The Constitutional Moment at Anandpur (Part I of II)
A look at the Khalsa's creation and later developments of Sikh national life through the lens of constitutional theory
This two-part Article is concerned with how the phenomenon of Sikh nationhood developed over time, and uses Bruce Ackerman’s constitutional moment theory to analyze the creation of the Khalsa at Anandpur. The theory posits that constitutional change occurs in four stages: first a signal is given, then the change is proposed, after which the People deliberate on the proposal. If the change is accepted, it becomes codified into the nation’s constitutional law. The Article posits that the creation of the Khalsa was one such constitutional moment, a culmination of a two-hundred year long process of constitutional change to the Sikh Sangat which led to its nationhood. The moment began with Guru Nanak’s Signal, followed by Guru Hargobind’s Proposal, and after the Sangat’s Deliberation, was Codified at Anandpur. The details of this process will be particularly relevant to understanding later constitutional moments in the Khalsa’s history, and the Article will conclude with an analysis of a few successful and failed constitutional moments of the later Khalsa.
“The Khalsa is essentially a political conception, a fusion of the people into a nation on the basis of religion—a conquest not political, but spiritual, through conversion to faith. As said above, the Sikhs were kept busy through bureaucratic and imperialistic tactics with petty objectives and little local and clannish disputes, so that they almost completely lost sight of their conception from the sword of Guru Gobind Singh as a separate, independent nation, and of their glorious history as a conquering, dominating people, once a supremely important factor in the history of India.”
-Gurbachan Singh M.A. & Lal Singh Gyani, “The Idea of The Sikh State” p. 18 (1946)
I. INTRODUCTION: UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS
Because of the prominence of written constitutions in the national governments of our world today, such as those of the United States of America and the Republic of India, many may think a constitution comes only in the form of a written “instrument of government”1 codifying the way a group of people have agreed “to create and establish a state or body politic among themselves.”2 But consider that such an instrument presupposes there to be a group of people ready to enter into such a social contract. And should they be ready, it is likely because there is some common understanding between these people as to how they would like to live—in other words, how they would like their state to be constituted.3
Justice Joseph Story, in his influential 1833 treatise Commentaries to the Constitution of the United States, recognized that the American Constitution must be understood as derivative of the American Revolution. To Story, the Revolution derived its legitimacy from the fact that “the people of [America] exercised original, sovereign power in their institution, in 1774, of the Continental Congress,”4 and the same people “acting on revolutionary principles, and in their original, sovereign capacity”5 authorized the Declaration of Independence.
In essence, yes, the American people (or perhaps more accurately, the Revolutionary Americans specifically) were acting in defiance of their formal status as citizens of states that existed “in the condition of thirteen British colonies,”6 but the declaration of their independence was the product of a prior, fundamental change in the “character, or ethos, of the American polity.”7 If one subscribes to the notion that “talk is cheap,” well, the Revolutionaries put any doubts of their newly-minted ethos to rest when they obeyed the order to fire upon British soldiers at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. As one 19th-century senator from Massachusetts romantically put it, “The order was given to British subjects. The order was obeyed by American citizens.”8
Thus, the written constitution of America was a product of an earlier change to the unwritten constitution of America. The change was, in fact, the actual creation of the nation and thus its unwritten constitution, from which arose “American institutions and the role within them of the American people.”9
The point is this: the existence, or lack thereof, of a written constitution does not control the existence of a nation. Rather, nations themselves produce constitutions, which may be written or unwritten. The ways in which different constitutions are created may vary, but the order of operations is clear—a constitution can only come into form once “a nation has arrived at a consciousness of its own identity.”10 English constitutional scholar and bishop William Stubbs, in his 1874 treatise A Constitutional History of England, posits such a national consciousness is the result of three forces: “the national character, the external history, and the institutions of the people.”11 And such a consciousness is not the product of just one of these forces, but rather,
“[T]he national character has been formed by the course of the national history quite as certainly as the national history has been developed by the working of the national character; and the institutions in which the newly conscious nation is clothed may be either the work of the constructive genius of the growing race, or simply the result of the discipline of its external history.”
Stubbs then finds that to discover the English constitution is to engage in an endeavor into the history of who the English people are. He writes that his task is thus to answer,
“[W]ho were our forefathers, whence did they come, what did they bring with them, what did they find on their arrival, how far did the process of migration and settlement affect their own development, and in what measure was it indebted to the character and previous history of the land they colonized?”12
The resulting work is a dazzling history of the Anglo-Saxons, stretching back to the observations of Tacitus on the institutions of tribal Germania, which Stubbs finds is relevant to understanding the development of the unwritten English constitution as it stood at his time.
It would be of great help then, when researching the constitution of the Sikh nation (and I do believe that there, in fact, does exist such a nation) to complete a similar exercise tracing the historical development of the civil institutions of Punjabi society, the sort of “domestic constitution based entirely or primarily on the community of tenure and cultivation”13 that Stubbs ascribes to early Germania. However, that will not be the focus of this piece.
Rather, this two-part series will focus on the development of a national consciousness within the Sikh umbrella. I begin this piece with Stubbs and Story because I understand them both to be implicitly committed to a certain definition of what a constitution is, which will be helpful to understand the Sikh nation. The definition may be stated as follows: a constitution is the basic structure of how a nation has chosen to govern itself, and is reflective of the deeper values of said nation—”the sort of people we are.”14 Thus, again, the lack of a formal written constitution does not necessarily mean the nation, as well as its constitution, do not exist. I also think Stubbs and Story are largely in agreement with English philosopher Henry Sidgwick’s description of a nation; a body of people such that even “if their government were destroyed by war or revolution, they would still tend to hold firmly together.”15
So, instead of a complete history of Punjab stretching back to antiquity, although I think such a work will be necessary at some point, this piece will focus on what I deem the constitutional moment that Stubbs references in the beginning of his work—when “a nation has arrived at a consciousness of its own identity.”16 It is then, states Stubbs, that the nation “can be said to have any constitutional existence.”17 For Sikhs, I understand this constitutional moment to be the founding of the Khalsa at Anandpur.
II. THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOMENT THEORY
To better understand what exactly happened at Anandpur, I’ll be using the “constitutional moment” theory of American legal scholar Bruce Ackerman, as found in the first volume of his seminal work We the People. Published in 1993, Ackerman wrote at a time when the conservative legal movement was picking up steam in its fight against what they perceived to be undisciplined activism by liberal Justices seated on the Supreme Court. The conservatives accused said Justices of creating constitutional rights that did not exist in the actual text of the U.S. Constitution, essentially amending the Constitution without changing its text. A leading figurehead of the conservative cause, Justice Antonin Scalia, summarizes the issue in a 1995 lecture18 with his typical wryness,
“The ascendant school of constitutional interpretation affirms the existence of what is called The Living Constitution, a body of law that (unlike normal statutes) grows and changes from age to age, in order to meet the needs of a changing society. And it is the judges who determine those needs and ‘find’ that changing law. Seems familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, it is the common law returned, but infinitely more powerful than what the old common law ever pretended to be.”
