The Nirankari Sikhs

John C.B. Webster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138317239
• eBook ISBN: 9780429842931
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This is a new edition of Dr. Webster's, The Nirankari Sikhs (1979), which has been recognized as 'single most important work on the history of Baba Dayal and his successors'. It updates the earlier edition not only by dealing with the past forty years of Nirankari history but also by taking into account subsequent scholarship on the history of Sikhism, especially during the first half of the nineteenth century. Further, it also provides two additional primary sources of nineteenth century Nirankari history along with the nine included in the earlier edition.
This new edition will be of value not only to those scholars interested in Nirankari history but also to those seeking a fuller understanding of the evolution of Sikh identity since the nineteenth century. Sikh identity has been a major issue for Nirankaris in recent decades because they have been confused with the Sant Nirankari Mandal which makes no claims to a Sikh identity. Nirankaris, like other Sikhs, base their beliefs and practices upon the Guru Granth Sahib and revere the ten Sikh gurus. For this reason they view themselves, and are considered by other Sikhs, to be minority group within Sikhism. They are distinguished from other Sikhs, most obviously in not fully embracing the Khalsa tradition of the Sikhs and in having a continuing hereditary line of human gurus. How such similarities and differences have affected their own, and the very nature of, Sikh identity over the past two centuries is an important part of this history.

Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

IT HAS LONG been customary for historians of the Sikhs and of Sikhism, who cover the nineteenth century and aim at a fair degree of comprehensiveness, to include a description of the Nirankaris in their histories. This group of Sikhs, who have laid special emphasis upon the nature of God as formless (nirankar), originated at Rawalpindi, Punjab, in the nineteenth century under the influence and guidance of Baba Dayal. This book seeks to provide a more thorough-going and updated account of their history than can be found in other briefer treatments of that history.

There has been a long-standing dominant narrative of Nirankari Sikh history subsumed under the heading, ‘the Nirankari movement’. This narrative may be summarized briefly. Sikhism as a religion had fallen into decline during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1799–1839). Although a Sikh himself, Ranjit Singh as a ruler not only patronized other religions but also employed Brahmins to perform religious rites for him. In this state of decline Baba Dayal took steps to bring Sikhs out from under Brahmin influence by developing rites for the life-cycle events of birth, betrothal, marriage and death that both accorded with the teachings of the Sikh gurus and were socially progressive in nature. In so doing, he and his successors set in motion a wider reform movement within Sikhism which became very visible in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This Nirankari movement came to a climax when the Anand Marriage Act was passed in 1909 because that made what was basically the Nirankari marriage ceremony not merely legal but normative for all Sikhs as well. What happened to the Nirankari Sikhs afterwards has been largely ignored because they ceased to have any impact upon the course of Sikh history from that time onward.

This dominant narrative of the ‘golden age’ of Nirankari history originated in the twentieth century when Sikh identity was becoming a major issue in the nationalist and communal politics of the Punjab that led to Independence and Partition in 1947. It was based on traditions concerning the Nirankaris’ ‘foundation period’ which had been handed down to them and then supplemented by non-Nirankari sources from the nineteenth century. The narrative did not appear in full form all at once, but evolved over time so that by the 1970s it had become quite fixed and generally accepted.

The first edition of this book, published in 1979, was not designed to undermine that narrative but to write Nirankari Sikh history using a different methodology. Instead of combining the traditions with the primary sources produced in the nineteenth century, it separated them and then based the nineteenth century history solely on the sources produced at that time. Writing down the traditions thus became part of twentieth century Nirankari history. This procedure was adopted because it was considered to be more appropriate from an scholarly point of view. Oral traditions recorded later in time are apt to be less reliable than primary sources produced closer in time and space to the events being described. Moreover, by separating primary from later sources, this procedure gives enhanced importance to the period in which those traditions were recorded and published, because that in itself was a significant development in Nirankari history. This edition follows the same procedure with one notable exception. Recent research in Sikh history has provided a clearer picture of Sikhism during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s reign than was available when the first edition came out. Some of that research is included here in order to set the work of Baba Dayal and his successors in its historical context.

