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CITY OF COVENTRY ANNUAL PEACE LECTURE
Author: Dr Indarjit Singh OBE, JP
Ways to World Peace - A Sikh Perspective
Some years ago I was invited to make a brief Sikh contribution to an inter-faith service on the theme of 'peace'. I readily agreed and looked at Sikh scriptures to find an appropriate passage, but to my dismay, without success. It was then that I realised why a religion that has such positive guidance on the themes of justice and human rights is silent on the concept of 'peace' in its most widely accepted sense, namely, 'the absence of war'.
The absence of physical conflict does not itself guarantee or imply political freedom and a respect for basic human rights. All wars, ipso facto, end in an absence of conflict, but this does not necessarily imply justice. All too frequently right does not triumph and truth and justices are themselves often-major casualties of conflict. We all recall how tanks and guns of China's army brought 'peace' to Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It was the peace of the graveyard.
The Roman Empire had its Pax Romana covering much of Europe and the Middle East. It also had its slave markets, torture and death by crucification. In more recent years there was the British Empire with its Pax Britannica. This vast empire, one on which, it was said, the sun never set, was more benevolent than some of its predecessors, but Pax Britannica was none-the-less a peace imposed on the unwilling to bring civilisation and Christian-values to natives and heathen. Nor was it without its direct repression, like the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh massacre where, in the spring of 1919, several hundred people in Punjab were massacred in minutes by the soldiers of General Dyer in a brazen display of brute authority. It was an act condemned by the British Parliament and the spark that ignited the freedom torch in India.
It was, incidentally, during the British expansion into India that the British and Sikhs first met face to face in the fiercest conflict seen on the sub-continent. The Sikhs were eventually defeated, but each side recognised the valour and courage of the other. The British, impressed by the tenacity of the Sikhs in battle, described them as a martial race. It was a description that stuck and although intended as a compliment, the term martial-race does grave injustice to the peaceful teachings of Sikhism. Sikhs are duty bound to stand up against tyranny and injustice and did so against the excesses of the earlier Moghul rulers who put a price on the head of every Sikh caught dead or alive. If Sikhs have martial qualities it is because history and circumstances from Moghul times, through British rule and sadly even to today have forced us into continued robust opposition to oppression.
The British Empire and Western colonialism had reached its height by the commencement of the Second World War, which saw the mild racism of the Western world assume grotesque proportions in the horror of Nazism. The war saw the killing of millions in direct combat and this was dwarfed by the horrors of saturation bombing of civilians, including the incineration of thousands in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war also saw the methodical extermination of hundreds and thousands of, mostly, Jews in the gas chambers of Auswitch, Buchanwald and Belson. About a year ago, I visited Auswitch, where the gas chambers have been preserved for all to see. What brought the inhumanity of the human race home to me was a huge mountain of tiny infant's shoes, taken from toddlers' infants before they were herded into the gas chambers.
One of my earliest memories as a child was cinema newsreel footage of the liberation of the Belson concentration camp at the end of the second world war, emaciated skeletal bodies of men, women and children, living dead who had all but given up hope. For many years, I, in common with many other people, thought that the genocide was a one off act of human madness, unique to the Nazis. Sadly, in the years that have followed the ending of the Second World War, we have seen genocide in Camochea, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the horn of Africa and in many other parts of the world. It's a sobering reminder of human brutality that frenzied machete killings of more than a million men women and children in Rwanda exceeded the killings per hour of the Nazi gas chambers.
For the moment though, I want to take you back to the immediate post World War 2 world, where the discovery of the full horror of the gas chambers and the death camps silenced all talk about superior and inferior races. In the Europe of the 30s, persecution of Jews was not confined to Germany alone. It's often forgotten that the word Jew was a common term of abuse in this country, both before and during the Second World War.
It was this myth of racial superiority that had sustained rulers and cowed the ruled in Empire and colonies, and its collapse in the ruin of the Third Reich gave a major fillip to independent movements around the world. For the first time in human history there was general recognition of the proposition put forward by Guru Gobind Singh, 10th Guru of the Sikhs, some two and a half centuries earlier.
Manas ki jath sab ek he pacharbo
Recognise the oneness of the human family
The formation of the United Nations Organisation in 1945 echoed this sentiment. Although great power rivalry seriously hampered its effectiveness, its Charter and the later Declaration of Human Rights, gave powerful support to the proposition underlined again and again in Sikh teachings, that true and lasting peace is dependent on the recognition of the fundamental human rights of every man, woman and child.