Scalia ends his lecture by giving an example of how he believes constitutional law should change—the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,19 which was added using the formal amendment process outlined in Article Five of the same.20
Ackerman can be read to be responding to the originalist claim that constitutional change must happen through formal amendment, by complicating what constitutional change actually means. Recall here the idea that one must first have a nation before they have a constitution. The formation of the nation itself is an example of a constitutional moment—“a decision by the American people”21 that they are indeed, a “people” in the singular use of the word. The idea is such decisions, which “occur rarely, and under special constitutional conditions”22 become a part of America’s unwritten constitution even if they have not yet been written down. The trouble, as Scalia points out, with such a view is figuring out how to “‘find’ that changing law.”23
Ackerman purports to offer a method to do so. He argues that constitutional change in America occurs in “two distinct higher lawmaking systems”24 that go through the same stages in different ways. One is the classical system—this is the Article Five amendment process, which is what Scalia and other originalists would require for constitutional change. The other is what he deems "the modern system”—this is when the political branches of the American government, the President and Congress, are captured by an overwhelming mandate of “the People.” They then pass certain legislation that, although perhaps violates the written constitutional law (in both the text of the Constitution and judicial precedent) of the country, represents a change to America’s unwritten constitution.
But the basic steps of the process leading up to Ackerman’s constitutional moment in both the classical and modern systems are the same, and it is these stages that will be of particular use to the reader in exploring the nature of Vaisakhi at Anandpur.
The Signal: This is when some sort of political movement “has gained sufficiently deep and broad support amongst the private citizenry to warrant admission to the higher lawmaking process.”25 In the classical system, the signal is clear—it is when a deliberative assembly—the constitutional convention—is called by two-thirds of either the various state legislatures, or of the members of Congress.26 In the modern system, the Signal is the election of a President with a special “mandate from the People.”27
The Proposal: This is when “the higher lawmaking system encourages the movement to focus its rhetoric into a series of more or less operational proposals for constitutional reform.”28 In the classical system, the Proposal stage is the formulation of the amendment that is passed by Congress or convention and submitted to the states for ratification.29 In the modern system, it is when the U.S. Congress passes “transformative statutes that challenge the fundamentals of the preexisting regime,”30 such as the New Deal-era legislation in America in response to the Great Depression.
The Deliberation: This is perhaps the most critical step of the process, the heart of the constitutional moment—it is when the Proposal is “tested time and time again within the higher lawmaking process.”31 If the movement cannot win popular support during mobilized deliberation, then the outcome is a “failed constitutional moment.”32 In the classical system, this test occurs when the states are called to consider the question of whether to ratify the proposed amendment.33 But Deliberation occurs in the modern system in a way that may seem counterintuitive. The Supreme Court of the United States is to strike down the first batch of statutes, forcing the proverbial People to show their commitment to their movement by again electing representatives who will pass the same legislation, to bring the issue back up to the Court.34
Codification: The last step, which occurs if Deliberation is successful. In the classical system, it is simply the enshrinement of the amendment into the text of the U.S. Constitution, and the subsequent legal developments using the new text.35 In the modern system, Codification is when the Supreme Court finally relents, and recognizing that “the People have spoken in a deliberate and sustained way,”36 enshrines the change in the unwritten constitution into its opinions using whatever sophisticated legal arguments necessary. The effect of both systems is the same—the democratic will of the People expressed a change in the unwritten constitution of America, and thus brought about a change in the country’s written constitutional law.
It may do well to note here that, of course, the development of the Sikh nation (and thus the Sikh constitutional moment) will not track completely with Ackerman’s theory. Ackerman offered a theoretical framework to guide the continued development of constitutional law in the United States, based on what he believes to be the process developed subconsciously in America up to that point. The Sikh constitutional moment may look different from its American counterpart, and yet still be a constitutional moment. However, there is one premise of Ackerman’s theory which, if missing in a potential case of application, would (in my view) render it practically inapplicable. And that is the presumption that the nation whose potential constitutional moment is being investigated is at least somewhat democratic. If a nation is under totalitarian rule, then it may still have constitutional moments, but there would be no need for the Signal, Proposal, Deliberation, and Codification. It would just be imposed top-down with the threat of force. But although I think the Sikh constitutional moment is different from the American, the reason I am applying Ackerman’s theory is because I do think there is a somewhat democratic impulse underlying the Khalsa’s creation. As will be explained, the Founding of the Khalsa was done not just by Guru Gobind Singh, but also by We the Sangat of Guru Nanak.
III. THE CASE AT HAND: THE CREATION OF THE KHALSA
The traditional account of the Khalsa’s creation is that as the seventeenth century drew toward a close, the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, instituted an order of warrior-saints of sorts during a fair celebrating Vaisakhi, the North Indian harvest festival, at the city-fort of Anandpur near the Shivalik Hills. This was done, it is said, in an effort to resist the tyranny of the ruling Mughals, who were bent upon Islamic domination of the Indian subcontinent. And so the Khalsa was to “fight and establish their own raj”37 by dharamyudh (righteous war) with the social and political tyrannies of the time. The Guru went about creating the Khalsa in a dramatic fashion, with some accounts stating he called for those gathered to literally offer their heads while he stood with a sword outstretched.38 He then took volunteers one by one to a tent where, after slaughtering a goat, the Guru would return to the congregation to ask for another head with fresh blood coating his sword.39 In this way, five neophytes known as the Panj Pyare (The Five Beloveds) were initiated by the drinking of a concoction known as khande ki pahul (water and sugar stirred by a double-edged sword). After being initiated themselves, it is said the Guru himself bent down on one knee and asked the Five to initiate him as well.
Though the aesthetic details of the event are of course fascinating, it will be very important to critically reflect on a few sets of questions, each relating to a different stage of the constitutional moment.
The Signal: Who gave the Signal for Sikh nationhood? Was it the Guru or the Sangat? Both?
The Proposal: Who gave the Proposal for Sikh nationhood? How did change and reform work in the Sangat leading up to the creation of the Khalsa? How and why was the gathering called at Anandpur?
The Deliberation: How did the national debate work within the Sikh fold? Why did the Guru seem so sure that the Sangat would take up his cause? If it is true that the Guru did indeed call for heads as some accounts suggest, what could have made him so sure that such a call would work? Or did he leave it up to chance?
The Codification: How was the establishment of the Khalsa then enshrined into the Sikh consciousness? If the Khalsa is a nation, who are its citizens? What is its constitution?
Part I of this two-part installment will continue on to narrate the Signal and the Proposal of Sikh nationhood, while Part II will describe the Deliberation and Codification of the Khalsa Constitutional Moment, and analyze later developments in the Khalsa’s history through this lens.
IV. GURU NANAK’S SIGNAL
Just as Stubbs reaches back to Germania to fully understand the English constitution, Justice Story reaches back to the “origin and constitutional and juridical history”40 of the American colonies in order to fully make sense of the American Constitution as a text.41 I stated earlier that a full exposition of Punjabi history would be relevant to a Sikh constitutionalism and the Khalsa constitutional moment, but such a task is beyond the scope of this piece. However, just as Justice Story finds it relevant to note how the first English settlers of the colony of Virginia “assumed more and more the tone of independence,”42 it is relevant for our purposes to determine what was the character of the early Sikh community, and whether we can we find any signals of nationhood.