The nineteenth century sources of Nirankari history may conveniently be divided into three categories. The first consists of missionary sources produced between 1853 and 1861. These are, with one exception, the earliest sources of Nirankari history available. The second category includes those sources later produced by the government for its own use and for the public record. The third consists of Nirankari sources. In moving from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, one finds no further missionary or government sources, but the number of Nirankari sources increases and occasional references to the Nirankaris do appear in non-Nirankari (usually Sikh) sources as well. For more recent times, interviews and participant observations have been added to written sources.

The missionary sources concerning the Nirankaris were produced by members of the Lodiana Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the USA Members of this mission posted in Lahore learned of the Nirankaris in Rawalpindi and of Nirankari interest in Christian books and teachers. As a result the Rev. J.H. Morrison visited them in 1853. A detailed account of this visit, including his meeting with Baba Dayal, is given in his journal dated ‘Lahor, October 18th, 1853’ (Appendix A). A few months later the Rev. Charles W. Forman also paid them a visit and the excerpt from his journal covering that visit appears in Appendix B. A more condensed account appeared in the Annual Report of the Lodiana Mission for 1853–54 (Appendix C). By 1861 the Lodiana Mission had established a mission station at Rawalpindi and the Rev. J.H. Orbison, who was posted there, sent a report on the city and its inhabitants to Mission headquarters in New York City. The portion of that report describing the Nirankaris is found in Appendix D.

Some information on these missionary observers may prove useful in assessing the value of the records they provided. The Rev. John Hunter Morrison (1806–81) was born in New York State and graduated from both Princeton College (1834) and Princeton Theological Seminary (1837). He went to India in 1837 and was stationed in a number of north Indian cities between then and his death in 1881. As both the tone of his report on the Nirankaris and his description of his own behaviour during the course of that sojourn indicate, he was probably the most aggressive and combative member of the Lodiana Mission. His assessments of motives and character in this and other writings are highly judgemental and cannot be trusted; he seems to have accepted as true those reports that fit into his own extremely negative assessment of the Indian character. However, when allowance is made for the strong value judgements found in his report of his conversations with the Nirankaris, Morrison still provides a lot of useful details about basic Nirankari beliefs, about some of their practices, and about their strained relations with local Hindus.

The Rev. Charles William Forman (1821–94) was born in Kentucky and graduated from Centre College (1844) and Princeton Theological Seminary (1847). He was primarily an educational rather than evangelistic missionary posted in Lahore throughout a long and distinguished career. (He was the founder of what became, after his death and in his honour, Forman Christian College in Lahore.) His largely descriptive account indicates that he was more interested in understanding than in debating Baba Dayal. This tone, rather than Morrison’s, was carried over into the description of the Nirankaris (author unknown) presented in the Mission’s annual report.

The Rev. James Henry Orbison (1826–69) was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Jefferson College (1846) as well as Princeton Theological Seminary (1850). He served as a missionary in both Ambala and Rawalpindi during his years in India (1850–69) and, unlike Morrison, was an opponent of religious controversy.¹ His account appears to be based on observation of, rather than on arguments with, the Nirankaris. Its value lies in the abundance of descriptive detail it offers concerning the Nirankari dharamshala and Nirankari worship.

Turning to the second category of sources, the earliest government sources of Nirankari history are found in the 1881 and 1891 census, both of which provide statements about the Nirankaris (Appendices E & F). Subsequent census reports give no further information about them but simply record the number of adherents. Bingley’s description of them in his handbook on the Sikhs written in 1899 for the Indian army is clearly based on those census reports, but he did add that ‘Besides the usual Sikh places of Pilgrimage the Nirankaris look with special reverence upon a pool in the Park at Rawalpindi to which they have given the name of Amritsar’.² The Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province (1914) also gives a brief account of the Nirankaris which was also quite obviously based explicitly on the statements in the 1881 and 1891 census reports, but did add a few additional details (Appendix G).

