled with public money to
the tune of thousands of crores, Pandit Sukh Ram or Ravi Sidhu, have sleepless
nights for what they did?
I don't think so. They must have explanations
which give them peace. No, my friends, there is no justice in the world. To succeed
in life you have to be the three Cs (or chalakis in Hindi): chaalak (cunning),
chaaploos (sycophant) and chaar-sau-bees (a cheat as defined under Section 420
of the Indian Penal Code).
God has no place in Jain theology. Instead, Jains
believe in `enlightened' human beings because escape is only possible in human
form. Jains also reject the Vedas, the priestly order of the Brahmins and the
caste system.
The
Jain influence in India India
220 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the
Emergency: Essays and Profiles 221
Sahu Jain. The proportion of literacy among
them is also high. Mahatma Gandhi, who was greatly influenced by the doctrine
of ahimsa (non-violence), elevated it from a personal and ethical creed to a
programme of national and political policy.
Despite ten years in Delhi 's
Modern School India
It was only in the 'sixties when I had to teach
a course in comparative religion at Princeton
University and later at Swarthmore College
and the University
of Hawaii
In the 'seventies, when I was the
editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India,
then the largest and the most influential weekly journal in the
country, I wrote to the chief ministers of all the states that if they imposed
a blanket ban on shikar in their states in honour of Jain Mahavira, I would
give them all the publicity they wanted. Eight chief ministers responded to my
appeal and banned killing for sport. I might mention that at the time, the
Jains who owned the Times of India group of papers, including the Illustrated Weekly of India, had been
deprived of control of the company and it was run by the government. The Jains
had nothing to do with my anti-shikar crusade. As a matter of fact, when the
Jains regained control of the Times of India group, they sacked me.
The word `jain' is derived from
`jina', one who has conquered himself Jains believe that their religious system
was evolved by twenty-four tirthankaras (or makers of the river crossing),
three of whom, Rhishabha, Ajitnath and Aristanemi, systematized their religious
doctrines. Most of the Jain hagiography is legendary. But we do have reliable
historical evidence of the existence of Parshvanath (877-777 BC), the
twenty-third tirthankara, and Mahavira, the twenty-fourth (599-527 BC).
There is reason to believe that in its formative phase, Jainism was a
reaction against Brahminical Hindusim.
Vardhamana Mahavira was born in 599 BC in
Kundagrama, a town north of Patna
Mahavira discarded his
clothes and spent the next thirty years of his life wandering from place to
place. He spoke to no one, never stayed anywhere for more than one night, ate
only raw food and strained the water he drank. He allowed vermins to feed on
his body and carried a broom to sweep insects away from his path lest he trod
on them. People scoffed at him and often tormented him. But he never said
anything to them. He died in 527 BC, or, as the Jains put it, at the age of
seventy-two, he cut asunder the ties of birth, old age and death.
222 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency;
Essays and Profiles 223
Everything, animate or inanimate, has jiva
(life-force). No one has the right to take another's life. The way of
deliverance, said Mahavira, is in the pursuit of three gems (tri-ratans): right
faith, right knowledge and right conduct. Right conduct prescribes five
principles: sanctity of life (non-violence is the supreme law); truthfulness;
respect for property; chastity and abandonment of worldly possessions.
Religions have had a
renaissance in the form of belief in. the irrational and kowtowing to
superstitions. It is not a subject to be dismissed as a matter of academic
irrelevance. What faith can you impose on a party that ruled us for six years
and is the most important element in the Opposition-when it changes the entrance
to its office from one side to the other because a Vaastu expert advises it
that that would bring it better luck? And what do you think of an otherwise
acceptable leader who wants the number of the house allotted to him to be
changed from number 8 to 6A because the former is inauspicious? Or a
Jayalalithaa and a Shobhaa De adding another `a' to their first names because
they believe it will improve their fortunes?
People who watch games on
their TV sets must have noticed how many players attribute their achievements
to God who, they presume, lives up in the clouds. Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid,
Laxman and other batsmen, as soon as they score fifty, 100, 150 or 200 runs,
first take off their helmets to raise their bats in order to acknowledge the
cheering of spectators, then look briefly upwards to give thanks to the
ooperwala. And this is not only the case with cricket players. Before the start
of a hockey match, you will notice rival teams huddle together at either end of
the field, put their heads together and say a short prayer for victory.