Bhai Gurdas, the 16th-century contemporary of several early Gurus, describes the coming of Guru Nanak as such,43
ਸੁਣੀ ਪੁਕਾਰਿ ਦਾਤਾਰ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਗੁਰੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਜਗ ਮਾਹਿ ਪਠਾਇਆ।
Having heard the cry of humanity, the charitable Divine sent Guru Nanak into the world.
ਚਰਨ ਧੋਇ ਰਹਰਾਸਿ ਕਰਿ ਚਰਣਾਮ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਸਿਖਾਂ ਪੀਲਾਇਆ।
Washing the Guru’s feet and reciting the Rahiras, charanamrit was administered to the newly-minted Sikhs.
ਪਾਰਬ੍ਰਹਮ ਪੂਰਨ ਬ੍ਰਹਮ ਕਲਿਜੁਗ ਅੰਦਰਿ ਇਕ ਦਿਖਾਇਆ।
In the Kal Yug, he showed disciples that both the divine’s absolute form and attributeless form are one and the same.
ਚਾਰੇ ਪੈਰ ਧਰਮ ਦੇ ਚਾਰਿ ਵਰਨ ਇਕ ਵਰਨੁ ਕਰਾਇਆ।
The proverbial bull of Dharma now stands upon all four feet, and the four castes have been melded into one.
ਰਾਣਾ ਰੰਕ ਬਰਾਬਰੀ ਪੈਰੀ ਪਵਣਾ ਜਗਿ ਵਰਤਾਇਆ।
Making the poor man and the prince equal, he preached to the world the power of humbly touching the feet of others.
ਉਲਟਾ ਖੇਲੁ ਪਿਰੰਮ ਦਾ ਪੈਰਾ ਉਪਰਿ ਸੀਸੁ ਨਿਵਾਇਆ।
Through the game of love, he reversed society’s norms, getting heads to bow in humility to the feet of others.
ਕਲਿਜੁਗ ਬਾਬੇ ਤਾਰਿਆ ਸਤਿਨਾਮੁ ਪੜ੍ਹਿ ਮੰਤ੍ਰ ਸੁਣਾਇਆ।
The Baba has saved this Kal Yug, he has recited the Satnam mantra for us all.
ਕਲਿ ਤਾਰਣ ਗੁਰੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਆਇਆ ॥੨੩॥
To save the Kal Yug, Guru Nanak has arrived.
Of course, the thrust of this passage is not immediately political or one of obvious “national character” as Stubbs may use the phrase. However, note a couple of observations. The reason that Guru Nanak is sent to Earth, according to Bhai Gurdas, is because of a cry from some mass of people—whether that be all of humanity, the Indian subcontinent, or Punjab specifically may be debated. But in any case, the next line informs us that the Guru’s response is to create a community called the Sangat, describing what was at the time the informal initiation ceremony to the Sikh community, the practice of charanamrit.44
From where did this cry of the people rise? Closely before this passage Bhai Gurdas describes the state of affairs in the world, as he understood it to be prior to the coming of Nanak. He notes,45
ਚਾਰਿ ਵਰਨ ਚਾਰਿ ਮਜਹਬਾ ਜਗ ਵਿਚਿ ਹਿੰਦੂ ਮੁਸਲਮਾਣੇ।
Four Hindu castes and four Muslim sects, in this world there are Hindus and Muslims,
ਖੁਦੀ ਬਖੀਲਿ ਤਕਬਰੀ ਖਿੰਚੋਤਾਣ ਕਰੇਨਿ ਧਿਙਾਣੇ।
But all are in character selfish, jealous, proud, bigoted and violent.
Additionally,46
ਬਾਝੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਅੰਧੇਰੁ ਹੈ ਖਹਿ ਖਹਿ ਮਰਦੇ ਬਹੁ ਬਿਧਿ ਲੋਆ।
Without the Guru, there is but darkness, everywhere people are torturing each other to death.
ਵਰਤਿਆ ਪਾਪੁ ਜਗਤ੍ਰ ਤੇ ਧਉਲ ਉਡੀਣਾ ਨਿਸਿਦਿਨ ਰੋਆ।
Sin has enveloped the world, the bull of Dharma simply weeps day and night.
Punjabi society at the time was split along the lines of religion, caste, and creed, as well as ruler and subject, with the former (the Mughals) being seen as invaders. But, according to Bhai Gurdas, Guru Nanak’s simple message of the Satnam was able to cut across these barriers. He notes that to be a Sikh, one must simply accept the Guru and practice his teachings of reciting the Satnam, dealing with vices such as lust and anger, and leading a charitable and truthful lifestyle.47 There was no requirement of birth or caste.
The good Sial of Goraya notes that along with Guru Nanak’s “shattering of social boundaries” and “intense, and open, public sphere dialogues” came the Sikh Sangat which “began to develop in this small scale, nascent form around Guru Nanak.”48 At the town of Kartarpur, now in modern-day Pakistan, Sikhs settled to live around the Guru, a kaleidoscope of the “various domains, and sections of society, based on the key principles of Baba Nanak’s message.”49 Sial argues this Sangat became a “support structure” of sorts to act as a counterweight to the violence wrought upon North India by the invasion of the Mughals as well as the existing social and religious barriers.50 Bhai Gurdas notes the Sangat at his time, close to a century after the life of Guru Nanak, was present across the Indian subcontinent—in at least Kabul, Kashmir, the Indo-Gangetic plains, and of course, across the various locales of Punjab.51
Important here is also the masand system that arose due to the exigencies of a time before phone and rail. The word masand is a corruption of the Persian word masnad-i a’la, which was a term used for nobles in the Lodi sultanates.52 In the Sikh context, the title was used for representatives of the Guru in distant Sangats, who would gather offerings from their local congregation for presentment to the Guru, often during the harvest month of Vaisakh.53 Bhai Gurdas gives the names and locales of several such masands of his time, and though it may be surprising due to later history, refers to them as “Gurmukh” (lit. “the face of the Guru”).54
The various beliefs and practices of the Sangat are, in my view, of fairly high importance in informing the Khalsa constitutional moment. But I am afraid the exact contours of the Sangat are of sufficient degree of complexity to warrant their own paper. For those curious, I refer the reader to the previously-cited work of Sial for a more thorough explanation of the Sangat.55 For the purposes of this piece, I think it best to simply define the Sangat as those people who attempted to follow the teachings laid out by Guru Nanak and his successors.