In the words of the preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th 1948. It is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be respected by the rule of law'.
On the adoption of the U.N. Charter, the Great Powers could have moved in either of two directions. Active efforts to ensure basic human rights for all in the spirit of the Charter, or to pay lip service to the Charter with last ditch attempts to preserve the status quo against the tide of human history. Sadly, the Great Powers chose the latter course, with the Soviet Union determined to hold onto its new empire in the East and the Western powers, equally determined to salvage and hold onto what they could of their colonial possessions and, as these crumbled, to engage In new power block politics for political and economic gain. The rivalry between the Communist and Capitalist worlds manifested itself the 'Cold War'. In recognition of the capacity of either side to utterly destroy the other.
There was a peace of sorts between both sides, but it was a peace not based or justice but on the horror of total destruction which continued until economic and political collapse of Communism in the late 80's and early 90s. Many in the West have complemented themselves on this long interval of peace, conveniently forgetting at least 60 lesser wars in the Third World, often fought by proxy between the Super-powers, in which more people have been killed than in the whole of World War 2. The double tragedy is that those living in what is called the developed world have become so inured to such conflicts that we could see nothing wrong in the use of Third World nations as pawns in some global game of chess between the Super-powers. We saw it as the natural order of things, and still see it as such today.
We talk of a common brotherhood of one world and have ritual celebrations of One World Week, and yet are prepared to accept our brothers and sisters being destroyed by bullets and bombs manufactured by us and other developed and developing countries. Most industrialised nations see the arms industry as an important earner of foreign exchange as well as a means to political leverage on the less 'developed' world. As our grandchildren and their children look back on today's times, I am sure that they will do so with loathing and repulsion at a generation prepared to countenance and continue the suffering of millions for its own economic prosperity.
Today the talk is about Iraq and the dossier of evil perpetrated by Saddam Hussein on his own people. We recall how in 1988 he used poison gas to massacre thousands of Kurdish men, women and children. Britain publicly condemned Iraq at the time, and yet within weeks it despatched a trade mission to Iraq to negotiate the sale of additional arms. Some three years earlier I was told by a Government Minister that 'we are well aware of the suffering of the Sikhs in the India of Rajiv Gandhi, but he continued, 'it's very difficult, we are walking on a tightrope and have already lost one major contract'.
The arms trade is continuing to grow. Third World nations are encouraged to buy arms to match those of their neighbours. The more they spend on arms the less of their GNP they have to spend on food and industrialisation and the less competitive they will be in world trade. Poverty inevitably breeds discontent and instability and further opportunities for exploitation. Sometimes the elements add to this catalogue of human suffering as with recurring famines in the Horn of Africa. When conditions are sufficiently bad to become news and we see Belson-like emaciation on our TV screens, we salve our consciences with Band Aid type concerts and famine relief collections. And in a very real sense it is 'band-aid', like putting sticking plasters over deep and festering wounds. The plaster covers or hides some of the suffering but does little to cure it.
In the India of Guru Nanak's day, the rich would often give small donations to the poor, to those they exploited, in the belief that this would earn them merit in the next world. The Guru was critical of such giving which induced smugness in the giver whilst perpetuating injustice. These ritual acts of charity were, he said, not worth a grain of sesame seeds. Much the same can be said about Western aid, which gives with one hand and takes back through protectionist tariffs and low prices for raw materials, with the other.
We see then, peace enjoyed by the industrialised world today is one based on politics and alliances, which mask and perpetuate injustice and is far removed from the peace based on a universal acceptance of human rights as envisaged in the U.N. Charter. It is a fragile peace that will not easily endure. What do we need to do to make it more lasting and based on true justice
Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, was an acute observer of the human scene. Living in the India of 500 years ago where religion had been reduced to ritual and superstition for ordinary people, who were dominated by a tyrannical priestly class, the Brahmins. The Brahmins taught that they and only they could commune with God and people's ancestors in heaven and extracted money and food from the poor to intercede on their behalf. As if this state of affairs was not bad enough, the country had been conquered by the Moghuls, fierce Islam professing descendents of Genghis Khan, bent on forced conversion. The Guru saw common people being exploited in the name of religion. He saw conquerors inflicting untold misery on their subjects. He saw one set of oppressors being replaced by another and realised what we would do well to understand today, that there could be no real peace without justice. He therefore set out his blueprint for a just society. Looking at the world around him, he started with the need for religious tolerance. In his very first sermon he declared: -
Na koi Hindu Na koi Mussalman
That is: In God's eyes there is neither Hindu nor Muslim and, in today's extension, neither Christian, Sikh or Jew. That God is not interested in religious labels but in the way we conduct ourselves. God, he taught, has neither enemies nor favoured people, and no one religion has a monopoly of truth. This is an important lesson for the world today, where bigotry of belief so often incites and sustains horrendous conflict. This is particularly true of the three Abrahamic religions where each claim to have an exclusive relationship to God. We are all free to believe what we like, but to parade these beliefs or denigrate the beliefs of others in our smaller inter-dependent world is to invite conflict. For peace in the world today, we must look on other religions with tolerance and respect.
