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GURU NANAK’S VISION OF PLURALISTIC-CIVILIZATION By: DR. JASBIR SINGH AHLUWALIA (Chairman, Guru Gobind Singh Foundation) Guru Nanak envisioned a new pattern of civilization characterized by the values of religious economic and political pluralism. For this purpose, he brought in a new conception of spiritual and social reality. The founder of Sikhism spiritualized material reality as creation of God (Karta Purkh) whereby the world of time and space no longer remained accidental in origin, purposeless in direction and illusory In character. He humanized-spiritual reality so that there remained no, unbridgeable gap of the kind that existed earlier between man and an aloof transcendental God, as personal Being. admitting of no personal relationship with human being. Further, Guru Nanak socialized human reality so that man's life activity came to have a societal aspect and social activity came to possess a humanistic character. This, threefold organic relationship,, linking together the spiritual,, the social and the human reality, is the basis of the Nanakian conception of pluralistic civilization that brought India to the threshold of the modern value-pattern, unleashing the revolutionary forces of change in our country. Contrary to the erroneous orthodox Marxist view that Indian society had, over the centuries, remained static and stagnant till the British conquest came humanistic cherecterostatic and stagnant till the British conquest that provided external push towards trmsformation, recent sociological studies have noticed the seeds of changes within medieval Indian economy itself. Sikhism not only reflected the intrinsic dynamics of change in Indian society at the ideological level but also initiated and stimulated the processes and forces of change, thus heralding the promise of a new civilization different form the, earlier Indic and the classical civilization- a promise that got aborted due to the colonial intervention and feudalization of the Sikh movement itself. Guru Nanak doctrinally laid down four base-pillars on which he sought to erect the edifice of a new civilization. The first relates to the unity of Godhead, the significance of which transcends that of a mere religions concept, arvatarvad ,despite being based on a Unitarian view of the Absolute descending in human form, had in practice led to a multiplicity of Deities whose worship in spatial, figurative form had resulted in idol worship that diverted attention from inner essence(nam ) to outer form rup). The atomization of spiritual reality had its counterpart in the atomization of social life reflected in religious contrarieties, social differentiations, economic disparities, political fragmentation and cultural chaos all of which together constituted the ethos of medieval India. In this context Guru Nanak proclaimed his concept of the oneness of God (Ik Onkar) not only as a theological precept but also as a sociological principle that challenged the very basis of the hierarchized society, one manifestation of which was the caste system with differential ethics. Dharma as a complex of differential codes of ethics, different from different castes, had degenerated into a disintegrating force, it got rejuvenated as a unifying force with the Nanakian concept of unity of Godhead. The medieval age ethos of India referred to above, derived its ideological legitimization from an underlying conception of reality that the world of time and space was unreal (maya, mithya, leela), that man's real concerns were not this worldly but other worldly, consequently the stress was on individualistic salvation, in the hereafter rather than on collectivistic amelioration of social conditions here and now. Guru Nanak gave a new idea of existential reality being as "real" as the spiritual reality, the former being creation of God partakes of the essence of the latter. This- the second pillar changed the very perspective of values. This is how sikhism stressed the societal aspect of religion which came to possess a new role and relevance as a sociological forces, The institutional character of Sikh religion- an integral aspect of the doctrine-has grown out of this new conception of religion. Guru Nanak and the successor Gurus conceived of and created the Sikh institutions and structures as receptacles of the temporal sovereignty that Guru Gobind Singh on the Baisakhi day of the year 1699 at Sri Anandpur bestowed upon society, with the Khalsa as its determinate catagory- an act that through the baptismal ceremony of amrit transformed the Sikhs from e religious group into a political community Guru Nanak not only emphasized the facticity of the world of man but also the reality of historical time- this being the third pillar of his philosophy. The expressions Ad(i) , Jugad(i) in Guru Nanak's Japji refer to the distinction between the eternal and the historical time. It was the eternity of time that had given rise to the conception of India's classical philosophy that the Real is what is eternal, changeless and self- same in all times- past, present and future. On the sociological level, this formula provided for stability and equilibrium but at the cost of development and progress which requires the conception of historical time, admitting of the reality of change. Guru Nanak's conception of historical time impregnated static Indian society with the dynamics of change as its new principle of structuration. And the new society that Guru Nanak dreamed of was essentially of a pluralistic nature- the fourth pillar of his doctrine. Usually the religions which preach the oneness God tend to be totalitarian and entail a unitary polity. Such religion claims to be the full and final revelation of truth and reality approachable through the one and the only path to God as laid down by that religion, the believers following the only true path are led to the kingdom of God In heaven, as also to a privileged Position in society on earth, and the non-believers are condemned to the Devil in the other world and to the ghetto in this world. The polarity of the believers and non-believer is stretched to political level where it becomes the basis of a discriminatory polity. Sikhism does not claim to be the full and final revelation of truth and reality- such Is the Infinity of the qualities and aspects of o God stressed by Guru Nanak, who did not turn the concept of oneness of God into the concept of oneness of the path to the real. The approaches to reality the door of perceptions of the Divine, are as varied and infinite as God's qualities themselves are. The metaphysical postulate of the Plurality of approaches to reality is the basis of Guru Nanak vision of Pluralistic society and civilization in which there would be no place for state absolutism, political totalitarianism and unitary polity, etc., which are, in a sense, correlated to each other. The polarity of the believer and non-believer, as in a totalitarian religion, re-appears in secular garb in the Unitarian polity of the modern nation-state that seeks a uniform, homogenized social base eroding the self-identities of the minority groups- linguistic, religious, cultural and ethnic. Further, this type of unitary Polity does not recognize the role, in the political apparatus of the institutions and structures of the minorities. On the other hand, the pluralistic society,, as envisioned by Guru Nanak, envisages the unfettered flowering of the respective self-identities of all sections of society, this necessitates a pluralistic polity in which the institutions and structures of the minorities would get their legitimate role and place so that the minority groups could participate in their corporate being in the body-politic of society. Such are the imperatives of pluralism which modern civilization is struggling hard to realize. And in this struggle mankind can fruitfully look up to the ideals of Guru Nanank. Source: isha.net
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