The Sangat as an institution, in my view, somewhat represents the democratic will of Sikh society. The Guru is the Guru insofar as the Sikh Sangat views him as such. The acceptance of the Guru by the Sikh shows, on the part of the Sikh, a fundamental change in his personal constitution. Yes, the ideas and practices of the Sangat came from the institution of the Guru. But just as the ideas of the Federalist Papers came from an elite few of America’s original citizens, they still required buy-in from the American people in order to actually be implemented (in fact, the Federalist Papers were written to convince the people of New York to ratify the Constitution). The Guru engaged in debate and dialogue, and in the process won over followers based upon the self-apparent strength of the arguments and beliefs he presented. The choice was given to the listener as to whether or not they actually want to be Sikh. Thus the formation of the Sangat was itself a democratic process—no one was forced to become a Sikh or settle in Kartarpur. Indeed, the later Mughal emperor Jahangir writes in his memoirs, annoyed at those flocking to the Fifth Guru, Guru Arjan,
“Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be a saint. They called him Guru. Many fools from all around had recourse to him and believed in him implicitly. For three or four generations they had been peddling this same stuff. For a long time I had been thinking that either this false trade should be eliminated or that he should be brought into the embrace of Islam.”56
Although not completely analogous, I think the institution of the Guru is similar to the role the President plays in Ackerman’s modern system—one in which the President’s election is meant to broadcast certain values now held by the People. Still, it must be made clear that Sikh practice, as is historically evident at the time, treated the institution of the Guru as the supreme source of authority. It is the Guru who formulates the Sangat’s view on fraternal bond, it is the Guru who formulates the Sangat’s view on spiritual practice, and it is the Guru who will later propose to the Sangat what will essentially be a form of domestic insurrection, even if not all of the Sangat is prepared to follow.
It may do well here to note the independent nature of the institution of the Guru, a topic which will need much more reflection past this piece, but an important idea in the early national character of the Sikhs. In the Sidh Gosht, a composition that appears in the Guru Granth Sahib, Guru Nanak is said to have spoken to the Siddhas, a group of “Yogis at Achal Batala in Gurdaspur District of present-day Punjab,”57 who question Guru Nanak (whom they view as a spiritual upstart of sorts) on matters of divinity, reality, and authority, among other things. But it is on the issue of authority that the Guru makes a statement of interest here. Well into their discourse, the Siddhas are said to inquire of the Guru,58
ਕਵਣ ਮੂਲੁ ਕਵਣ ਮਤਿ ਵੇਲਾ ॥
What, to you, is the root of all things? And what philosophy do you herald for the times?
ਤੇਰਾ ਕਵਣੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਜਿਸ ਕਾ ਤੂ ਚੇਲਾ ॥
Who is your Guru for whom are you a humble follower?
The Siddhas are here invoking the concept of the guru-pranali, the understanding that one must be connected to a lineage of gurus to have any say in matters of the soul—a common move for any well-socialized practitioner of Dharma at the time. The Guru answers with the following,59
ਪਵਨ ਅਰੰਭੁ ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਮਤਿ ਵੇਲਾ ॥
The world began with air, and the time now is of the teachings of the Satguru.
ਸਬਦੁ ਗੁਰੂ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਧੁਨਿ ਚੇਲਾ ॥
The Shabad is my guru, and I, as a follower, attune my subconscious to it.
“Shabad” in the modern Sikh lexicon is most commonly translated to the words uttered by the Gurus themselves. But this gives rise to an interesting conundrum, I think still best thought of as unsolved, as to what Guru Nanak himself could be referring to if he is stating his Guru to be the Shabad. Does he, like the average Sikh views him, view himself as “the Guru” he is referring to—and if so, does he in a very literal sense view his own speech as his spiritual teacher? This seems unlikely, for he then goes on to immediately call himself the follower of the Shabad. He of course could simultaneously be the Guru and the follower, a concept to which we will return to in the next installment.
But at the very least, Guru Nanak does not give the name of a physical person who came before him to lend himself authority. He implicitly rejects the premise of the question from the Siddhas, that he needs to belong to some authoritative lineage for his ideas to be taken seriously, and asserts that instead of such gurus of flesh and blood, his guru is of an abstract quality. His answer is, in some sense, a “declaration of independence” from the very frame of thought that the Siddhas occupied. It is, I argue, a signal to break from the notion of authority and precedent that predominated (and continues to dominate?) Indic thought. Guru Nanak’s Signal may seem like an independence of a purely philosophical nature…but query whether there is any philosophy that is able to exist without political implications.
V. GURU HARGOBIND’S PROPOSAL
As alluded to by the above passage of Jahangir, Guru Arjan would eventually be martyred at the hands of Mughal authorities,60 for reasons that scholars somewhat disagree on.61 But what is relevant here is the changes brought about in the Sikh community as his teenage son Hargobind becomes the Sixth Guru. The newly-christened Guru single-handedly begins the Sikh military tradition in response to what he sees to be a time of crisis. He famously rejects the seli topi (silk cap), said to be of Guru Nanak, presented by the masands during the ceremony to take on Guruship. Instead, he adorns two swords—one representing Miri (political authority) and the other denoting Piri (spiritual greatness). The new Guru orders the creation of the Akal Takht (lit. Timeless Throne), a building situated in the same complex as the already existing Harmandir Sahib, in an act of defiance to the Mughal state. Writing contemporaneously, Bhai Gurdas notes the demeanor of this change while situating it in the saintly tradition of the earlier Gurus, stating62
ਪੰਜਿ ਪਿਆਲੇ ਪੰਜ ਪੀਰ ਛਠਮੁ ਪੀਰੁ ਬੈਠਾ ਗੁਰੁ ਭਾਰੀ।
The five prior Pirs each drank from five cups of the Guru, and now the Sixth has taken office, a Guru of great majesty.
ਅਰਜਨ ਕਾਇਆ ਪਲਟਿਕੈ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਹਰਿਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸਵਾਰੀ।
Guru Arjan has transformed, and now Guru Hargobind is his royal image.
ਚਲੀ ਪੀੜੀ ਸੋਢੀਆ ਰੂਪੁ ਦਿਖਾਵਣਿ ਵਾਰੋ ਵਾਰੀ।
And so the lineage of the Sodhis has began, who will reveal their many forms in turn.
ਦਲਭੰਜਨ ਗੁਰੁ ਸੂਰਮਾ ਵਡ ਜੋਧਾ ਬਹੁ ਪਰਉਪਕਾਰੀ।
The destroyer of armies, the Warrior-Guru, is indeed a great Yodha as well as of infinite help.