Today we need to look beyond the commonly accepted meaning of tolerance, suggesting a reluctant willingness to put up with., and look more towards the Sikh meaning of the word, which is a willingness to defend to the death, if necessary, another's right to belief. This is precisely what our 9th Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur, did when he was cruelly martyred in 1776 for upholding the right of Hindus to worship in the manner of their choice.
Religious fundamentalism is a growing cause of conflict in the world today. The Gurus showed respect to the Hindu and Muslim faiths by incorporating some of their texts in the Sikh holy book the Guru Granth Sahib. It was an important lead, which we would do well to remember today in teaching us how to substitute dialogue for fanaticism. There is a further reward in such dialogue. While we learn to respect genuine differences, we also find that different faiths have much in common and our understanding of our own belief is heightened by resonant echoes in other faiths.
The Guru was practiced enough to know that there can be no justice if some people consider themselves inherently superior to others. Today we talk of race. In India the talk was of caste. Very much the same thing.
Guru Nanak taught: -
Janan jot, na pucho jath
Agee jath nah koi
Look to a person's inner light (God)
and forget all ideas of caste or race,
for there is no caste or race in the hereafter.
It was a sentiment echoed by each of the succeeding Gurus. As Guru Gobind Singh, our 10th Guru, put it: -
Manas ki jaath sab ek he pachanbo Recognise the oneness of the human race.
Compare this directness with the fuzzy fudging world of today, where we talk of the need for understanding or harmony between the different races. There are no different races. The sciences of genetics and anthropology confirm what commonsense tells us; we are all members of one human family.
Most people in the affluent world, however, would balk at the logical extension of this proposition of allowing other members of our human family the right to live and work where they like. Today, many There are fears that in our far from just world of today, those fleeing from political tyranny or from adverse economic or climatic conditions would, to coin a phrase, 'swamp' our culture and reduce our standard of living. It would be irresponsible and a recipe for chaos to suggest a sudden abandonment of all immigration controls, but the reality of globalisation is that more and more people will gravitate towards areas of grater economic opportunity and political freedom. A phased and worldwide reduction of such controls should be high on the political agenda. Sikhs feel that beliefs have their own imperatives, and that we have a moral duty as well as a practical one of moving towards a world of freer movement of members of our single human family.
If we truly believe in the ideal of one human family, we cannot support the notion of power blocks and friendly nations and factional alignments. Such factions and alignments are not new and the Guru in a beautiful hymn constantly stressed 'I am of God's faction'. Not only do such factional politics divide us into warring camps but they also blur our sense of morality and injustice. In the world of today we turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in a friendly country while lecturing those in other lands. Those who oppose governments in rival power blocks, whatever their motives or methods are proclaimed freedom fighters. Similarly, those who rebel against perceived injustice in a friendly country are automatically dubbed 'terrorists'. There is today a lot of misleading talk of an international terrorist conspiracy. Would people really meet together and risk life and limb to harm others without some trigger of real or apparent injustice?
Sikhs would argue that it is right and proper to oppose those that would harm innocent people whatever the provocation. We would also argue that the best way to fight terrorism is to look to the underlying malady on which it parasitically thrives. Sikhs heartily endorse the views of the late Andrei Sakharov who said that for real progress in human rights we must be even-handed in our condemnation of human rights abuses no matter where they occur, whether in friendly or less friendly countries. Similarly, we applaud the work of Amnesty International and similar human rights organisations that even-handedly expose what nations and power blocks try to mask, the full extent of human degradation with detailed dossiers, which show that torture of suspects or innocent protesters against injustice is now routine practice in more than half the nations of the so-called civilised world.
