The Gurpurab of Guru Nanak: A critique of modern Sikh practice
A translation of Nanak Singh's excerpt on the birthday of Guru Nanak as a critique of the SGPC and Sikh institutions, modern artwork and parchar.
Foreword: Nanak Singh was one of the foremost Punjabi writers and poets of the 20th century, his works have received much critical acclaim. This is inspired by a Gurpurab celebration he witnessed on the 10th November 1954; excerpt from Meri Duniya, Nanak Singh, p. 271-276
The day of birth of the Jagat Guru
Being a humble devotee of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji, I always have the desire to attend the celebrations of the birthday of Guru Nanak, but to my disappointment, I always end up feeling a strong sense of sadness whenever that day comes. From my side I always anticipate that day with hopeful enthusiasm and positivity, but whenever I return back from it my heart feels heavy and overcome by sadness. What is the reason one may ask? I struggle to find what I conceptualise at every opportunity and my quest always ends in disappointment; as what I do end up finding is always what I do not wish to partake in. Perhaps this is the reason why whenever I have written about celebrations of religious nature, it is something that reeks of lack of enthusiasm and willingness. This year too, I am forced by my feelings to write something similar.
This year, Sunday 10 November, this auspicious occasion came, and it went by. And this year too, like always, I witnessed the celebration of this occasion, and returned saddened after seeing it. I left my residence motivated by the desire to hear about the spiritually motivating universal message in regards to my Spiritual father, but from nowhere did I succeed to find anything that satisfied my inner spirit. I felt especially hurt in my heart every time I had to hear half-baked lectures from non genuine preachers, whose main emphasis was to highlight and limit Guru Nanak to supposed miracles attributed to His person. It may just be that in these people’s eyes, describing the greatness that a manifestation of the divine can hold means merely extolling the magnitude of magical powers they displayed or repeating common anecdotes associated with them
I saw the lustre of the crowds at the Nagar Kirtan as well. If on one side kirtan was being performed, on the other side one could also hear the earth shaking with the sound of slogans of ‘We will only rest once we receive Punjabi Suba’ that were being raised under the shadows of naked sabres.
I also saw the glorious decorations of the bazaars. The aesthetic-ness of flags and banners and the elaborate decorations that were arranged in a beautiful manner on the big doors of various bazaars, on which one could see massive portraits of Guru Nanak.
Everything was beautiful, glorious, and a signifier of the celebration and enthusiasm of a great saint’s day of birth. But from all this, if one thing that I sensed that was lacking was a display of Guru Nanak’s spiritual vision. The chief cause of my discontent was the fact that I only saw Sikhs celebrating this day. From within myself this doubt kept arising- this cannot be the birth day of the Guru of the World. This is not even a celebration of the Guru of Punjab, but merely one of the Guru of a handful of Sikhs. If this was to be considered the day of the birth of the Guru of the World then this day would have included celebrations of crowds in the dev-mandirs, why would there not be people in the mosques or glorious decorations in the churches. Is Guru Nanak not of the non-Sikhs as much as of Sikhs? Were Guru Nanak’s teachings intended just for one community or religion? Or just for a country or state (Suba)?
My own heart gave a reply to my own doubt- But what is the fault of the Sikhs when non-Sikhs do not admire Guru Nanak in the same way- do Sikhs even bar anyone from participating in celebration of Guru Nanak’s Gurpurab?
But the truth is that I failed to convince myself with this answer to my doubt. I kept thinking- the fault is of Sikhs, definitely, who have taken Guru Nanak in their own guard, who do not consider any man a Sikh of Guru Nanak if he does not look like them when it comes to facial appearance. And perhaps this is why hundreds of thousands of Sahajdhari Sikhs, have been broken away from Sikhi and have become non-Sikhs.
I was suddenly reminded of an age old memory when I went to Panja Sahib once during the mela of Vaisakhi. I think this might be before the Akali Movement’s beginning. What I saw there, I cannot ever forget. From greeting the pilgrims to feeding the langar, for all these duties I saw around 70 to 80% Sahajdhari Sikhs selflessly serving everyone.
In the same way I remember an occasion, when Sant Attar Singh visited Rawalpindi for parchar. The gathering I am referring definitely had around 20,000 people in attendance and in it more than half were non-Kesdharis.
Peshawar, where I spent all my childhood, and the formative years of my adult life, the connection of Kesdharis and non-Kesdharis was even deeper. Back then only two Gurpurabs were celebrated annually- Guru Nanak’s and Guru Gobind Singh’s. The Sahajdharis of there being the majority of Sikhs, and Kesdharis being the minority; the former always argued that the organisation of the celebrations of both Gurpurabs should be in their hands. But the second group would not give in on their right. In the end, it was decided that the Kesdharis would celebrate the Gurpurab of Guru Nanak and the Sahajdharis would organise Guru Gobind Singh’s. I witnessed both sides adhering to this agreement for 15 years in a row. Every side would do their best to celebrate the celebrations in an even greater way than the other. From what I can recall the leader of the Sahajdhari group were Lala Harji Mal, Lala Lurinda Mal, Lala Karam Chand Khanna (Lala Mohar Chand Khanna’s father) and others. And in those celebrations there was the inclusion of Muslims and Christians as well.
In those days it would truly feel that this was the occasion of coming of the Guru of the World. But in comparison what I am seeing today, it is as if a section of Kesdhari Sikhs have appropriated the ‘Guru of the World’ and copyrighted Him as their own.
