Anupama Nair
www.mediaeyenews.com
Our great Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Amrit Mahotsav or celebration of India’s 75th year of Independence. We will be celebrating this event till 2022. I am going to write a feature on all those great men and women who fought against foreign invasion not just against the British. I had written many articles on unknown kings and people from my great country, I am going to write about the great Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs and one of the greatest sons of Bharat Ma.
To tell you the story of the great Guru, I have to take you back to nearly thousand years back when Islamic rule was at its helm. After Prithvi Raj Chauhan was martyred, the rule of Muslims started. Many like Alexander the Great had invaded India as she was called “sone ki chidiya”, but more often than not those were restricted to battlefields. However, from Ghori onwards it penetrated to the society at large. Day after day, our belief of “Aditi devo bhava” was misused and many cruel rulers like Aibak, Khilji and others made my Bharat Ma cry in despair. Nevertheless, brave queens like Naiki Devi, Kurma Devi and Rani Padmavati fought these invaders.
The horrors done by a barbarian Taimur the Lame,(after whom one of Bollywood actress named her son) still leaves me with shock at what these barbarians can do. Taimur massacred nearly half a million innocent Hindus and made a tower of skulls in Delhi. However, the story never ended there, the more as it is said was yet to begin… One of the darkest period of nearly ten thousand years of Indian history began in 1526 – a tale of untold horrors, a tale of Islamic barbarism, a tale of cruel rulers who looted religious places and one that thankfully ended in 1857, with the First War of Independence!
You would ask what happened in 1526? Yes, that was the year Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Babur, whose ancestors were Taimur and another barbarian Chengiz Khan invaded India. Babur became famous after he destroyed out treasure trove – Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, which we by our fortune got it back after many centuries. Only the brave Rana Sanga fought them.
Of all the Mughals, the honor of being the cruelest perhaps goes to Aurangzeb who killed his brothers and imprisoned his father. During, the reign of the Mughals, a new religion Sikhism was born. The founder of the religion was Guru Nanak, who was born in Nankana Sahib, Lahore. The ten Sikh Gurus were – Guru Nanak, Guru Angad Dev, Guru Amardas Sahib, Guru Ramdas, Guru Arjan Dev, Guru Har Gobind Sahab, Guru Har Rai Sahab, Guru Har Kishan Sahab, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh. After the death of Guru Gobind Singh, the holy book of the Sikhs Guru Granth Sahib is now considered head of the Sikhs. Two of the ten Gurus were brutally tortured and killed by the Mughals – Guru Arjan by Jehangir and Guru Tegh Bahadur by Aurangzeb, their fault – refusal to convert to Islam!.
Guru Gobind Singh or Gobind Rai was born on 9 January 1666, in Patna and died on October 7, 1708, in Nanded. He was famous for his creation of the Khalsa or “the Pure”, which is the military brotherhood of the Sikhs. He was the son of the ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur.
Gobind Singh was a man of great achievements. He was a linguist and could speak Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit and Punjabi. He codified Sikh laws, and wrote many poems on war, and was the author of the Sikh work called Dasam Granth. He created the Khālsā in 1699. It is said, one morning after services, he sat in meditation before a great number of Sikhs and asked if any would sacrifice himself for the faith. One brave and courageous man agreed and he and the Guru disappeared into a tent. A few minutes later Gobind Singh appeared with his sword dripping with blood, calling for another sacrificial volunteer. This ceremony continued till five men had volunteered. Later all the brave men then reappeared initiated with amrit (sweetened water or nectar) and given the title “panch pyara or the five beloved”, and they formed the nucleus of the Khālsā.
With the Khālsā as the guiding spirit of the reconstituted Sikh army, Gobind Singh decided to fight the two enemies – Mughals and the other against the hill tribes. His troops were totally devoted and totally committed to Sikh ideals, willing to risk everything in the cause of freedom. However, he paid a heavy price for this freedom, –he lost all four of his sons, his wife, mother, and father. He himself was killed by a Pashtun tribesman.
Even many centuries after his death he still lives in our hearts. Our great Prime Minister tweeted “Today, on the auspicious occasion of the Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, I am honored to share that starting this year, 26th December shall be marked as ‘Veer Baal Diwas.’ This is a fitting tribute to the courage of the Sahibzades and their quest for justice”, which is a giant step towards cleansing our Bharat from the Mughals.
He will for ever live in our minds for his valor and for his wars against the Mughals.