Likewise, tennis players like the Amr.itraj brothers and Leander Paes may be
noticed kissing the crucifix they wear around their neck to lend more punch to
their services and smashes. I've noticed players of some other nations perform
similar gestures in honour of their deities: Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Africans
and Latinos. I have never seen Englishmen, Australians, New
Zealanders or white Africans take much notice of
the God of Sports. And in one interview in Savaal Aapkey, cricket celebrity Harbhajan Singh parried all the
flattering comments hurled at him by attributing his success to bhagwan.
Nor I do think going on a
pilgrimage makes one a better person. On my TV set, I've watched pilgrims
gather in Jerusalem and Bethlehem ,
at Bodh Gaya, Prayag and Hardwar , at Mecca and Medina , at Amritsar , Hemkunt and Patna
I have met
people who had been on pilgrimages: they looked very pleased with themselves.
But I did not notice any changes for the better in them. If they were prone to
lying, cheating backbiting, scandal-mongering, using bad language before they
left for their holy cities or rivers, they came back and resumed lying,
cheating, backbiting, scandal-mongering and using bad language.
Truly had Guru
Nanak spoken: Ath sath teerath nahaaie utrey nahee maeil (You may bathe at the
sixty-eight places of pilgrimage, it will not wash the dirt off your body [and
mind] ). That does not deter the Guru's followers from doing precisely what he
had castigated as a useless practice, or from going to pilgrim centres.
Some years ago, a film
called Nanak
Naam Jahaaz (the
Holy Name is a ship that will take you across the waters of life) was shown in
cinemas across northern India India
The
Kumbh Mela at Allahabad is a pilgrimage on a scale grander than any ever seen
in the world; as if the entire population of a country the size of Australia
was packed into a few square miles of land surrounding the sangam (confluence)
of three rivers; two, the Ganga and the Yamuna, are real, the third, Saraswati,
mythical. The bandobast required to organize road, rail and air transport,
housing, feeding, sanitation and maintaining law and
224 KHUSHWANT SINGH
order boggles the mind. One small mishap and
the consequences would be disastrous. Is it worth taking such risks?
The people who go to
the mela certainly think so. It is always a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle of
sight and sound: thousands of ash-smeared Naga sadhus marching in processions
from their ashrams and encampments to plunge into the waters of the Ganga and the Yamuna, hundreds of pandals with
saffron-clad swamis chanting mantras or expounding the essential tenets of
dharma.
And what about prayer? When I was a child of about four living in a tiny
village with my grandmother, she taught me my first prayer. I was scared of the
dark and prone to having nightmares. She told me that whenever I was
frightened, I should recite the following lines by Guru Arjan:
Taatee vau na laagaee,
peer-Brahma saranaee Chowgird hamaarey Raam-kar, dukh lagey na bhaee (No ill-winds touch you, the great Lord your
protector be Around you Lord Rama has drawn a protective line. Brother, no harm
will come to thee.)
Being young, innocent and having infinite trust in my granny's
assurances of the efficacy of these lines, I found they worked like magic.
Later, I discovered that most Sikh children were taught the same lines even
before they learnt other prayers. The hymn had four more lines:
Satgur poora bhetiya
Jis banat banaaee Raam naam
aukhad deeya.
Eka liv laayee Raakh liye
tin raakhan har,
sabh biaadh mitaayee Kaho
Nanak kirpa bhaee, Prabhu
bhaye Sahaaee
(The true
guru was revealed in his fullness, the one who did all create
He gave the
name of Rama as medicine, in Him alone I repose my faith.
He saves all
who deserve to be saved, He removes all worries of the mind.
Sayeth Nanak, God became my helper, He was
kind.)
Why I Supported the
Emergency: Essays and Profiles 225
Mark the Hindu
terminology in this short prayer: Peer, Brahma, Raam-kaar, Raam-naam, and Prabhu.
As a matter of fact, a painstaking scholar counted the number of times the name
of God appears in the Adi Granth. The total comes to around 16,000. Of these
over 14,000 are of Hindu origin: Hari, Ram, Govind, Narayan, Krishna ,
Murari, Madhav, Vithal and so on. There are also a sizeable number of Islamic
origin: Allah, Rehman, Rahim, Kareem and so on. The Sikh term `Wahe Guru'
appears only sixteen times.
