Why is the 9th Guru Ji known as Hind di chaadar?

The legacy of Guru Teg Bahadar and its revisionism

From “Srishti ki Chadar”, protector of humanity, to “Dharam di Chadar” to now “Hind di Chadar” – that’s how the Guru’s legacy has undergone revisionism in 400 years.

Harmeet Shah Singh
New Delhi,UPDATED: Apr 21, 2022 19:11 IST

It’s not the first time that the Indian state has moved to celebrate a milestone Sikh religious day.

Almost every centurial or half-centurial historical event from the community’s religious calendar has registered enthusiastic participation by the country’s top leadership.

During the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in 1969, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi proposed a land swap to bring the historic Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara of Pakistan into Indian territory.

The Vajpayee government graciously took part in the tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa order in 1999.

Ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kartarpur Sahib corridor on the Indian side.

Three years before, the PM paid his tribute to Baba Banda Singh Bahadar on the 300th martyrdom anniversary of the 18th-century Sikh commander who vanquished Sirhind in 1710 and reigned a state that cut off the links between the Mughals’ Delhi Durbar and Lahore.

A grand state-level event takes place at the Red Fort to mark the 400th birth anniversary of Guru Teg Bahadar (1621-1675) on Thursday, with the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and other senior leaders in attendance.

The celebrations come a year later because of pandemic restrictions in 2021.

CONTEXT IN APPROPRIATION

In her 2016 column in The New York Times, an American writer and a thought leader, Jamia Wilson, wrote insightfully about cultural appropriation in general.

She drew on personal experience to bring home the point that considering history and context becomes paramount in acts of appropriation.

In her case, Wilson wore a gifted jacket from Saudi Arabia only after learning it symbolised economic equality because it was made by local woman artisans. “I wore it in solidarity,” she wrote.

That the ruling BJP is celebrating Guru Teg Bahadar’s quadricentennial is as welcome as other Sikh religious events that India has commemorated at the state level since Independence.

In Sikh intellectual circles, a careful review, however, is underway of what is perceived to be revisionism of the community’s 550-year-old history.

Take for instance, the description of Guru Teg Bahadar as “Hind di Chadar” in present-day parlance and “Dharam di Chadar” some 100 years ago.

That appears to be a departure from how he was originally described in contemporaneous poetic texts after his execution in 1675.

Chandra Sain Sainapati was a court poet of Guru Gobind Singh, the son of Guru Teg Bahadar.

In his composition called Sri Gur Sobha, Sainapati described the martyred Guru as “Srisht ki Chadar”, or the protector of humanity.

Pargat Bhae Gur Teg Bahadar, Sagal Srisht Pe Dhaapi Chadar,” the poet wrote, meaning “Guru Tegh Bahadar was revealed, and protected the whole creation.”

“Srishati”, or the whole creation, includes dharam and Hind, and so much more, explains Harinder Singh, a senior fellow at the US-based Sikh Research Institute (SikhRI).

“Beware of revisionism: Hind di Chadar and Dharam di chadar reduce the Guru’s domain from global to local, political-spiritual to merely religious.”

At the spiritual level, Guru Teg Bahadar’s 59 shabads or verses in 15 rags and 59 saloks in Braj language and Gurmukhi script are incorporated in Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

During his lifetime, he travelled to as far as Assam, where he forged peace between the warring forces of Raja Ram Singh of Amber aligned with Emperor Aurangzeb and Raja Chakardhwaj of the Ahom kingdom.

Back in Anandpur, Guru Teg Bahadar challenged Kashmir’s Mughal governor Iftikhar Khan, who was forcibly converting Hindu Pandits.

The Guru was brought to Delhi and three of his companions, Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Sati Das and Bhai Dayal, were respectively sawed, burned and boiled alive.

And Aurangzeb ordered beheading of the Guru where now stands Gurdwara Sis Ganj opposite the Red Fort.

Harinder Singh cited another collection of writings by another court poet of Guru Gobind Singh.

In Ganjnamah, Bhai Nand Lal Goya (1633-1713), the poet laureate at Anandpur Sahib, depicts Guru Teg Bahadar as “sovereign”, “divine”, “reviver”, “uniter”, and so on, the SikhRI scholar explains.

In her opinion piece, Wilson appreciates acts of cultural sharing but cautioned against what she called repurposing cultural symbols for vested interests.

“Profiting off of others’ persecution and exploiting other cultures for political gain undermines their struggles for equality and liberation,” she wrote.