A religious person in Guru Nanak's day was one who left family and friends and sought spiritual enlightenment in mountains or forests. Guru-Nanak was very critical of such a selfish approach to life. Once when on a visit to a group of such holy people, the Guru was asked 'how goes the world below?' The Guru angrily replied 'the world is suffering and how can it be otherwise when those with knowledge and understanding selfishly desert society. He taught the then new concept of social responsibility both for individuals and religions. How is this relevant to the world of today?
Firstly on the role of religions, the industrialised world has, since the Industrial revolution, increasingly, seen religions marginalized as a force for good. Keep religion out of politics, which to a Sikh is like saying keep truth, justice and compassion out of politics. These concerns may have little relevance to the cold blinkered world of a free market economy but are highly relevant to the building of a just, stable and peaceful society.
The fault also lies with leaders of religion who, finding the outside world complex and challenging, all too readily turn inwards to cloistered contemplation of the hereafter. Or worse, pay increasing attention to rituals customs and divisive practices that have nothing to do with true religion.
Today, one of the most frequently heard boasts is that 'I've led a good life; I've never done anyone any harm. Countless sticks, stones, rivers and mountains could make a similar claim. Allied to the hollow boasts of doing no harm is the equally smug one of having no enemies. The poet, Charles McKay examines this in his poem 'No Enemies': -
You have no enemies you say
Alas my friend the boast's false
He who has mingled in the fray of duty
That the brave endure
Must have made foes
If you have none, small is the work you have done
You've struck no traitor in the hip
You've dashed no cup from perjured lip
You've been a coward in the fight
You've never turned the wrong to right
Sikhism demands far more positive a commitment, particularly from those who claim to be religious.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, in a Guildhall lecture to mark his receipt of the 1983 Templeton Award, spoke of his childhood when people, appalled by the suffering in the early years of the Russian Revolution, would remark: 'it's all because we've forgotten God'. He continued, 'today, having witnessed cruelty and horror that totally dwarfs that of earlier years, having researched libraries of books and documents, if I am asked to explain why the excesses, I can do no better than to repeat those pithy words: it's all because we've forgotten God'. Sikhs wholly endorse these sentiments. In our arrogance we fail to see that our human vision of justice is blurred, shortsighted and distorted by baser human emotions of greed, envy and pride. As Guru Nanak taught: -
The highest vision of justice
Lies not with man, but God.
Despite the arrogance of our all too clever materialistic world, we need the guidance of religion to give us a truer perspective of justice and our responsibilities to our planet and our fellow humans. Guru Nanak in his blueprint for a just society reminded us that before we could improve society we must first improve ourselves. To this end he gave us the injunction 'Naam japo. kint karo and ward chakho'. That is, meditate on God, earn by your own effort and share those earnings with the less fortunate. How does this help us in the world today?
Meditation does not mean sitting cross-legged in abstract contemplation. It means looking to a sense of direction, getting our bearings on life. Starting with our relationship to God, the ultimate reality, looking to the Gurmukh or Godly direction so that we can distinguish the important from the trivial or negative pulls on our time and energies to make us more effective human beings. As I said earlier, Sikhs do not see religious contemplation as something divorced from life. Guru Nanak explained the relationship with the example of the lotus flower: -
Be like the lotus flower he taught, which having its roots in muddy waters, still flowers beautifully above. Similarly, we should live in society and work constantly for its improvement, and yet always be above its meanness and pettiness.
The second part of the injunction, Kirt karo, means earning by one's own effort, not by begging as was common among the holy men of old, nor by exploitation of others, a major cause of injustice in the world of today. Kirt karo is closely linked with the third part of the injunction: ward chakho - share your good fortune with others. It is important to look at this earning and sharing of wealth in its modern perspective. Sikhism teaches there are two dimensions of life, the spiritual and the material. Both are necessary for balanced living. What Sikhism does criticise is blind obsession with material wealth and the current belief in both West and East that happiness and contentment can be purchased through the accumulation of consumer goods.
We were all thrilled by the climatic events in Eastern Europe at the end of the 80s, which caused the disintegration of a totalitarian empire and removed a major threat to world peace. It would be nice to believe that the prime motivation was human rights and the democratic ideal. But I fear that it was more the recognition that the free market economy was a more effective means of producing consumer goods and a higher Western style standard of living. Already perestroika is under criticism for not moving fast enough in this direction.