Gurbilas Patshahi Chevvin (hereafter “GP6”), a text traditionally dated to 1718,63 notes the manner in which this change was brought about, and a detour through its text will prove enlightening into why the Anandpur Convention was ultimately necessary. It is at Amritsar when a young Hargobind announces his new regime, during the crisis in the fledgling Sikh community caused by the murder of Guru Arjan, that one sees the first physical Proposal for nationhood given to the Sangat. But it was not one given in which the Sangat was asked, rather, it was one in which the Sangat was told what was to occur. GP6 notes the revelatory nature of the Proposal,64
ਅਕਾਲ ਪੁਰਖ ਪੁਨਿ ਬਚਨਿ ਉਚਾਰੈ । ਹਰਿ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਸੁਨੀਐ ਨਿਰਧਾਰੈ ।
From the Akal Purakh came this command, and Hargobind heard the divine will:
ਤੁਮ ਹਮਰੇ ਮਹਿ ਭੇਦ ਨ ਕੋਈ । ਤੋਹਿ ਅਵਤਾਰ ਹੇਤ ਇਹ ਹੋਈ ।
“There is no difference between you and I, it is for the sake of your reign that this has occurred”
which grounds the upcoming prescription not in a call from the Sangat, but one of a more external divine origin, which can perhaps be said to represent the Guru’s own view of what the pressing circumstances called for (considering, doctrinally, the Sikh view as expressed above that the Guru and Akal Purakh are one):65
ਚੌਪਈ
Chaupai
ਔਰ ਸੰਤ ਬਚ ਅਟਲ ਪਛਾਨਉ । ਬੁਢੇ ਮੁਝ ਮਹਿ ਭੇਦ ਨਾ ਮਾਨਉਂ ।
“Recognize the eternal words of the Saints, and don’t see any difference between I and Baba Buddha (a venerated Sikh from the times of Guru Nanak)
ਪ੍ਰਿਥਮੇ ਇਹ ਥਾਂ ਤਖਤ ਸਵਾਰੋ । ਮੀਰੀ ਪੀਰੀ ਅਸਿ ਦੋ ਧਾਰੋ ॥
First establish a Takht here, and then adorn the two swords of Miri and Piri.”
ਹਰਿ ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਤਬ ਬਨੈ ਸੁਨਾਏ । ਨਾਮ ਲਾਜ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਤੁਮੇ ਬਨਾਏ ।
Hargobind upon hearing all of this remarked, “It is by your Name that our honor is saved.”
ਅਕਾਲ ਪੁਰਖ ਸੁਨ ਆਨੰਦ ਪਾਯੋ । ਇਹ ਬਿਧਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਮੁਖ ਵਾਕ ਅਲਾਯੋ ॥
Hearing this, Akal Purakh felt pleased. In this way did His command come.
Casting aside for a second the metaphysical tilt to the GP6 narration, what the author’s understanding underscores was there was not much deliberation with the Sangat for this new direction Guru Hargobind would take the community. To the author, it was a divine command that carried with it inherent authority, and so it was perfectly acceptable for the Guru to respond to the masands placing before him the seli topi of Guru Nanak with,66
ਹਰਿਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਦਿਖ ਮਨ ਮੁਸਕਾਇ । ਬੁਡੇ ਜੀ ਕਉ ਬੈਨ ਅਲਾਏ ।
Hargobind showed a playful smile, and said the following to Baba Buddha,
ਇਹ ਮਸੰਦ ਕਿਆ ਰਾਖਯੋ ਆਗਰ । ਬੁਡਾ ਕਹਿ ਸੁਨੀਏ ਸੁਖਸਾਗਾਰ ॥
“What is this the masands have put before me? Baba Buddha then said, “Listen O’ ocean of happiness,
ਤੁਮ ਤੇ ਬਾਤ ਨਾ ਕੋਈ ਛਪਾਈ । ਗੁਰ ਨਾਨਕ ਇਹ ਰੀਤ ਚਲਾਈ ॥
I have not kept any secrets from you. This is indeed the practice that Guru Nanak began,
ਇਨ ਕਰ ਗੁਰਿਆਈ ਕਉ ਧਾਰਹਿ । ਬਾਹਰ ਗੁਰੂ ਹੋਇ ਜਗੁ ਨਿਸਤਾਰਹਿ ॥
And it is because of Him that the Guruship has arrived to you, without the Guru how will the world be saved?”
ਦੋਹਰਾ
Dohra
ਹਰਿਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਜੀ ਤਬ ਕਹਿਓ ਸੁਨ ਬੁਢਾ ਜੀ ਬੈਨ ।
Then Hargobind said to Baba Buddha, “Listen closely Buddha Ji,"
ਕਾਲ ਪੁਰਖ ਬਚ ਕਿਆ ਕਰੇ ਸਭ ਘਟ ਜਿਸ ਕਉ ਐਨ ॥
The command of Akal Purakh must be acted upon, for He resides in each and every heart.”
Although not explicitly, it would appear that in the next lines the Guru is implied to be speaking to the general congregation gathered, including the masands, when he gives his Proposal:67
ਚੌਪਈ
Chaupai
ਜਉ ਬਦਲਾ ਪਿਤ ਸੇਲੀ ਪਯੈ । ਤਉ ਹਮ ਸੇਲੀ ਸੀਸ ਧਰਯੈ ।
“A silk cap that may bring the revenge of my father’s murder—if you have such a cap then do place it on my head.
ਸ਼ਸਤ੍ਰ ਧਾਰ ਜੇ ਬਦਲਾ ਪਾਵਹਿ । ਸ਼ਸਤ੍ਰ ਧਰਨਿ ਹਮ ਕਉ ਬਨ ਆਵਹਿ ॥
But if you truly want revenge for my father then adorn shastar (weaponry), from now on arrive before me wearing weapons.
ਰਵਿ ਬੰਸੀ ਹਮ ਛਤ੍ਰੀ ਜਾਤਿ । ਹਮ ਕਉ ਸਦਹੀ ਜੁਧ ਸੁਹਾਤਿ ।
I am a Kshatriya of the solar lineage, I will forever find war to be pleasing.
ਕਾਲ ਪੁਰਖ ਐਸੇ ਕਹੇ । ਆਗੇ ਜਉ ਤੁਮ ਇਛਾ ਅਹੇ ॥
Akal Purakh commanded me in this way, ahead my desire is for you to act as stated.”
Assuming GP6 at least somewhat accurately reflects how the Guru went about his investiture ceremony, it would appear the Proposal given is one whose authority is grounded in divine mandate, rather than upswelling consensus. Which is not to say this makes it wrong necessarily. Constitutional change, including the creation of nationhood, may be proposed by an elite leader such as when a “Washington or Lincoln or Roosevelt may have … high moral standing amongst their countrymen at the time.”68 And as demonstrated by GP6, the Sikh understanding is the Guru does not just carry high moral standing in the Sikh world, but one of a supreme nature that thus allows him to propose massive change in the “decisive moment[s] of truth”69 that create constitutional moments. The question, of course, is whether such change will be accepted by the Sangat. As Ackerman puts it, the question is whether the Proposal will “appeal to an equally variegated mass of supporters—some loyalists have stuck with the Cause through thick and thin, many more are just beginning to define their positions on the issue.”70
It is undeniable that some indeed answered the call of the Guru. The Dabistan-i Mazahib, a Persian text dated to 1645-46, notes Guru Hargobind had “700 horses in his stables, 300 battle-tested horsemen, and 60 musketeers in his service.”71 But there was pushback as well—just as an elite may propose a change, it is possible that “established institutions successfully block the movement at the threshold.”72 And we see this in some ways with the reaction of the masands to Guru Hargobind’s reforms. GP6 notes upon the conclusion of the ceremony,73
ਦੋਹਰਾ
Dohira
ਰਾਗੀ ਤਬ ਆਨੰਦ ਪੜ ਕੜਾਹ ਦੀਓ ਵਰਤਾਇ ।
And so then the Ragis sang the Anand, and karah parshad was distributed amongst the sangat.