All religions borrow
a lot from the others with which'they come into contact; there is not a single
religion in the world that has not borrowed some concept or the other from
another: some borrow vocabulary and even rituals. In the Judaic family of
religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-there is plenty of evidence of
wholesale borrowing. A good example is Islam. Its monotheism (belief in one
god) also exists in Judaism and Christianity. Its five daily prayers have
roughly the same names as those of Jews; its greeting `salaam aalaikum' is a
variation of the Jewish `shalom alekh'; turning to Mecca for namaaz is based on
the Jews turning to Jerusalem; their food inhibitions (regarding pig's meat as
unclean; halaal is the same as the Jewish kosher), the custom of circumaizing
male children (sunnat) is also Jewish.
There is a lot of
emphasis on what one should eat or drink in our religious traditions which has
neither logic nor any bearing on health. For some beef is forbidden but pig
meat is okay; in others beef is okay but pig meat is haraam (forbidden). Some
insist that animals meant to be eaten must be beheaded at one stroke (jhatka);
others insist they should be bled to death before they can be certified as
edible (halaal). Vegetarians have kitchen fads of their own: some will not eat
vegetables like onions, garlic, carrots or radishes because they are polluted
by contact with the soil. But even they make an exception in the case of
potatoes. How can anyone relish a vegetarian meal without spuds?
A couple of weeks ago
I learnt of another eccentricity. The wife and daughter of a senior Bengali IAF
officer told me that in
226 KHUSHWANT S1NGH
Bengali
homes no chicken or chicken eggs are eaten: they prefer to eat duck and duck
eggs. I asked them why? Their answer was
amusing. Because, they said, Muslims
relish chicken, so Hindus decided that eating chickens was un-Hindu. By that
logic Bengali Hindus should be consuming ham and bacon which Muslims abominate.
Among
Punjabis the kitchen fads are equally mind-boggling. Though both Hindus and
Sikhs strictly abstain from eating beef (the Namdhari sect of Sikhs gained
popularity for murdering Muslim cow butchers, and were later blown up by
cannons to be acclaimed as martyrs), there is little enthusiasm for eating pig
meat. At the most they take pickled pork (achaar), preferably made of wild boar
meat. Ham and bacon, introduced to India
Religious
people who like to drink do so no matter what their scriptures say against
drinking alcohol. On the contrary, taking wine is a part of Catholic and
Anglican religious ritual. Only later sects like the Mormons who practice
polygamy, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Christian Scientists, the Quakers and
the Plymouth Brethren disapproved of imbibing liquor. There are lots of
references to the joys of drinking in the Old Testament.
The attitude towards drinking underwent a change with the advent of
Islam. Scholars still disagree over whether the Quran forbids it as haraam
(unlawful) or only censures it as something undesirable. So drinking in public
is forbidden in most Muslim countries except Turkey ,
Tunisia , Algeria and Egypt Sudan , Iraq ,
Iran , Afghanistan , Pakistan
and Bangladesh
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and Profiles 227
The
Hindic family of religions-Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism-took a more
tolerant view of drinking. Our gods drank somras; on many religious festivals
drinking hard liquor or bhang (hashish) is de rigueur. My Sikh friends who disapprove of my drinking quote passages from the Granth
Sahib to prove drinking is forbidden by the Sikh faith. Nevertheless, next to
the Parsis (Zoroastrianism does not forbid drinking), the Sikhs are the biggest
tipplers in India
The
intermingling of faiths is much more in evidence in the Hindic family of
religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. All share a belief in
karma, the cycle of birth-deathrebirth, meditation and so on. Needless to say,
they also share much of their religious terminology.
Since
Sikhism was the last of these major religions to emerge and the only one to
come in contact with Islam, it is the only one which, coming in contact with
the Bhakti cult, took a lot of the terminology of Islam from the sufi saints.
When the thekedars (contractors or purveyors) of religion claim that their
faith owes nothing to others and is therefore the purest of the pure, they make
me laugh at their ignorance.