The dangers from an obsession with consumerism are twofold. First, the fallacy that happiness and contentment are related to the number of such possessions. Secondly, the instability in society arising from competitive consumerism. On the national level this is manifested in strikes, inequitable taxation and civil unrest. On the international level the effects are even more serious.
We have seen how economic greed is a motivation in the international arms trade. In a similar way political and economic pressures have combined to produce a grossly inequitable distribution of wealth with industrialised powers manipulating the price of raw materials and inflating those of manufactured goods in a way that keeps the poor, poor and makes the rich, richer. It is here that we have to remember the Gurus' teaching: Kirt karo and Wand chakho. Earn by your own effort, earn fairly and share or distribute your good fortune equitably. Not to do this is not only wrong in itself but also a sure recipe for social and political instability that threatens not only the poorer nations but, in our shrinking world, threatens the peace and stability of all of us.
The Sikh teachings that I've elaborated are in my view foundations for the establishment of a just world order and lasting peace. Sikhism does not believe peace can be obtained by merely wishing it. Peace is the natural corollary of a just world wide social order. If we wish peace we should look to eradicate social and political injustice in all its forms. Compare this approach of building sound foundations for peace and justice with the political approach of trying to perpetuate the status quo of inequality and trying to graft peace onto this by treaties, conferences and rhetoric; a sort of building downwards. Which approach is likely to succeed?
I have spoken at length on Sikh requisites for peace and justice. While it is incumbent on us all to work for such ideals, what do we do about those who selfishly and deliberately tread the path of tyranny and oppression?
Let us again look briefly at the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights which states: -
'Whereas it is essential that if man is not compelled as a last recourse to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law'.
The words are almost an exact echo of Sikh teaching in this respect. In the words of Guru Gobind Singh: -
When all other means of overcoming injustice fail
It is rightful to use the sword.
Both statements recognise the right to rebellion or the use of force when all other means fail.
Sikhism lays down clear conditions for a violent response to injustice. Firstly, violence should never be used in response to personal injury. The correct response to personal attack or insult is, as stated in the Holy Granth, 'to kiss the feet of those that do you wrong'. Secondly, force should never be used for personal gain or to acquire even an inch of territory. The Sikh Gurus had to fight many battles against tyranny but never sought to acquire any area of territory. Years later the Sikh General, Bhagel Singh, concerned about the sanctity of the place where the 9th Guru, Guru Teg Bahadur, was martyred, marched to Delhi from Punjab with his army, captured the city and, when satisfied with guarantees that a Gurdwara would be built at the place of the Guru's martyrdom, astounded both rulers and later historians by marching all the way back to Punjab in literal interpretation of the Guru's teachings.
Violence can only be justified in the protection of human rights 'if all other means have been tried and failed. The Sikh Gurus only turned to arms after the 5th Guru, Guru Arjan, was martyred for his support of religious freedom. The Sikhs were among the first to use non-violent protest against the British. The Sikh 'marches' or non-violent campaigns for the freedom of their shrines from corrupt British-backed priests is chronicled in history with its daily batch of volunteers being beaten senseless by the army. The Sikh victory in freeing their places of worship in this way was hailed by Mahatma Gandhi with a telegram saying 'Congratulations! First battle for India's Independence won.
It is fundamental to Sikhism that we are duty-bound to oppose tyranny and injustice in all its forms. And in a world where tyranny is all too widespread Sikhs have had to fight for their very survival. Hence, the image of the martial race. Sikhs were taught by the Guru to be Sant - Sipahis - Saint Soldiers, saintly in conduct even in battle, as Bhai Kanhaia was when he gave water to the thirsty and suffering in the enemy ranks and was commended by Guru Gobind Singh for so doing.
Let me now conclude by briefly summarising the main points of what I have said: -
Peace without justice is no peace at all. Real and lasting peace can only emanate from social and political justice and it is the duty of all of us to work towards this goal. It is especially the duty of religions to make a more positive input. To religious leaders in both my own and sister faith; I make this plea. What is the use of all our talk of spirituality and higher moral values if not to help our fellow man? We have in the United Nation Organisation a framework for a more just world order. What we now need to do is to ensure our politicians stop simply paying lip service to its ideals, and work positively to ensure that our children and their children live in peace based on justice.
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