The history of Sikhs has been one human rights violations. Guru Nanak, the First Guru, was imprisoned by Babar, the first Mughal to invade India. Guru Nanak writes about the barbarity of the invasion in which innocent civilians were tortured, women raped and disgraced, their hair cut off; whole families were starved and their homes razed to the ground. The terror was so great that Guru Nanak complained to God in this way:
There was such terror and countless cruel beatingsThe Fifth Guru, Arjan, and the Ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, were subjected to grievous violation of their human rights when they tried to safeguard their own religious freedom and that of others. The Ninth Guru gave up his life so that the Hindu community could maintain its religious practices in a state that through terrorism tried to convert non-Muslims to Islam. Guru Tegh Bahadur is described in Sikh and Hindu writings as the protective sheet or wrap of India. His wife also suffered and his two grandsons aged seven and nine (the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh) were bricked up alive by the Mughal administrator. All these events took place in the seventeenth century.
Did you not feel pain O Lord?
In the eighteenth century there were over a dozen invasions of Punjab by Afghans and Persians, the main invaders being Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali. There were two major holocausts, referred to as Ghalugharas in Sikh history. Mir Mannu, the area administrator, was cruel and tyrannical. During his period, even babies and toddlers were killed, their bodies chopped to pieces and garlands of the dismembered bodies put around their mothers' necks. These mothers were denied food and forced to grind about one hundred pounds of corn on hand-held grinding stones. District officers offered rewards to those who captured male Sikhs alive or brought their severed heads .The Sikhs kept their spirits up by singing:
Mannu is the scythe and we are his weedsBy the end of the eighteenth century the Sikhs were able to carve out their own kingdoms in the Punjab; the most famous kingdom was the one in Lahore under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab. His successors lost out to the British Colonial Rule in India in 1849 and his young son was taken away to be converted to the Christian faith and later brought to England. There were many abuses of Sikhs' human rights under the rule of the British. Sikhs were sent into exile, blown off in a canon, participants in peaceful processions, undertaken to demand emancipation for the Gurdwaras and the right to Akhand Path, were beaten up.
The more he mows us the more we grow.
Most people are conversant with the invasion in 1984 of the most sacred shrine of the Sikhs, when many were killed. Families in Punjab, Delhi and other parts of India had much to suffer in its aftermath, particularly after Indira Gandhi's assassination. Many men, especially the young ones, were imprisoned or lost their lives (their bodies have never been found) and young women were raped. Many families are still grieving and there are numerous widows with traumatized children.
Sikh belief in human rights is very profound. It begins with Guru Nanak's teaching that we are all children of one parent (God) (Ek Pita Ekas ke hum barik). God's light, God's spirit, is in all of us and we should endeavor to find it within us. Therefore, it is vital to affirm the integrity of the human person. Everybody has the right to practice their own faith. The Ninth Guru's sacrifice is a continuous reminder that practicing one's faith is a sacred right and there should be no conversions by force and no atrocities in the name of religion.
God has put human beings in charge of the earth and has given them a responsibility to care for other forms of life. We are not to mistreat other creatures nor squander the earth's riches; we are but God's trustees of the diversity of creation.
I firmly believe that human rights can be grounded in religious affirmations. I consider myself fortunate that I had the opportunity to contribute to the book, Testing the Global Ethic, edited by Marcus Braybrooke and Peggy Morgan in 1998; it encapsulates voices from world religions on moral values. Global ethics are about human rights in their broadest moral, social, spiritual and political sense, and it is necessary for faith communities to demonstrate these values in their individual lives and in the community.
It is essential that those who are unable to protect themselves be given protection, because "the human life form is a precious life form." The Sikh Gurus instilled this belief in their disciples and it continues to inspire Sikhs to work for equality and justice.
Charanjit AjitSingh, a Sikh, is a lecturer and writer on Sikhism.