How caste permeated the Sikh community

Sikhism, although a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam, has since its inception denounced the caste system. Yet caste, as a social category, remains predominant among Sikhs. Thirty-nine castes in Punjab are officially listed as Scheduled Castes (SC). According to author Harnik Deol, in Religion and Nationalism in India: The case of Punjab, however, caste among Sikhs has no “doctrinal injunction,” and is merely a “cultural construction.”

This raises some questions: how deeply has a ‘cultural construct’ influenced both public opinion and policy in Punjab? And, to what extent has caste permeated the Sikh community?

Sikhism

Sikhism, founded by Guru Nanak in the fifteenth century, is often considered one of the youngest religions in the world.

After renouncing family life and pursuing asceticism, Guru Nanak took a low-caste Hindu and a Muslim musician as his companions to preach his experience to the masses. Not only did he reject caste distinction, but also the idolatry of Hinduism. For Guru Nanak, writes Deol, “The Supreme Being was formless (nirankar) and reveals itself through its creation.”

Guru Nanak’s successors propagated his message. The fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Dev, built a gurdwara in Amritsar, Sri Harmandir Sahib, also known as Sri Darbar Sahib or Golden Temple. It was designed to have four doors, instead of one, as observed in Hindu temples, to signal that the shrine was open to people from all castes. While Hinduism institutionalised the four-fold Varna and jati system, Sikhism rejected such hierarchies. Sikh Gurus preached anti-caste messages, and Sikh scriptures included writings of saints and poets who were formerly ‘untouchables’ in Hindu society.

By the time of the ninth guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, congregational worship (sangat), eating together (langars), and setting up large-scale pilgrim centres had become common practices which defied brahmanical ritual hierarchy and established Sikhism as distinct from Hinduism. “The rise of Sikhism… was a ‘political revolt’ against the prevailing social order based on hierarchy and humiliation,” writes sociologist and professor Surinder S Jodhka in his journal article Sikh Religion and Contentions around Caste.

Painting showing a langar in the bottom right, c. 19th century (Source: Wikipedia)

Citing the Sikh dictum, Sikh Studies specialist Eleanor Nesbitt in Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction, writes: “A Sikh should be a Brahmin in piety, a Kshatriya in defence of truth and the oppressed, a Vaishya in business acumen and hard work, and a Shudra in serving humanity…”

In an interview with indianexpress.com, Jodhka, however, argues: “Caste is definitely there in Punjab. It’s there among Sikhs, it’s there in Sikh institutions. It is not absent.” Khushwant Singh wrote, “Although… it was closer to Islam than Hinduism, in practice, in ritual, and above all in social affinities, [Sikhism] never quite succeeded in freeing itself of Hindu influence.”

Sikh rule

The Sikhs emerged as a powerful political and military force by the late eighteenth century. By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a Sikh empire with an efficient army was formed under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. However, caste too had a place in the empire.

Portrait of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (Source: Wikipedia)

Deol argues in his book that under Sikh rule, “a body of guru lineages and other holy men — the Sanatan Sikhs” were tasked by the aristocracy and landed classes to perform rituals. This group, unlike the Khalsa Sikhs, not only controlled Sikh shrines but also kept unshorn hair, believed in idol worship and considered the caste system central to the Sikh faith. “Gurudwara priests [mahants] were accused of committing sacrilege by instating Hindu idols in the precincts of the Golden Temple, the premier Sikh shrine,” notes Deol.

Colonial cleaves

In British Punjab (annexed in 1849), caste and religion were employed not just as markers of identity but also as the tools of administration. The ten-yearly census, requiring inhabitants to identify their caste and religion, made Sikhs extremely conscious of their minority status as compared to the Muslim and Hindu communities. The rapidly increasing missionary activity in the region, which successfully ‘converted’ the untouchable castes in Punjab, further triggered anxiety among upper caste Sikhs. The colonial education and employment policies also favoured one section of subjects by labelling them as ‘Martial Races,’ indicating their suitability for the colonial army, while marginalising the others.

The newly introduced British land revenue policies worsened the emerging caste division in Punjab. While agrarian communities, such as the Jats, were given ownership rights of agricultural lands, Dalits, traders, and moneylenders were excluded and classified as non-agriculturalists. The Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900 further prohibited the sale and transfer of land from the agriculturalist castes to non-agriculturalists. “The colonial policies thus worked towards reinforcing the prevailing divisions of castes in Punjabi,” says Jodhka.

