Khushwant Singh
Description
Product Description
Never before have the Sikh's way of life, their modes of worship, their baptisms, weddings and rustic dances and their attempts t
...
o keep alive their marital traditions been more vividly captured by the camera or as clearly explained in words by India's foremost author. Here is a rare collection of photographs taken by one of the country's best photographers.
Amazon.com Review
Sikhism is one of the world's gentlest religions--a sort of eastern version of Anglicanism. It is as though someone had taken the best bits of Hinduism and Islam and merged them into a religion accessible even to the most secular of souls. There is no class or caste system, hence the men are all called Singh (Lion) and the women Kaur (Princess), and it makes no great claim to be the only way; indeed, unlike most religions, it actively promotes the idea that its followers may learn from other faiths. And yet, the popular image of Sikhs as fierce warriors is almost diametrically opposed to the tenets of their faith. Just how this came to be is wonderfully told in 's history of the Sikhs, published to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Khalsa--the most important date in the Sikh calendar.
As may be expected, Singh is a highly partisan narrator. The Sikhs are always bold and noble, and those who oppress them--the Moghuls, the Hindus, and the British--are conniving and duplicitous. But this aside, he tells a truthful story of the early days of Sikhism up to the 20th-century partition of the Punjab and the diaspora to East Africa and Britain. But the book really takes off when we reach the modern era. He provides a moving account of the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by Hindu troops acting on the authority of the Indian government in 1984. This led directly to the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards, which in turn brought swift and widespread retribution, as thousands of Sikhs were rounded up and massacred.
What Patwant Singh doesn't answer, though, is why so many people have felt so threatened by Sikhism over the centuries. Sikhs do not proselytize their religion and they make up only two percent of the Indian population, yet they have been persecuted throughout their history. Maybe, just as nature abhors a vacuum, so religions abhor moderation. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk
About the Author
In 1966, Rai joined "The Statesman" newspaper as its chief photographer. Impressed by an exhibit of his work in Paris, Cartier-Bresson nominated Rai to join Magnum Photos in 1977. In the last 18 years, Rai has specialized in extensive coverage of India. He has produced more than 18 books, including The Sikhs, Calcutta, Taj Mahal, India, and Mother Teresa.
Khushwant Singh is a renowned journalist, the author of several works of fiction, and an authority on Sikh history.
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Prologue
India's internal divisions and conflicts make sense only if you know something of her caste system. A unique
tour de force with deep philosophical and spiritual underpinnings, it took its present form at about the beginning of the Christian era, even though the groundwork was established with the Aryan migrations into northern India around 1500 BC. On the physical side, the Aryans included a taller, larger-boned type distinguished by strong hair growth, especially beard, who settled mainly in the north, principally in the area that became known as Punjab. This type became the core of the military castes of the region, as also of the people who are the subject of this book.
"The coming of the Aryans," it has been said, "was a backward step, since the Harappan culture had been far more advanced than that of the Aryans who were as yet pre-urban." Robust and virile, with heroic appetites -- which included beef eating and great intakes of an amazingly potent liquor called Soma -- the light-skinned Aryans brought three distinct social groupings with them: Kshatriyas,
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