ਮਨ ਮਸੰਦ ਬਿਸਮਹਿ ਭਏ ਰੀਤਿ ਗੁਰੂ ਉਲਟਾਇ ॥
The Masands became of a concerned mind, observing, “The Guru has completely inverted established practice!”
ਚੌਪਈ
Chaupai
ਨਿਜ ਨਿਜ ਧਾਮ ਸਭੀ ਤਬ ਗਏ । ਮਸੰਦ ਮਾਤ ਗੰਗਾ ਪਹਿ ਅਏ ।
The Masands of the various locations all left, and arrived to where Mata Ganga (the Guru’s mother) was residing.
ਸੁਨਹੁ ਮਾਤ ਤੁਮ ਸੁਤ ਕਿਆ ਕਰੀ । ਰੀਤਿ ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਨਹਿੰ ਧਰੀ ॥
“Listen O’ respected mother, what your good son is doing! He has not adopted the ways of Guru Nanak!
ਭਾਖਤ ਸਸਤ੍ਰ ਧਰਹੁੰ ਤਨ ਮਾਹੀ । ਸੰਗਿ ਨ ਸੈਨ ਮੁਲਖ ਕੋਊ ਨਾਹੀ ।
He has announced we are to adorn weaponry on our bodies, doing which we will lose all relations in this country!”
ਮਾਤ ਕਹਾ ਇਸ ਨਰ ਨਹੀਂ ਜਾਨਉ । ਸਤਿ ਪਰਮੇਸ਼੍ਵਰ ਨਿਸਚੈ ਮਾਨਉ ॥
Mata Ganga answered, “Do not think of the Guru as any ordinary person. Forever consider him as the very form of the Parmeshwar.”
There is an argument to be made that GP6, written after the downfall of the masands and the rise of the Khalsa, may be simply inventing history to justify the state of affairs contemporaneous to its writing. With that said, if the masands were in fact against these reforms, they would have likely been a fairly potent roadblock in the designs of the Guru. Recall in Part IV that the masands were said to be Gurmukhs by none other than Bhai Gurdas, who is writing after the investiture of Guru Hargobind. So, although the masands may have nominally accepted the proposed reforms as seen in the following,74
ਚੌਪਈ
Chaupai
ਸੁਨੇ ਮਸੰਦਨ ਧੀਰਜ ਪਾਯੋ । ਜਾਨੇ ਗੁਰੁ ਕੇ ਚਰਿਤ ਸੁਹਾਯੋ ।
Listening to Mata Ganga’s explanation, the masands calmed down. They realized the beautiful design of the Guru’s intent.
ਜੇਠ ਥਿਤ ਚੌਥ ਦਿਨ ਪਿਆਨਾ । ਦੈਤ ਗੁਰੂ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੁ ਠਾਨਾਂ ॥
In the fourth day of the month of Jeth, did the Guru thus take office.
ਹਾੜ ਪ੍ਰਿਥਮ ਏਕਮ ਥਿਤ ਮਾਹੀ । ਹਰਿਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਗੁਰੁ ਪਾਗ ਬੰਧਾਹੀ ।
And from the very first day, the Guru began the practice of tying a royal turban.
ਹੁਕਮ ਨਾਵੇਂ ਦਿਨ ਦੁਤੀਅ ਲਖਾਏ । ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੁ ਦੇਸਿਨ ਦੇਸ ਪਠਾਏ ॥
Day after day, writing hukamnamas, he sent them off to the various lands in which Sikhs resided.
their influence would still affect the efficacy of the Guru’s Proposal.
The practice mentioned above of writing a hukamnama (royal decree) appears to have began with Guru Hargobind, evidently as an assertion of the political might carried by the Guru. However, although part of the point of this section is to say that the process behind the Sixth Guru’s reforms was fairly undemocratic (which, again, doesn’t make it wrong, nor unauthoritative), there is a tone of deference in the hukamnamas to the Sangat being addressed. One such document found in the collection of Takht Sri Patna Sahib states, “The Sangat of the East is the Khalsa of the Guru.”75
But wait, why is the Guru calling such a Sangat the Khalsa when we haven’t yet gotten to Vaisakhi at Anandpur? Well, the Guru could be invoking the meaning of the term as used then by the imperial Mughal state—just as khalisa crownlands are taxed directly by the Emperor, so too does the “Khalsa” Sangat have a “direct link between the Guru and the Sikh.”76 The late Dr. J.S. Grewal asserts this terminology was used to contrast Sikhs initiated by the Guru with those Sikhs that are “initiated into the Sikh faith by a masand on behalf of the Guru.”77 If this is the case, then perhaps GP6 is not so wrong to narrate an ideological conflict between the masands and Guru Hargobind.
In keeping with the Proposal, the Guru would go on to muster the Sangat that answered his call to arms in actual military confrontation with Mughal state armies on more than one occasion.78 So, just as the Sangat was created by people won over by the ideology of Guru Nanak, so too does it appear that the Guru was able to inspire at least some members of the Sangat to such an extent that they were willing to risk their lives for his vision in the field of battle. Thus, Guru Hargobind’s Proposal was not simply the case of a Prime Minister who “ram[s] constitutional amendments through the House whenever she thinks she can whip the majority party into support for her initiative.”79 Rather, it appears some members of the Sangat were ready to be introduced to change. Ackerman states part of gauging a political movement’s support is “the extent to which its adherents have made special efforts”80 to manifest its realization. Putting one’s life on the line is a pretty special effort. Perhaps upon the first battle between the Sikhs and the Mughals, we can recall the senator from Massachusetts and say it is at this moment that Sikh national life began: “The order was given to Mughal subjects. The order was obeyed by Sikh citizens.”
But although we see a reassertion of the sanctity of the relationship between the Guru and the Sikh during Guru Hargobind’s time, “[t]he masands and their followers did not disappear suddenly.”81 As the Guruship passes on to the more “calm and clement”82 Guru Har Rai, the masands continue exercising authority over the Sangat, particularly those geographically distant to the Guru. Following the passing of the Eighth Guru, the young Guru Harkrishan, came the Ninth—Guru Tegh Bahadur. But he inherits the Guru’s seat after being chosen in a manner shrouded in uncertainty, having to deal with many pretenders.83 And after establishing Guruship, he still had to deal with masands as well as certain figures who asserted claims to the Guru’s office. Some offshoots such as the Minas exercised such influence that they were able to close Sri Harmandir Sahib to the Guru when the latter visited Amritsar.84 As of 1675, Grewal posits there were five different groups of Sikhs:85
“The central stream”: Those who followed Guru Tegh Bahadur.
Masandi: Followers of masands.
Minas: Followers of Prithi Chand, Miharban, and Harji.
Dhir Mallias: Followers of Dhir Mal and his successors.
Ram Raiyas: Followers of Ram Rai.