But
to come back to prayer, I have memorized the principal power mantras of Hindus,
Christians, Muslims and Sikhs but have not been able to work out why the
followers of these religions endow them with powers above other mantras. It is
generally agreed by all Hindus that the Gayatri Mantra is regarded as the most
powerful invocation. I have translated it into
English and often recited it while half asleep lest it escape my memory. I also
know passages from the Gita and the Upanishads by rote which read as well but
are relegated to secondary importance because the Gayatri Mantra is the
maha-mantra.
If the most popular shabad among Sikhs is the one my
grandmother taught me, for Christians, it is the twenty-third psalm:
228 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the
Emergency: Essays and Profiles 229
The Lord is my shepherd; I
shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me
beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear
no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
The two most popular verses of the Koran that appear
in Muslim mausoleums, including the Taj Mahal, are Sura Yaseen (which festoons
the entrance gate) and Ayat-ul-Kursi, the throne verse. Of the two,
Ayat-ul-Kursi is the more popular. Many Muslims wear it in their amulets. I
have one in bidri and silver on my wall. I got a gold medallion from Tehran
There
is no God, but Allah, the living, the self-subsisting, the eternal. No slumber
or sleep can seize Him. His are all the things in heaven and on earth. Who can
intercede in His presence except as He permits? He knows the past, the present
and the future. He cares equally for all. He in his knowledge grades his creations.
His kingdom extends over the heaven and the earth. He is the guardian, He is
the preserver. He is the highest. He is Supreme.
Pervades the
universe. He is not born,
Nor does He
die to be born again.
By His grace shalt
thou worship Him.
Before time itself
There was truth.
When time
began to run its course He was the truth.
Even now, He is the truth
And
Evermore shall truth prevail.
Not by thought
alone,
Can He be
known
Though one
think,
A hundred
thousand times;
Not in solemn
silence
Not in deep meditation.
Though fasting
yields an abundance of virtue
It cannot
appease the hunger for truth.
No, by none of these,
Nor by a
hundred thousand other devices,
Can God be
reached.
How then shall the Truth
be known?
How the veil of false
illusion torn?
O Nanak, thus
runneth the writ divine,
The righteous
path-let it be Thine.
I am far from being a devout Sikh. But the first thing
that I did when I set out to write about the religion and history of the Sikhs
was to translate the Japjee, the Sikh's morning prayer. It was the earliest
translation of the morning prayer rendered by a Sikh to be published abroad.
Even while working on the translation, my literary inspiration was the Bible
whose language I believe is most suited for the translation of scriptures of
other religions.
There is one God.
He is the
supreme truth.
He, The
Creator.
Is without fear and
without hate.
He, The Omnipresent,
No
doubt, it is the simplest vocabulary, unambiguous and well-worded. I know many
other passages in the Koran which read as well but I have not understood why
the throne verse is endowed with more power than the others.
The
importance of the Japjee for the Sikhs cannot be overstated. Besides being the
morning prayer to be recited at amritvela (the pre-dawn ambrosial hour), it
forms the opening statement of the Sikhs' scripture, the Granth Sahib, and is
regarded as the essence of Sikh theology.
We
are not certain about the time when it was composed but inner evidence points
to the conclusion that it was in the later years of the Guru's life and he took
several days to finalize it.
230 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 231
It is the only piece in the Granth Sahib that can
be read as one sustained piece where the Guru spells out his vision of God as
the ultimate, timeless and truth and the path a seeker must take in order to
achieve salvation. He was evidently inspired by the Upanishads: many
theologians subscribe to the view that Sikhism is the essence of Vedanta.
The Japjee is
the only part of the Granth Sahib that is meant to be recited, preferably in
silent meditation and not set to the ragas of classical music like the other
nearly 6,000 hymns of the Granth Sahib.
The compiler, the fifth guru, Arjan, gave it the first place as it contained
everything that is cardinal to Sikhism.
The founder of Sikhism,
Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 to
Hindu parents in a village north-west of Lahore ,
now in Pakistan Sri Lanka and then west to Mecca
and Medina
There are not many
references to historical events in Nanak's writings, but he does mention the
invasion of northern India
Nanak's teachings were a
blend of Hinduism and Islam. He rejected Hindu polytheism and idol worship and
accepted Islamic monotheism. He rejected the Hindu caste system and asceticism.