The early twentieth century also saw the rise of Sikh reformers who sought to rescue Sikhism from the tyranny of priestly mahants. Not only did they revolt to eliminate mahants from gurdwaras, but they also formed the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in November 1920 to manage the gurdwaras and, a month later, the Akali Dal as its task force.

An image from the Akali Movement, 1922 (Source: Wikipedia)

Notably, Dalits were now granted entry into the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a practice previously restricted under the rule of mahants. “After the formation of SGPC, the reformist leadership made conscious efforts to recruit “low-caste” Sikhs as religious functionaries in the Gurdwaras and perform the duties of pathis, ragis, and sewadars,” writes Jodhka.

Caste amongst Sikhs in independent India

The presence of casteism within the community, however, was publicly acknowledged on the eve of Indian Independence. The Sikh representatives in the committee in charge of drafting a Constitution for independent India insisted that the “untouchable” castes within the Sikhs be included in the list of Scheduled Castes (SCs). This recognition, they argued, would help Sikh untouchables pursue higher education and secure government jobs. The SGPC, too, reserved 20 out of 170 seats for the SC Sikhs.

Several anthropologists conducting fieldwork in Punjab around the mid-twentieth century, cited by Jodhka, found that caste was deeply integrated with the agrarian economy. Tom Kessinger was one such scholar whose 1974 study, Vilyatpur (1848–1968): Social and Economic Change in a North Indian Village, established that the landowning castes of Sahota Jats were the dominant group controlling the village economy and subjugating the tenant, labour, and artisan classes.

Anthropologist IP Singh’s fieldwork (1950), in a village in Amritsar, revealed similar results. He found that the village was divided into two groups: the ‘touchable’ Sardars and the ‘untouchables.’ The latter comprised nearly half the village population, with the ‘Mazhbis’ being ranked the lowest. Singh found that they fetched their drinking water from a separate well, meant exclusively for their use. At marriages and social gatherings of the Sardars, they were made to sit in separate queues. Food, too, was only served to them at the end. “The landowning Jats occasionally visited the houses of their Mazhbi labourers as they needed them for work in their fields. However, they did so as a gesture of patronage,” writes Jodhka. However, on festivals like Lohri and Holi, and at gurdwaras, Singh did not find the observance of untouchability.

The caste landscape of the Sikhs can thus be divided into three broad categories: the Dalits (SCs), the Backwards (OBCs), and the upper castes. Thirty-nine communities are listed as Scheduled Castes, while other groups such as Ramgarhias, Labanas, Kambojs, Jhinwars, and Gujjars are among the 70 communities listed as OBCs, and a majority of whom identify as Sikhs. The third cluster of caste groups, as listed by Jodhka, is the upper castes. The most prominent among these are the Jats, Khatris, and Aroras. “When it comes to questions of institutional power, the ones who have political power, the ones who have economic power, are the Jats,” says Jodhka.

Yet, Jodhka cautions, “Although caste is very much present in Sikhism, one must not conclude that it’s a Brahmanical hierarchy system. There are no Brahmins among Sikhs, and Sikh institutions are proactively anti-exclusion and anti-hierarchy. Sikhism is a non-sectarian religion.”

It is kinship practices, marriage alliances, and electoral politics that characterise contemporary Punjab as a caste-based society. Arranged marriage alliances are in strict accordance with caste norms, and with a few exceptions, chief ministers of Punjab have all been Sikh Jats. WH McLeod, Western historian of Sikhism, in  his study, The Evolution of the Sikh Community: Five Essays, remarked: “A reasonable conclusion appears to be that whereas they [Sikhs] were vigorously opposed to the vertical distinction of caste, they were content to accept it in terms of its horizontal linkages.”

While Khuswant Singh argued that “Sikhism did not succeed in breaking the caste system,” Jodhka suggests: “Sikhism has the resources to deal with casteism and has also been doing it.”

Further reading

1. Sikh Religion and Contentions around Caste by Surinder S. Jodhka

2. Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction by Eleanor Nesbitt

3. Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of Punjab by Harnik Deol

4. A History of the Sikhs (Volume I: 1469-1839) by Khushwant Singh