And “[w]hereas the Sikhs of the central stream were in confrontation with the Mughal emperors, the Minas, Dhir Mallias, and Ram Raiyas were reconciled to the Mughal state and accepted its patronage.”86 If Guru Tegh Bahadur wanted to continue aligning the Sangat toward Guru Hargobind’s Proposal, then “getting these diverse types behind a common proposal”87 would be necessary. What may be occurring here is the lay Sikh’s allegiance at the time—whether to Guru Tegh Bahadur or one of the other groups listed—is indicative of a deeper debate sparked by Guru Hargobind’s Proposal. The debate being, what does it mean to be a Sikh, i.e. what is the correct Sikh doctrine, and how should it manifest in the world? If one is of a more activist bend (keeping in line with the spiritual independence demonstrated by Guru Nanak that then manifested into political independence by Guru Hargobind) it seems more likely they will follow Guru Tegh Bahadur. If one does not fully appreciate such doctrine, or does not think it to be of such weight, or even correct, then perhaps they are more likely to follow an offshoot. Of course, I am projecting heavily into the psychologies of those of the past—relevant here are family and caste dynamics that play a role in how people of the time chose their religious authorities.
Epilogue: Guru Tegh Bahadur Prepares the Sangat for Deliberation
By the time of Guru Tegh Bahadur, it would appear that the Proposal of Guru Hargobind was in serious risk of being blocked by at least some of those “in the crucial agenda-controlling positions”88 of the Sikh community, the positions being in many cases parallel seats of Guruship. It is generally understood that for much of his time as Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur undertook tours of the Sikh Sangats across the subcontinent, from the Gangetic plains to Assam, and then back to Punjab, moving “village to village.”89 Grewal asserts these tours were a “public demonstration of his convictions at a time when Aurangzeb was bent upon discouraging such demonstrations.”90 This is not untrue, but perhaps the deeper reason for the public demonstrations is this: Guru Tegh Bahadur was shoring up support at the ground-level for his claim to the Guruship, which by proxy represented Guru Hargobind’s Proposal. Ackerman states a person’s “support is ‘deep’ when she has deliberated as much about her commitment to a national ideal as she thinks appropriate in making a considered judgement on an important decision in her private life.”91 It is possible the Guru was inviting the Sikh Sangat, and Indian society at large, to deliberate on “a national ideal”—the Miri of Guru Hargobind.
In Ackerman’s modern constitutional moment, the defining step of the Proposal stage occurs when the Supreme Court strikes down statutes that are brought about when a “President, claiming a mandate from the People, convinces Congress to enact transformative statutes which give legal substance to the new movement’s program for fundamental change.”92 The Supreme Court strikes them down “[p]recisely because of their revolutionary character,”93 for under the constitutional doctrine of America as thus far in effect, the proposed statutes would be unconstitutional. The issue then enters the stage of Deliberation, where it must “have sufficient strength in the country to challenge the Court with a second round of statutes that refine and deepen the legal meanings adumbrated the first time around.”94
Obviously, the Gurus did not exist in the modern American constitutional government. So it is difficult to analogize what within the Sikh context would be considered the Supreme Court “striking down” an act they lobbied for. But I think there is an analogy here, one that considers which institutions have the power to reject reform. In America, it is the Supreme Court. In the mid-seventeenth century Sikh world, it is the Sikh Sangat itself. If the Sangat had completely abandoned the Guru-lineage that Guru Tegh Bahdur represented and joined a competing lineage, I think we would be able to say that the Proposal of Guru Hargobind would have effectively been stricken down. And it’s unclear if there would have been a “second round” — once the lineage has been abandoned, it seems likely to that it would stay this way.
But instead, something very different occurred. Guru Tegh Bahadur, like his grandfather Guru Arjan, was martyred by imperial Mughal order, in Delhi on November 11, 1675.95 Just as with Guru Arjan, the historical reasons for this are debated. The Sikh view (present in sources dating back to the period) is generally that a deputation of Kashmiri Pandits approached the Guru for assistance from the tyranny wrought upon them by the Mughal state, whose authorities then arrested the Guru and brought him to Delhi where he was executed after refusing to convert to Islam.96
I wouldn’t analogize the Guru’s martyrdom to the Supreme Court “striking down” statutes. After all, it wasn’t the Mughal state that Guru Hargobind’s Proposal was meant for—it was the Sangat itself. However, upon the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur, I think it created the “special constitutional conditions”97 needed for a period of deliberation, during which Guru Hargobind’s Proposal is reworked and brought back to the Sangat with a different, more democratic process that results in the higher lawmaking at play here finally reaching the Codification stage.
When the young Gobind Rai is given the reins of the Sikh Sangat, he is tasked with leading a people who are both unsure of who they are and have just undergone a direct “confrontation with the Mughal state”98 resulting in the murder of their (presumptive) leader. The time has come to reformulate the original Proposal, and build upon the organic momentum his father laid to convince a “larger fraction”99 of the Sangat that the “higher law has outlived its time and needs a self-conscious reconstruction for a new age.”100
In the second part to this installment, it will be shown how Guru Gobind Singh guides the Sikh Sangat through the Deliberation and Codification of the Khalsa’s constitutional moment that has spent “decades, generations, trying to mobilize a deep and broad movement.”101 As Grewal put it, “The institution of the Khalsa was his well-considered response”102 to the conditions of the Sangat in the late seventeenth century. And as we will see in the second half of this piece, what was especially important is the process that resulted in the Khalsa, a process that we will then see replicated during other constitutional moments in the Khalsa’s later history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ackerman, Bruce. We the People: Foundations Vol. 1 3 vols. Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1993.
Bobbitt, Phillip. Constitutional Fate : Theory of the Constitution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Fenech, Louis E. “Martyrdom and the Execution of Guru Arjan in Early Sikh Sources.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 2001): 20-31.
Grewal, J.S. Guru Gobind Singh [1666-1708] : Master of the White Hawk. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Linenthal, Edward Tabor. Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields. University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Mirza-Goraya, Sial. Evolution of the Sikh Polity. Substack, Oct 10, 2020.
Mirza-Goraya, Sial. Sangat and Society — The Sikh Remaking of the North Indian Public Sphere. Medium, Dec. 20 2019. https://sialmirzagoraya.medium.com/sangat-and-society-the-sikh-remaking-of-the-north-indian-public-sphere-c655ad7c72fa
Scalia, Antonin. “Common-Law Courts in a Civil Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts.” In Interpreting the Constitution and Laws in A Matter of Intepretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton University Press, 1995.
Sidgwick, Henry. The Elements of Politics. 2d ed. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897.
Singh, Bhagat. Gurbilas Patshahi—6 (Punjabi) ed. Dr. Gurmukh Singh. Patiala: Punjab University Publication Bureau, 1997.
Singh, Fauja and Gurbachan Singh Talib. Guru Tegh Bahadur: Martyr and Teacher. 2d ed. Patiala: Punjab University Publication Bureau, 1996.
Singh, Ganda. Hukamname: Guru Sahibaan, Mata Sahibaan, Banda Singh Ate Khalsa Ji De (Punjabi)/ Patiala: Punjab University Publication Bureau, 1999.
Singh, Piar. Guru Nanak’s Siddha Goshti. Amritsar: Guru Nanak Dev University Press, 1996.
Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 4th ed. Vol. 1 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1878. (originally published 1833).