`Be in .the world but not worldly,' he said. He emphasized the duty to work and
earn a living.
It is clear that Nanak
wished to set up a community apart from Hindus and Muslims. He appointed his
closest disciple as the second guru, and the second guru appointed his closest
disciple to be the third. Thereafter succession remained restricted to one
family. The fourth guru founded the city of Amritsar temple of God
Guru Arjan complied the
Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture of the Sikhs. It comprises more than 6,000 hymns, all meant to be sung
to the tune of the different ragas of Indian classical music. Besides presenting
the writings of the gurus, it includes the compositions of Hindu and Muslim
saints.
By Guru Arjan's time the
Sikhs had become a sizable community, which alarmed the Muslim rulers. Arjan
was summoned to Lahore Delhi
His only son,
Gobind Rai, took up arms in defence of the community. `Where all other means
have failed, it is righteous to draw the sword out of its scabbard,' he wrote
to the Mogul emperor. He called the Sikhs to gather at Anandpur and baptized
five into a new fraternity called the Khalsa, or the pure. They vowed never to
cut their hair or beards and always to carry a sword. He gave them a common
surname-Singh, or Lion-and changed his own name to Gobind Singh.
Gobind Singh fought Hindu
rajas and Muslim Mogul armies. He lost all four of his sons and was
assassinated by two of his Muslim retainers. The Punjabi peasantry eventually
rose and ousted the Muslim rule in northern India Punjab
until 1839.
The
Sikh history is a long saga of bloody conflicts with the Muslims. When the
British partitioned the region, almost half the Sikh population found itself in
Pakistan
232 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 233
them into India, killing hundreds of thousands.
In their turn, the Sikhs drove the Muslims out of towns and villages in
northern India
Having spent the best part of my
life working on Sikh history and translating selected passages of the Gurbani,
I felt I owed it to myself to read the Granth Sahib. Many questions rose in my
mind. Knowing the bigoted, unintelligent approach of the selfappointed
custodians of matters scriptural I will not start a public debate. But there
are some historical and linguistic aspects of the Gurbani that need elucidation.
To start with, I would like scholars to ~ompare the hymns of Kabir and Namdeo
as they appear in the Granth Sahib with those in Hindi and Marathi. How did
they travel from Varanasi and Maharashtra to Amritsar
The case of Namdeo's baani is
equally puzzling. I recall the late P.N. Oak, then secretary to the information
and broadcasting ministry, asking me to give him Namdeo's baani in the Granth
Sahib. Oak was a Maharashtrian studying the writings of Maharashtrian
saint-poets. He went through the material and said: `It is Namdeo but the
vocabulary is different.' Did Guru Arjan rewrite both Kabir's and Namdeo's
works before incorporating them in his compilation?
That reminds me of another work
whose origin still intrigues me. Some years ago I translated Bapu Gandhi's
favourite hymn, `Vaishnav jan to tainay
kahiye', said to be the compilation of Narsi Mehta who lived in the
nineteenth century. When my translation was published, Swaran Singh, the editor
of the Sikh Review in Calcutta
There
are things in our scriptures which we accept as the gospel truth without ever
questioning their veracity. Two such truisms are `the truth always triumphs'
(Satyameva Jayate) and `honesty is the best policy'. There are good reasons for
accepting them at face value but when I begin to ponder over them, I begin to
wonder how much of it is wishful make-believe and how much of it proven
reality. I concede that truth should always prevail and honesty should be the
best policy, but is it, in fact, so?
The
scriptures answer the question in the affirmative. `Great is Truth, and mighty
above all things,' says the Bible (Apocrypha 4:41). It might be recalled that
the words are taken from Esdras, which tells the story of King Darius of Persia
Guru Nanak
equated truth with God. So did Mahatma Gandhi. Nanak put truthful conduct on an
even higher pedestal:
Sachhon orey sab ko Osper sachh aachaar.
(Truth
above all Above truth, truthful conduct.)
Gandhi
went along with the guru in as much as he also made truthful conduct the
central principle of his life. It should be evident that regarding honesty to
be the best policy is a part and parcel of his concept of truthful conduct. `To
think good thoughts is one thing, to act upon them is another,' he wrote.
