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ORIGINS Of NON-VIOLENCE MOVEMENT IN
INDIA
(Alice Basarke)
As fate would have it Mahatma Gandhi is credited with
starting the non-violent movement to oust the British out of India. Gandhi
deserves a lot of praise because he did implement the principles of
non-violence, but he certainly was not the originator of that concept. He
learnt that from the Sikhs. The Sikhs drew their inspiration from their very
Gurus, two of who had suffered martyrdom in order to make their point. Over
time, the principle of non-violence was used again and
again.
In 1861 the British had introduced the Waqf Act which gave
control and management of the holy places to their respective communities.
The Hindus and Muslims were given control of their places of worship. But in
the case of Sikh Gurdwaras, the Act was not applied. The British knew full
well that the Sikhs drew their strength and inspiration from their scripture
and ideology. They also knew that Sikhs had a long history of fighting
oppression and injustice no matter what the cost. For well planned political
reasons, the properties of Sikh places of worship were transferred and given
over to Hindu caretakers (Udasi Mahants) and who could be more easily
controlled by the British masters. Most of these caretakers had very litte
understanding Of Sikh religion and its practices. These caretakers received
their instructions from the Deputy Commissioner, a Britisher. The government
needed to maintain the Gurdwaras as channels of indirect control of the
Sikhs. Naturally the Sikhs were not happy with this arrangement. It was a
major factor in the first uprising against the
British.
At that rime there was a small group of Sikhs known as the
Namdharis. Ram Singh (1815 -1885) was their leader. He once served in the
army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1849 when the British annexed Punjab, his
army unit was disbanded. Ram Singh hated the British whom he called ferengis
(foreigners). He was further incensed at the takeover of the Gurdwaras in
1861 by the British, and the fact that nobody was able to do anything about
this. He was very perturbed at the intrigue and duplicity all around him.
Sikhs who fought and died to keep the British out of Punjab were now
starting to admire all things British. The fact that they were most
intolerant somehow did not register on the conquered Sikhs. Yet in the words
of Brigadier-General John Jacob a leader of Indian cavalry, "the British
were the favorites of heaven, the civilizeres of the world. They were
masters of India because they were superior beings by nature to the Asiatic.
Their superiority, both in science and religion, induced them to look down
upon dark-skinned heathens".
After the collapse of the Sikh Empire, Ram Singh turned to
religion and meditation, on God's name, hence the name Namdhari due to his
intense piety, he had many admirers. However, his military training and
political preoccupation soon emerged as the main topic of his sermons. He
started the non-violent movement to oust the British out of Punjab. He
preached the Sikh gospel with great fervor, both to fight the progress being
made by Christian missionaries, and to stop the evil political and cultural
effects of foreign rule. He asked the people to boycott all British goods.
"Do not accept service with the government; do not send children to
government schools; do not go to court of law but settle disputes by
reference to panchayats (village council); do not use foreign goods; do not
use government postal services."
His followers spun their own cloth and dressed in pure white
cotton, and boycotted all that was even remotely British. His following grew
very rapidly, which alarmed the British masters. The East India Company had
a great monopoly going. Cotton was being shipped to England, where it was
processed and made into cloth. British economy was booming. Every one had a
job. The cloth manufactured in England was shipped back to India and sold at
a great profit. Ram Singh's preaching was a threat to the British system.
Moreover, he fed the people prophecies of a Sikh resurgence. He truly
believed that it could be won by peaceful means. However, because his
following grew too rapidly, he soon lost control of some members of the
group. A small group of Kooka fanatics, as the Namdharis came to be known,
murdered some Muslim butchers in Amritsar and Raikot (Ludhiana district).
For this, eight of them were hanged. Though the passions of the Kookas were
inflamed, Ram Singh was still able to persuade his followers to return
peacefully to their homes. L. Cowan, the deputy commissioner of Ludhiana saw
this as an opportunity not to be wasted. Using the pretext, of the above
mentioned incident, he captured 68 Kookas, including 27 seriously wounded as
they were making their way home. Smt. Hookmee, a popular preacher of this
sect was one of two women also captured. Cowan sent a note to his
commissioner, T.D. Forsythe, and without any further formality, or pretence
of trial blew up 66 of the prisoners by tying them to the mouths of cannons.
Two were hacked to pieces with a sword. Forsythe then joined Cowan at
Malerkotla, where 16 more Kookas were rounded up and blasted off cannons.
The reasons for this barbarism was not the murder of Muslim butchers as is
evident in these words of Cowman: I propose blowing away from guns, or
hanging, the prisoners tomorrow morning at daybreak. Their offence is not an
ordinary one. They have not committed mere murder and dacoity; they are open
rebels, offering resistance to constitutional authority, and, to prevent the
spreading of this disease, it is absolutely necessary that repressive
measures should be prompt and stern. I act for the best, this incipient
insurrection must be stamped out at once."