The accounts of the Nirankaris found in these government sources are very brief and rather general in nature. They lack dateable historical facts, do not discuss internal developments among the Nirankaris, and add little to what can be learned from the earlier missionary sources. While this might suggest that the Nirankaris underwent few if any changes during the course of the nineteenth century, it might also mean that government information was not being updated. For example, the Glossary (1914) made no mention of Baba Gurdit Singh, who succeeded Sahib Rattaji in 1909. For this reason it would be helpful to know how the government went about gathering its information on the Nirankaris, so that it could be used with greater confidence. The assumption here is that the information government sources provide is generally accurate, being based in all likelihood upon observation and interviews, most probably by census-takers who gathered data for the 1881 and 1891 census. The same reliability cannot be attributed to their quantitative data on the number of Nirankaris, as will be pointed out later.

So far only five Nirankari sources dating from the nineteenth century (pre-World War I) have been located. The first and by far the most important of these is a Hukamnama (a set of orders or directions) several copies, but not the original, of which are extant and available at the Nirankari Darbar in Chandigarh (Appendix H). One of these copies is signed by Sahib Rattaji, the son and second successor of Baba Dayal, but contains no date. Another was made by one Pingledas in Bikrami 1941 (ad 1884) and is unsigned. There is a reference to the original being signed by Baba Darbara Singh, the son and first successor of Baba Dayal, and written down by Bhai Rup Singh in 1856.³ It is difficult to say whether or not this reference is accurate, but there is also no reason to rule it out. The second Nirankari source (Appendix I), also available in the original at the Nirankari Darbar in Chandigarh, is another Hukamnama dated Bikrami 1930 (ad 1873) by Sahib Rattaji addressed to some of his Nirankari biredars (those in charge of Nirankari centres) to implement Baba Darbara Singh’s Hukamnama. This most probably was issued at that time and certainly no later than 1884, the date of the Pingledas copy of the earlier Hukamnama. Taken together, these two sources provide invaluable insights into the central concerns, rationale and organization of the Nirankaris during their formative years together.

The third Nirankari source is the will of Sahib Rattaji dated 1960 Bikrami (ad 1903) from which inferences about the state of the Nirankaris at that time can be drawn (Appendix J). Bhai Kahn Singh’s⁴ Prem Prakash, a fourth source, is a eulogy in poetic form delivered on the occasion of the first death anniversary of Sahib Rattaji. Finally, there are two letters and a telegram sent by Baba Hara Singh and Baba Gurdit Singh to the Government of India in support of the Anand Marriage Bill (Appendix K). In addition to these written sources, there are flags (Nishan Sahib), ornaments, a canopy, and other such objects dating back to the times of Sahib Rattaji and, in a few instances, Baba Darbara Singh.

The number of Nirankari sources increased greatly during the twentieth century as Nirankaris became involved in writing and publishing. During the 1920s and 1930s they produced a series of tracts which enabled readers to understand developments in the Nirankari tradition. Of special importance were their attempts to recover from the companions of the early leaders as much information about them as possible. Meanwhile, information about the Nirankaris from outside sources seems to have diminished; references to them appear to have been few and are difficult to locate. Accounts of the Nirankaris found in histories of the Sikhs published prior to the first edition of this book tend to follow the dominant narrative developed by the Nirankaris instead of relying on independent research on primary sources and observation.

Both the nature and quantity of the available source material is revealing in its own right. They give the impression that the Nirankaris have been a small, non-aggressive, basically religious (rather than political or social change-oriented) Sikh body. Unlike the Namdharis (Kukas), they never got into trouble with the government and, unlike the Singh Sabhas, neither launched a major publication programme nor established institutions. In addition, they do not appear to have been either numerous enough or ‘heretical’ enough to cause alarm or stimulate much controversy within the wider Sikh community.

This brief survey of the source materials also begs a second question implicit in the dominant narrative described earlier. That narrative depicts at least nineteenth century Nirankari history as a reform movement within Sikhism, but this survey suggests that the term, ‘movement’, may not be appropriate. A social movement has been defined as a collective attempt to bring about change in certain social institutions or to create an entirely new social order⁵ and as ‘socially shared demands for change in some aspect of the social order’.⁶ These definitions would imply that a movement (1) involves collective ef...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Nineteenth Century
• 3. The Consolidation of Tradition, 1909–1947
• 4. Relocation, 1947–1976
• 5. The Nirankaris Today
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Index