So convinced are we with
such truisms that we also believe that anyone who transgresses the moral code
pays a heavy price.
Haraam
ki karnaayi kabhi hazam nahin hoti (what is earned illicitly can never be
digested).
234 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the
Emergency: Essays and Profiles 235
As a matter of fact we all know a lot of
people who live very well with illicit earnings and do not have problems with
their digestion. They also do not suffer from insomnia-sleeplessness. I know a
few contemporaries who lied about their educational achievements, claimed that
they had a first or higher second division, when actually they had thirds, did well in
their interviews, landed good jobs and retired on fat pensions. No indigestion,
no insomnia, they lived in good health into their eighties, respected by those
not aware of the untruthful beginnings and envied by those who did. We have
innumerable cases of wanton murders and deaths caused by drunken drivers where
the culprits have got away by bribing eyewitnesses to retract their statements
and tell lies under oath. Now turn your critical eye on your own lawmakers-MPs
and MLAs. How many of them are `tainted' (the word includes
cheating, incitement to violence and murder)? They may not all be respected but
their success in life cannot be denied. So what exactly does Satyameva Jayate
mean?
According to our ancient
scriptures, both Hindu and Sikh, krodh (anger) is as serious a shortcoming as
kama (lust), lobh (greed), inch (self-love) and ahankaar (arrogance). They
exhort us to overcome them in order to achieve moksha (salvation). They do not
tell us how to go about getting the better of them. As far as anger is
concerned, people have their own formulae: `when roused to anger, count to ten
before answering' or `swallow the insult and keep your mouth shut'. There is no
doubt that a person who loses his cool loses the argument. Another school of
thought is that it is better to let off steam and get it over with because if
you contain your anger, your blood pressure will rise and you may get peptic
ulcers. I have evolved my own formula to get anger out
of my system. I say nothing to
the person who has insulted or snubbed me but when I narrate the incident to my
friends later, I let loose a torrent of the choicest abuse in Punjabi and
Hindustani-I have a large repertoire of filthy words in four languages-and
purge myself of my anger. I even feel exhilarated for having scored over my
traducer by saying nothing to him or her and I cleanse my system by letting out
all the accumulated venom in front of third parties who thoroughly enjoy my
outburst.
For many years, when I was
young and believed in resolutions to improve myself, my New Year's resolve used to be to not run people down behind their backs.
I was in the habit of doing so and hated myself afterwards. Whatever I said
somehow reached the ears of the person I had maligned. When confronted by him
or her, I had to deny what I had said and had reason to feeflow in my
self-estimation. I was able to check myself from indulging in
vilifying people behind their backs for a few days. I resumed the bad habit,
but somehow it got less and less on its own. I came to realize the truth of Guru Nanak's admonition:
Nanak, phikka boleeai
Tan manplukka hoi.
(Nanak, if you speak ill of
the people Your body and mind will fall sick.)
The Guru's words can also be
interpreted as applying when saying nasty things to people to their faces. Many
people make it a point to say hurtful things to others and justify their doing
so. When in return they get more than they gave, there is a slanging match in
which both participants get hurt while others enjoy the spectacle.
As for forgiveness, all religions counsel it. My
father had a short temper; his father was even more ill-tempered. His pet word
for me was bharwah (pimp) and since I went to a school that had lady teachers,
rann mureed-disciple of a slut. My father never used bad language but being
overworked, he was impatient and inclined to snap at everyone. We were
terrified of him and kept out of his way as much as we could. In the later
years of his life, he mellowed a great deal and I looked forward to joining him
in the evenings for a sundowner. However, I could never get over my allergy
towards people with short tempers. Incidents of people
236 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 237
snubbing me still rankle in my mind. I have no
forgiveness. Once somebody loses his temper with me, I write them off forever
and no amount of their trying to make amends makes any difference in
my attitude towards them.
In his own way Guru Nanak was also regarded as the
dispeller of
the
darkness of
ignorance, superstition and hate and the prophet of light
and understanding among people.
The theologian, Bhai Gurdas, described Nanak's
achievements in the following words:
The
true guru, Nanak, was then born;
Fog
and mist evaporated
And
light shone on the earth.