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Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 215 fn.3 (4th ed. 1878) (originally published 1833).
Id. at 217.
This piece will assume some basic understandings of Sikh history and philosophy. For a succinct primer on both, I direct the reader toward Sial Mirza-Goraya’s 2020 essay “Evolution of the Sikh Polity,” particularly the following,
“So, as, one does not need to travel to holy places to purify one's soul, for, by traveling across the gulf of ignorance, by contemplating on the Guru's shabad, as the knowledge of Oneness becomes manifest in the mind, the mind itself becomes self-capable of redeeming itself - tirath naava je tis bhava.
From this follows an idea of self rule, or rule over the self, or swa-raja. From self rule over the mind, comes the self rule of the body, and when a community of such self-ruled minds and bodies come together, they create a body politic of the eternally free and unbound (cakravartini).
This was the Khalsa Sikh body politic, the foundations of which were laid in Kartarpur and which reached its teleological evolution in Anandpur.”
I find Sial’s observation to be as correct as I did when I first read it, and I expect many other Sikhs intuitively will as well—the observation being the natural continuity from the beginnings of Sikh philosophy with Guru Nanak to its physical culmination in the creation of the Khalsa at Anandpur.
This two-part installment will be an attempt to explain in greater detail the “teleological evolution” referred to by Sial through the lens of American constitutional theory. It will be an incomplete endeavor, and I invite others to comment on, respond to, and develop these ideas.
Id. at 218 (emphasis in original).
Id. (emphasis in original).
Id. (emphasis in original).
Phillip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate : Theory of the Constitution 94 (1984) (emphasis in original).
Edward Tabor Linenthal, Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields 23 (1991).
Bobbitt, supra note 7 at 94.
I William Stubbs, A Constitutional History of England 1 (1874).
Id.
Id. at 2.
Id. at 35.
Bobbitt, supra note 7 at 95.
Henry Sidgwick, The Elements of Politics 224 (1897).
Stubbs, supra note 10 at 1.
Id.
Antonin Scalia, Common-Law Courts in a Civil Law System: The Role of United States Federal Courts in Interpreting the Constitution and Laws in A Matter of Intepretation: Federal Courts and the Law 38 (1995).
Id. at 47. (The Nineteenth Amendment extended the franchise to women, reading, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”)
The Article V process is essentially that a two-thirds majority of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives may propose amendments, or two-thirds of the legislatures of the states in the Union, can call a convention in which amendments are proposed, after which the amendment is submitted for vote to the legislatures or conventions of the States and must be assented to by three-fourths of the states in the Union. See U.S. Const. Art. V.
I Bruce Ackerman, We the People: Foundations 6 (1993).
Id.
Scalia, supra note 18 at 38.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 267.
Id. at 266.
Id. at 267.
Id. at 268.
Id. at 266.
Id. at 267.
Id. at 268.
Id. at 266.
Id. at 267.
Id.
Id. at 268.
Id. at 267.
Id. at 268.
J.S. Grewal, Guru Gobind Singh [1666-1708] : Master of the White Hawk 128 (2019) (citing the Chaupa Singh Rehitnama p. 84-5, as published by W.H. Mcleod (1987)).
Id. at 133-34 (citing Koer Singh’s Gurbilas Patshahi 10 (1751) and Bhai Svarup Singh Kaushish’s Guru Kian Sakhian (1790)).
Id.
Story, supra note 1 at 3.
Id.
Id. at 21.
Vaaran Bhai Gurdas, Vaar 1 Pauri 23.
Note its mention in later texts such as Bhai Rattan Singh Bhangu’s 1843 Sri Gur Panth Parkash as distinguished from the khande ki pahul Guru Gobind Singh establishes (ਯਹ ਚਰਣ ਪਹੁਲ ਹੈ ਸ਼ਾਂਤ ਸਰੂਪ । ਤੇਜ ਨਾਹਿ ਯਹਿ ਮਾਂਹਿ ਅਨੂਪ । “This Charan Pahul is one of docile peace, and as such the Sikhs are not a commanding people”).
Vaar 1, Pauri 21.
Vaar 1, Pauri 22.
Vaar 11, Pauri 3.
Sial Mirza-Goraya, Sangat and Society — The Sikh Remaking of the North Indian Public Sphere (Medium.com, Dec. 20 2019). https://sialmirzagoraya.medium.com/sangat-and-society-the-sikh-remaking-of-the-north-indian-public-sphere-c655ad7c72fa
Id.
Id.
Vaar 11, Pauri 26.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 127.
Id.
Vaar 11 Pauri 22.
Mirza-Goraya, supra note 48.
Wheeler M. Thackston, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India 59 (1999).
Piar Singh, Guru Nanak’s Siddha Gosht 18 (1996).
Ang 942.
Ang 943.
Louis E. Fenech, Martyrdom and the Execution of Guru Arjan in Early Sikh Sources, 121 J. Amer. Oriental Soc. 20, 21 (Jan.-Mar. 2001).
See here for a full discussion of the debate around what led to Guru Arjan’s murder:
Vaar 1, Pauri 48.
Bhagat Singh, Gurbilas Patshahi—6 (Punjabi) 3 (ed. Dr. Gurmukh Singh, 1997).
Id. at 246.
Id. at 246.
Id. at 249.
Id. at 249-50.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 282.
Id. at 283.
Id. at 281.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 50.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 280.
Bhagat Singh, supra note 63 at 250.
Id. at 251.
Ganda Singh, Hukamname: Guru Sahibaan, Mata Sahibaan, Banda Singh Ate Khalsa Ji De (Punjabi) 66-67 (1999).
Grewal, supra note 37 at 145.
Id. (emphasis added).
Id. at 50.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 277-78.
Id. at 272.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 145.
Fauja Singh & Gurbachan Singh Talib, Guru Tegh Bahadur: Martyr and Teacher 7 (2nd ed. 1996).
As the story goes, before passing, the Guru Harkrishan is said to have uttered the words “Baba Bakala” to indicate his successor. But because Bakala is simply the name of the town, and “Baba” simply signified the next Guru’s title, it was unclear who exactly Guru Harkrishan meant to nominate. As a result, there were many who clamored to Bakala, claiming the Guruship. Guru Tegh Bahadur would eventually be installed, and the legend of one Makhan Shah Lubana arriving in Bakala claiming the Guru had saved him at sea would add to the legitimacy of the investiture. For a full discussion, see Chapter Three: Tegh Bahadur the Guru in Singh & Talib, supra note 82 at 20-28 (1996) (citing the Bhatt Vahis).
Id. at 25-26.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 55.
Id.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 281.
Id. at 276.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 53.
Id.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 274.
Id. at 283.
Id. at 283.
Id. at 283.
Singh & Talib, supra note 82 at 79.
See generally id. at 73-80.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 6.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 55.
Ackerman, supra note 21 at 286.
Id. at 287.
Id. at 283-84.
Grewal, supra note 37 at 55.
Wow! Look forward to finishing this in full. I'm still wrestling with whether or not the Khalsa could be classed as a Nation. Feel like this will be valuable in helping me make up my mind 🙏