Event

Singh Sabha Movement

Name: Singh Sabha Movement
Start: 1873-07-30

1873-1919 · Annexation to Partition

The Sikh reform movement begun at Amritsar in 1873: schools, a Punjabi press, the Tat Khalsa case that Sikhs are not Hindus, and the Chief Khalsa Diwan.

Who: Sikh nobles, scholars and reformers. The founders of the Amritsar Singh Sabha included Thakur Singh Sandhanwalia, Baba Khem Singh Bedi, Kanwar Bikrama Singh of Kapurthala and Giani Gian Singh. Professor Gurmukh Singh led the Lahore reformers, and Bhai Vir Singh, Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha and Sundar Singh Majithia carried the work into print and law.

What: In February 1873 four Sikh pupils of the Amritsar Mission School announced that they would become Christians, and soon after Pandit Shardha Ram of Phillaur gave talks at Guru Bagh, Amritsar, that spoke disrespectfully of the Gurus. A meeting there on 30 July 1873 founded an association, and its first formal meeting followed on 1 October in front of the Akal Takht. Its aims were to teach true Sikhism, publish books, spread Punjabi, win back Sikhs who had left and involve senior Englishmen in education. A Lahore Sabha followed on 2 November 1879.

The two camps split over identity. Khem Singh Bedi, backed by the priestly class, saw Sikhs as part of the Hindu community. Gurmukh Singh held that Sikhism was a separate faith with equality regardless of caste. The reformers became the Tat Khalsa, whose slogan was "Ham Hindu Nahin". Kahn Singh Nabha's book of that name (1898) argued the case from scripture. Other milestones: Khalsa College (foundation stone, 5 March 1892), the Khalsa Tract Society (1894), the Chief Khalsa Diwan (30 October 1902), the removal of idols from the Darbar Sahib compound (1905) and the Anand Marriage Act (22 October 1909), which gave Sikh marriage legal validity.

Where: Amritsar and Lahore first, then Sabhas and Sikh schools across Punjab, including Ferozepur and the village of Bhasaur.

Why it mattered: The movement gave Sikhs modern institutions: schools, a Punjabi press, a common code for ceremonies and legal recognition of the Anand rite. Its central concern was a distinct Sikh identity. From about 1914 the Chief Khalsa Diwan lost ground because it stayed close to the government during the 1906-07 peasant unrest, denounced the Ghadar movement and promoted recruitment in the First World War. The mass Gurdwara reform movement then took the lead, and the SGPC was formed on 15 November 1920.

Counsel: Bhai Ajmer Singh

Bhai Ajmer Singh says that after the British came, the Sikhs concluded that they could not be free at once and were not in a condition to fight, so they set out to strengthen themselves on two fronts, dharam and vidya, faith and education. Education had become critical, he says, because Hindus already had three or four generations educated, with colleges opened in Calcutta and elsewhere, and so they had taken all the positions: officers, editors, judges, lawyers, professors, vice chancellors. The Sikh answer was the Sikh Educational Committee, in which he names Teja Singh Samundri, Harchand Singh of Lyallpur, Master Sundar Singh Lyallpuri and Master Tara Singh, and schools were opened everywhere at speed, including at Rawalpindi. On the dharam side the work was to free the faith of Sanatani and Brahmanvadi accretions and restore what the Gurus created, and a great deal of literature was produced in this period, he notes, with real passion.

ਸਿੱਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਾਨਸਿਕ ਗੁਲਾਮੀ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਹੋਈ? (How did the Sikhs' mental slavery begin?), Unstoppable Punjab

In chapter 1, titled "Ham Hindu Nahin", Bhai Ajmer Singh argues that the Sikh Panth has stood apart from Hindu society since the time of Guru Nanak, long before the Khalsa of 1699. He points to the rejection of the janeu and tilak, of caste, of idol worship and of the authority of the Puranas, and to Khande-Batte da Amrit as a distinct initiation. After 1849, he writes, the British tried to fold the Sikhs into the Hindu community, and the Singh Sabha was the Panth's answer. He follows the split between the Sanatani Sikhs, who stood with the mahants, and the Tat Khalsa, and he treats Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha's "Hum Hindu Nahin" of 1898 as its decisive statement. On this base he builds the rest of his account of Sikh politics.

Vihveen Sadi Di Sikh Rajneeti, ch. 1, pp. 3 to 19

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Sources

Singh Sabha Movement (entry by N. G. Barrier and Nazar Singh), The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
Chief Khalsa Diwan, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
Ham Hindu Nahin, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
Anand Marriage Act, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org
Akali Movement (formation of the SGPC, 15 November 1920), The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (ed. Harbans Singh), Punjabi University, Patiala. eos.learnpunjabi.org

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