As
the rising sun dispels the dark and outshines the stars,
As
flee the herd of deer when a lion roars
Without
pause, without turning back for assurance.
So
fled evil from the world.
Nanak believed that the ideal was to achieve
godliness while performing one's worldly tasks-raaj meinjog, that
is, without renouncing the world or turning into an ascetic.
exaggerated respect to the sanctity of the
kitchen: who may enter it, who may cook, what kind of food
is pure and what is polluted. He wrote:
There
are worms in wood and cowdung cakes,
There
is life in the corn ground into bread.
There
is life in the water which makes it green.
How
then be clean when impurity is over the kitchen spread?
Impurity
of the heart is greed, of tongue, untruth,
Impurity
of the eye is coveting another's wealth, his wife, her comeliness. - Impurity of the ears is listening
to calumny.
He believed in the cleansing and purging
qualities of
prayer,
naam. In the morning prayer, Japjee, he
wrote:
As hands or feet besmirched with slime, Water washes
white; As garments dark with grime, Rinsed with soap are made light; So when
sin soils the soul The Name alone shall make it whole; Words do not the saint
or sinner make. Action alone is written in the book of fate. What we sow that
alone we take; O Nanak, be saved or forever transmigrate.
Religion
lieth not in the patched coat the Yogi wears,
Not
in the staff he bears,
Nor
in the ashes on his body.
Religion
lieth not in rings in the ears,
Not
in a shaven head,
If
thou must the path of true religion see
Among the world's
impurities, be of impurities free.
And again:
The
lotus W the water is not wet Nor the water-fowl in the stream. If a man would
live, but by the world untouched, Meditate and repeat the name of the lord
Supreme.
Nanak preached a crusade against meaningless superstition. During his
time (and even today) the higher castes attached
Nanak equated God with
truth. Truth, is not an academic concept but something that has to become a
principle of
living. Guru Nanak was more conscious of nature
than the gurus who succeeded him. His baramasi has some beautiful descriptions of natural
phenomenon. The chirping of sparrows at the break of dawn, the drone of cicadas
in forest glades and, of course, black clouds, thunder, lightning and rain
during the monsoon. I give one example: Mori runjhun laya, bhainey savan aya (Raga Vadhans):
Sweet
sound of water gurgling down the water-spout (The peacock's shrill, exultant
cry)
Sister, it's Savan, the month of rain! Beloved-thine
eyes bind me in a spell (they pierce through me like daggers) They fill my
heart with greed and longing;
238 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 239
For one glimpse of thee
I'll give my life For thy name may I be a sacrifice.
When thou art mine, my
heart fills with pride, What can I be proud of if thou art not with me? Woman,
smash thy bangles on thy bedstead Break thy arms, break the arms of thy couch;
Thy adornments hold no charms
The Lord is in another's
arms.
The Lord liked not thy
bangle-seller Thy bracelets and glass bangles.
He doth spurn
Arms that do not the Lord's
neck embrace With anguish shall forever burn.
All my friends have gone to
their lovers I feel wretched, whose door shall I seek? Friends, of proven
virtue and fair am I Lord, does nothing about me find favour in Thine eyes? I
plaited my tresses,
With vermilion daubed the
parting of my hair And went to Him
But with me He would not
lie.
My heart is
grief-stricken, I could die. I wept, and the world wept with me. Even birds of
the forest cried,
Only my soul torn out of my
body shed not a tear,
Nay, my soul which
separated me from my beloved shed not a tear
In a dream He came to me (I woke), and He was gone.
Prabhat
pheris-going around singing in the early hours of the dawn-are customary at
Hindu and Sikh religious festivals in the plains of northern India
and
the dholak (drum). They go around the block singing Bhai Gurdas's eulogy, `Satgur Nanak pragatya,
mitti dhund jag chaanan hoya (The true Guru Nanak made
his appearance; dust and mist evaporated from the face of the earth).' This is
followed by some hymns composed by the guru. The singing is not very melodious,
but it is a manifestation of the singers's faith in their guru.
