To most people of my generation (born in the early 1980s), the mention of Khushwant Singh’s name brings a snigger on the face. “That lusty, lecherous Sardar, who drinks his single malt daily and ogles at women. His books on sex read like soft porn. Still, I like his ‘Santa-Banta’ joke books.” Ah! Yes. What better to expect from a 'surd' than comic relief.
But to me, Khushwant is much more than just an idiotic Santa-Banta latifa or a kinky sex story. He is a part of childhood memory. I owe to him, the deep love and abiding interest in the history of the Punjab region and particularly, the Sikh faith that I have imbibed over the years, after reading his works.
I still remember the time when my father bought me Khushwant’s seminal work, ‘A History of the Sikhs’ in two volumes.
I read, and was instantly bowled over. One must remember that the Punjabi identity only came about in the Middle Ages, in sharp contrast to, say, the Tamil identity, which is much, much older. The word ‘Punjab’, Persian for ‘five waters’, was coined during the Delhi Sultanate Era. Before that, the region featured in the Indus Valley Civilisation, the Vedic Era and saw various invaders and rulers (Mauryas, Greeks, Kushans, Guptas, Ghaznavids and Ghorids). But the people of the region began to identify themselves as Punjabis only in during the Sultanate period, which strengthened during the Mughal empire.
Khushwant’s work informed me that as the Punjabi identity coalesced during the High Middle Ages, with strict Hindu and Muslim sub-identities, the birth of Guru Nanak in 1469 heralded a watershed of sorts in the history of the province. In the centuries that would follow, the movement that Nanak and his successors would start, would have a profound impact on the Punjab, even of India.
In ‘History…’, I learnt about Nanak and the gurus who followed him, how they challenged the caste and religious divisions of the period, how they tackled the ills pervading the region, and finally, what was their interaction like with the leading power of the day, the Mughals.
Besides the Sikh Gurus and their families and followers, I learnt about Banda Bahadur, the Sikh Misls, the Sikh Confederacy, the raids of Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali and finally, the reign of the one-eyed Lion of The Punjab, Ranjit Singh.
I also got to know about how the advancing British annexed Punjab from Ranjit Singh’s successors, life in British Punjab, the various religious movements of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus and the friction between them.
There were chapters on how the gathering movement for Pakistan affected the Punjab and especially the Sikhs, the horrible Partition that followed, the struggle of Hindu and Sikh refugees to build their lives in independent India, the feelings of discrimination among Sikhs, their acrimonious relationship with Punjabi Hindus and the eventual Khalistan Movement, which nearly destroyed Punjab.
Khushwant’s prosaic style was high on clarity. Thoroughly researched, his writing could hold my attention for hours as I glossed over the history of my homeland and its people.
Besides, ‘History…’, Khushwant wrote many other works on Punjabi and Sikh history, politics and culture, based on his deep research from Gurmukhi, Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit sources.
The greatest paradox about Khushwant was that despite his mammoth works on the Sikh religion, he was himself an agnostic. Agnosticism is anathema for a Sikh, for whom faith in God is paramount. The ‘Mool Mantar’ of the ‘Japji Sahib’, the great morning prayer of the Sikhs, itself makes that clear:
"Ik onkaar satnam kartaa purakh nirabho niravair akaal moorat ajooni saibhan gur prasad."
Translation:
“One Creator, Truth is His name, He is the Creator, Beyond Fear, Beyond Hatred, Beyond Death and Time, Unborn, Self-Illuminated, the Guru's Grace.”
Khushwant’s attitudes towards God the Creator though, were best expressed in his own epitaph which he wrote at 28:
‘Here lies one who spared neither man nor God; Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod; Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun; Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”
Despite his agnosticism, Khushwant was proud (and sensitive) about his Sikh identity. He kept the external symbols of the Khalsa and was a Kesadhari Sikh to his dying day. In the aftermath of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Khushwant likened the anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi to the Kristallnacht of 1938 and very rightly likened himself to a Jew in Nazi Germany.
It was his consciousness of being a Sikh that caused Khushwant to return the Padma Bhushan in the wake of Operation Bluestar.
The other great attribute of Khushwant was belief in Punjabiyat. The concept of Punjabiyat is similar to that of the ‘Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb’. It calls for respecting the Punjab’s rich, syncretic and composite culture and traditions, irrespective of religious identity.
Khushwant was a true Punjabi. In spite of having suffered personally during Partition, he was never embittered for the rest of his life. As admired and loved in Pakistan as in India, his house in Sujan Singh Park constantly played host to streams of visitors from Pakistan. Indeed, the hilarious conspiracy theory floated about Khushwant was that he was an ISI agent living in the heart of the Indian capital. One remembers the incident of him planting a peck on the cheek of Pakistani High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi’s daughter in Delhi and the storm that it created among clerics in Pakistan.
Another fitting example of Khushwant’s Punjabiyat was the stand he took during the days of the Punjab insurgency against Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He openly spoke out against the speeches and activities of the Sant and expressed solidarity with the Hindus of Punjab for the treatment they were being meted out by Bhindranwale’s men and other Sikh fundamentalist groups. This made him a hate figure in the eyes of Bhindranwale and Khalistan supporters in the global Sikh diaspora. Among the items displayed on his mantelpiece was a letter by a diaspora Sikh, addressed to: “Khushwant Singh, Ba*****, India”, which Khushwant would proudly showcase to his guests.
In Khushwant Singh’s passing, Sikhism, Punjab and India have lost a great scholar, historian, theologian and author. It is an immeasurable loss, one which would not be overcome for a long time.
I am reminded of the immortal lines that the Tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh, wrote in his 'Bichitra Natak' about the martyrdom of his father, the Ninth Master, Guru Teg Bahadur:
“Teg Bahadar kae chalat bhayo jagat ko sok,
Hai hai hai sabh jag bhayo jai jai jai sur lok.”
Translation:
“The world was drowned in an ocean of sorrow when Teg Bahadur departed.
The whole world raised an uproar of lamentation whereas the gods in heaven greeted him with shouts of victory.”
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, these lines aptly sum up my feelings today on the passing of Panth and Punjab Rattan, Khushwant Singh.