Let us accept, for a moment, that Guru Nanak belongs to just a handful of Sikhs, or that only Sikhs are his true inheritors. The most shameful and saddening fact is that even those said inheritors have not fulfilled the role that befits an inheritor. The celebration of Guru Nanak’s Gurpurab for them is a mere formality, a competition of kirtan jathas or a tool to spread political propaganda, nothing else. How could it ever be possible that slogans of ‘We will only rest once we receive Punjabi Suba’ be raised on the day of birth of a divine prophet. This occurrence is not merely foolish but laughable and a joke. The main object for Sikhs on Guru Nanak’s blessed day of birth seems to be not strengthening their belief in Sikhi or spiritual introspective meditation, not even the welfare of all (Sarbat da Bhala); just ‘Punjabi Suba’.
Then these nominal inheritors have proven their miraculous incapability in fulfilling their duties, an example of which is their inability in commissioning an actual worthy portrait for their Formless father; something that upon beholding our eyes could get a glimpse of the real Guru Nanak. Of all the paintings that have been made of Guru Nanak, none have been painted by a brush held by a responsible artist or the result of an institutional project. Their providence are greedy merchants who got paintings made and printed in the ways they wanted, from whoever they wanted.
It brings me tears whenever I glance upon such paintings and get to see the immaculate name of Guru Nanak. There are some paintings, in which you can always see a parrot in a cage on the top. Would the respected Guru be carrying that parrot around when travelling to Kabul and Kandahar or Ghazni and Baghdad? In this way some other absurdities can be seen in these paintings- the beard is such shaped that there is no way any single hair out of its’ round shape. And the turban of the head is so neatly tied as if the Guru was carrying a mirror and a beard brush with him at all times. The face is structured as if the Guru consumed 1.2 to 2 sers of meat a day. Bhai Bala is always seen waving the whisk above the Guru’s head. As if the Guru was so enthused of having the whisk waving over him that he would not let go of it even for an instant. If they are sitting in a jungle it still is on an expensive Persian rug with pillows. In some paintings the Gurus attire is depicted so expensive that one may be confused that it is the portrait of some Nawab or Mahant.
How shocking it is that till now we have not been able to access any depictions of Guru Nanak that make us envision and imagine the ‘Jagat Guru’? Is our country facing a shortage of good painters? Great artists, who with the miracle of their talent can depict and present the intrinsic characteristics of godly beings, exist in abundance even today. But the bigger question is that who will lead them to this path? Those who claim despotic ownership over Guru Nanak have millions to spend on political propaganda at their disposal, but when it comes to propagating Guru Nanak’s mission they have nothing.
The parchar of Gurbani has met a similar fate. Nobody is unaware of the disrespect that Gurbani faces in the book publishing markets. Giving in to competition, many shopkeepers demean Gurbani by printing it totally wrong. Even the holy saroop of Guru Granth Sahib, which every Sikh considers as the manifested body of the Gurus, is no less demeaned by these merchants. In the past couple days, a similar story was heard, where two different shopkeepers tried to lure a customer into buying a copy of Guru Granth Sahib and starting fighting with each other, to the point where they were covered in blood. This is the state of the selling market of the holy manuscript copies. I am inclined to ask, is all of this hidden from anyone? If not, then what steps have been taken by Sikh institutions to curb this? The answer would be that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee is the one that oversees the printing and sale of Gurbani and Guru Granth Sahib. There is no doubt that they do so, but in a way that if the average shopkeeper makes a mockery of people’s devotion, then they do so with twice as much offence. Because in the printing of Gutka Sahibs of Gurbani and Guru Granth Sahib they are already privy to underhand dealings so that the printing is done cheaper. Could such a big institution not propagate Gurbani with low cost in Christian missionary fashion, if they so willed? Or is their only aim been reduced to making as much lucrative profits as possible? If that is the truth then what is the SGPC’s difference from the common merchant? Receiving such an important responsibility upon their shoulders, their aim should have to first ensure that the printing business did not relapse into the hands of hereditary industrialists and second to ensure that every common devotee received the Gurus’ message cheaper than the cost for printing it. But what has all this resulted in? Before, it was the mere opportunism of merchants, but now the committee too has given in to this to increase their income.
I am surprised that I am thinking about the purpose of celebrating such a spectral event, if no one will look at it with open eyes.
What makes me the most enraged is the fact that those who claim total ownership of Guru Nanak have not been able to compile an actual biography, to this date. Though one can see many a scholar and intellectuals roaming around among them, if one seeker of truth tries to locate an account of the lifetime of the Jagat Guru they will not be able to find much except the Janamsakhi of Bhai Bala, in which Baba Nanak is portrayed as nothing else that a magician who performs miracles. Like- Baba making the Mecca turn, making destroyed crops green again, closing eyes and manifesting from Kartarpur to Kabul instantly, stopping the mountain thrown at Him by Wali Kandahari with His palm, et cetera. Nobody has ever thought that only linking these miracles will actually minimise the greatness of a great being like Guru Nanak. Guru Nanak is indeed too great, so much so that these laughable fables being attached to His name are mere injustice to His legacy, or unnecessary blind faith.
It is possible that the writing of my above thoughts might generate criticism or my intelligence be laughed at. But in my opinion those who have confined an august personality like Guru Nanak within the bounds of their narrow thoughts, deserve to be actually laughed at and they are unable to achieve anything except murmuring ‘Pidram Sultan Bood’ (My father was a king).
Still, I only wish that Guru Nanak’s inheritors become wiser!