One prabhat pheri that still haunts me was the one I heard on my first
day in Santiniketan in 1933. The monsoon was in full swing. From the window of
the train to Bolpur, it was a vast expanse of water on both sides. `Shamudro-it
is like the 'sea,' remarked the ticket collector, who happened to be the only other
person in the compartment. The Bolpur railway station looked drenched and
desolate. I asked the station master how I could get to
Santiniketan. `Take a jutka,' he said.
I
did not know what a jutka was. I found a small bullockcart with a thatched roof,
asked the owner if he could take me to Santiniketan. `Baitho,' he replied, `do
taaka' (two rupees). I hopped in. We drove through a
flooded countryside.
He
dropped me off at the office. I was expected. I signed the entry register and
was conducted to a room I was to share with a Buddhist bhikhu from Sri Lanka
I slept fitfully, uncertain about what I had let
myself in for. I
must have fallen asleep because I began
to dream. I heard the voices of an angelic choir at a distance, coming towards
me. I realized I was not dreaming; it was for real. I groped my way in the dark
and opened the door. The soft moonlight of the waning moon filtered through the
mist of a gentle drizzle. I saw
a dozen boys and girls dressed in white, carrying lanterns and
240 KHUSHWANT SINGH
Why d Supported the Emergency: Essays and
Profiles 241
candles, walking in a procession, singing as they
went around the campus. Later I learnt it was the varsha mangal (the welcoming
of the rains).
I envy other people's faith and religious
fervour. I regret I will forever remain an outsider, sceptical of all
pilgrimages save the one in one's own heart.
To quote Fitzgerald:
... Pilgrim, pilgrimage and
Road
was but myself towards
myself, and your Arrival but myself, at my door.
Came, you lost atoms to your Centre draw
Rays that have wandered into darkness wide Return, and
back into your Sun subside.
In the days left to me, I have come to the
conclusion that I've been an imposter all my life. I have written several books
on the religion and the history of the Sikhs, published translations of
selected hymns from the Gurbani without having ever read the Guru Granth Sahib
from cover to cover. Nevertheless when people refer to me as a scholar of
Sikhism, I protest so mildly that they think I am being modest.
I am now trying to fill up the gaps in my
knowledge by devoting my entire summer vacation to reading the Guru Granth
Sahib in the morning; I devote my afternoons to reading Urdu poets, from Meer
and Ghalib to Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Kaifi Azmi, Javed Akhtar and others. So the
mornings are devoted to reading about praises of the Lord, the importance of
the Guru for spiritual elevation, the need to conquer lust, anger, desire and
arrogance by squashing one's ego and renouncing wine and women. The afternoons
are spent reading about the joy that drinking liquor, making love to women and
boys with rosy cheeks and rounded bottoms provide.
In short, it is the temple in the a.m., the
tavern after p.m. I have become a split personality. By the time my vacation is
over, I would have finished my first complete reading of the
Guru Granth Sahib. I would
have also gone through the diwans of Urdu classical masters and modern poets. I
fear 1 will end up as a schizophrenic in need of psychiatric help.
I comfort myself by believing that Mirza
Asadullah Khan Ghalib must have faced the same dilemma. His Muslim friends who
followed the Shariat law strictly must have chided him for not saying his
prayers regularly and for his indulgence in wine. A man who had known want, woe
and fear, a man who begged for a pittance from the king, I wonder, how he could
decide so quickly to change his ways and give up drinking.
To wit:
So have I lived and passed
my days
How can I bring myself
to say that God exists.
God the Bounteous Giver,
God the Beneficent?
For God's possible for
those who lead happy sheltered lives,
And know God's grace and His loving care.
Sauda, another great master of Urdu verse, was even more outspoken about
the joys of drinking:
Saaqi gayee bahaar,
dil mein rahee havas
Too minnaton sayjaam dey
And main kahoon kay `bas'.
(O Saki, gone is the spring of youth, Remains but one
regret in this heart of mine That thou has never pressed the goblet in my hand,
And I protested `I've had enough wine'.)
By the time the day is over and I turn
indoors for my sundowner, I am a thoroughly confused person. I pour myself a
hefty slug of Scotch 'n' soda and put on my cassette player. 1 refrain from
putting on kirtan in respect for people who would consider it a sacrilege and
instead listen to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.
I come to the comforting conclusion:
`imposter' is too strong a word for me, but `humbug' fits me to a tee.
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