The commissioner T.D. Forsythe supported the action of his
deputy. He wrote in a letter dated January 18, 1872; "My dear Cowan, I fully
approve and confirm all you have done. You have acted
admirably."
For those who may wonder just what blowing from guns means,
the following graphic description has been found- "Only those with the
strongest stomachs, however, could remain unaffected when prisoners were
blown away from the mouths of cannon, a punishment inflicted by the British
in India. This was a "frightful sight", Dr. John Sylvester thought; and for
the victims a peculiarly horrible punishment since, though hanging in itself
was sufficient to make paradise uncertain, death by mutilation after
defilement made its attainment even less likely. The victim was latched to a
gun, the small of his back or the pit of his stomach against the muzzle,
then "smeared with the blood of someone murdered by a member of his race if
such could be procured". [Sylvestees diaries] When the gun was fired the
man's body was dismembered. Usually the head, scarcely disfigured, would fly
off through the smoke then fall to the earth, slightly blackened, followed
by the arms and legs. The trunk would be shattered, giving off "a beastly
smell", and pieces of the flesh and intestines and gouts of blood would be
splashed not only over the gunners but also over any spectators who stood
too close. Vultures would hover overhead and with grisly dexterity catch
lumps of flesh in their beaks. "The pent up feelings of the bystanders found
vent in a sort of loud gasp like Ah-h! Wrote an artillery officer who was
required to supervise such an execution. "Then many of them came across the
ditch to inspect the remains of the legs, and the horrible affair was over."
This horrendous slaughter took place on January 11 - 12, 1872. Cowan was
right. Ram Singh was a dangerous Sikh. Had he not been dealt with promptly
and sternly, he would have gone down in history as the real father of the
nation, for the British would have been thrown out almost a hundred years
sooner. Many years later, Mahatma Gandhi had only copied the plans of Ram
Singh to earn this title. Even the boycott of British cloth was copied. The
spinning of cotton, and the wearing of only white, hand spun cotton was
exactly as Ram Singh had prescribed.
The second major non-violent revolt against the British was
again enacted by Sikhs- It was known as the Singh Sabha movement and was
started in 1873, only one year after the Namdharis were murdered so brutally
by the so called civilized British. It took some rime, but the Singh Sabha
movement steadily gained momentum. Things took on an added urgency when in
1919, 1,500 unarmed civilians, Mostly Sikhs) were shot down in cold blood at
the Jalianwalla Bagh in Amritsar, on orders of the British General Dyer.
Winston Churchill had described the massacre: "as a monstrous event, an
event which stands in singular and sinister isolation in the annals of
British history"
The early 1920s were very difficult times for the Sikhs in
Punjab. The Singh Sabha movement organized campaigns where groups of
ordinary unarmed people would march to their places of worship and ask
peaceably to be given possession of their shrine. Every day one hundred
volunteers, men, women and children would march peacefully to make their
demands known. The first groups were arrested. Each morning a new group was
ready to take up the march. The policy of arrests was abandoned. Now the
police took to beating the passive resisters. They were clubbed mercilessly,
dragged by the hair and thrown in the mud. Still, wave after wave of Sikhs
would go to their Gurdwaras and demand to be given their rightful control.
First there was a disturbance at Taran Taran, which resulted in a few
deaths. A month later at Nankana Sahib, 130 Sikh worshippers were butchered
by the hirelings of the caretaker of that place. The campaign continued.
Unarmed men and women suffered beatings with bamboo canes and faced gunfire,
still they kept on coming. Thousands were arrested. Still they kept on
coming. The Maharaja of Nabha was deposed because he made no secret of his
sympathy with the cause. The police fired upon a batch of passive resisters,
which marched to Jaito to offer prayers for the deposed Maharaja. At least
40 were killed.
The struggle ended in 1925 with the passage of the Sikh
Gurdwara Act. In the last 5 years of agitation for regaining control of
their places of worship, 30,000 men and women had gone to jail. 400 had been
killed and over 2,000 seriously wounded. The political results were far
reaching. The British lost forever the support and loyalty of the
Sikhs.
The struggle for independence continued, and Sikhs made a
tremendous contribution before independence, the Sikh community was only
1.1% of the total population of India. What they achieved is nothing short
of phenomenal, as the following table will
show:
SIKH MOBILIZATION FOR INDIA'S FREEDOM
STRUGGLE
|
Type
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All Communities
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Sikhs
|
Percentage
|
|
Prison term over 1 year |
2,125
|
1,550
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73%
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Deported |
2,646
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2,147
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81%
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|
Death sentence |
127
|
92
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72%
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|
Indian National Army
(I.N.A.) |
20,000
|
12,000
|
60%
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Gandhi was there, watching when the Sikhs were struggling to
regain control of their Gurdwaras, through non-violent means. Indeed he
admired their courage and their tactics, sending congratulatory notes on
more than one occasion. One such telegram dated Jan. 19, 1922 and addressed
to the Sikh leadership, read: The first decisive battle for independence
won. Congratulations.
Source:
Punjabi Heritage
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