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Sikhism & Dr
Hew McLeod
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Sikhism & Dr Hew McLeod
Dr Hew McLeod: Bouquets & Brickbats
Dr W H McLeod from New Zealand passed away on 21st July 2009 at the age
of 77 years. He dominated Sikh studies in the West for about 4 decades.
He introduced Western methodology, contributed much himself, and
questioned and challenged traditional Sikh lore. With a jolt, Sikh
scholars were brought face to face with the need for application of
rigorous western objectivity to the study of Sikh religious tradition.
That was not always the case before his arrival on the Sikh studies
scene with his PhD thesis of 1965, published in 1968 as, “Guru Nanak
and the Sikh Religion”.
In a different context and time frame, he was perhaps in the same
league for taking Sikh religion to the West as J D Cunningham who
completed his “A History of the Sikhs” at about the same time as the
annexation of Panjab in 1849, and Max Arthur Macauliffe who completed
“The Sikh Religion” towards the end of the 19th Century. Hew McLeod
will be remembered for his catalytic role in promoting Sikh studies in
the West. He will also be remembered for creating more controversy
about the authenticity of some parts of Sikh religious tradition than
any other Western scholar in the 20th Century.
He went to Panjab from New Zealand in 1958 as a Christian missionary
and later “converted” to an atheist student of Sikh religion. As was to
be expected, by mixing atheism and religious study, McLeod was bound to
apply “rigorous and critical methodology” to the study of any faith!
(*see footnote) The scene was set for much controversy in the years to
come.
Nevertheless, despite controversy about McLeod’s methods and even
intentions, his great contribution to the recognition of Sikh religion
at world level has been accepted by most Sikh scholars. In fact, the
controversy itself has contributed to that recognition by raising the
standard of Sikh studies in response to McLeod desire to separate
fiction from historical fact. One outstanding response is the
“Perspectives On The Sikh Tradition” invited and edited by Justice
Gurdev Singh (Academy of Sikh Religion & Culture 1986 ) (**see
footnote about McLeod’s propositions).
Cunningham clearly showed that the Sikh nation arose out of the
founding ideology of Guru Nanak which unfolded as the Sikh miri-piri
tradition up to the time of Guru Gobind Singh over a period of over 200
years spanning ten human Guruships. To quote, “ It was reserved for
Nanak to perceive the true principles of reform, and to lay those broad
foundations which enabled his successor Govind to fire the minds of his
countrymen with a new nationality, and to give practical effect to the
[Guru Nanak’s] doctrine that the lowest is equal with the highest, in
race as well as creed, in political rights as in religious hope.”
Max Arthur Macauliffe’s starts his 6 volumes “The Sikh Religion” with
the words, “I bring from the East what is practically an unknown
religion. The Sikhs are distinguished throughout the world as a great
military people, but there is little known even to professional
scholars regarding their religion.”
Hew McLeod wrote extensively about Sikh religious. The list of his
publications on Sikh studies is quite mind boggling and shows his total
dedication to this subject. His stress on “rigorous critical
methodology developed in the West during the last two centuries” was
bound to question every aspect of Sikh beliefs and established practice
(**see footnote). However, no matter how much we disagree with McLeod,
as those like Dr Ganda Singh have stressed, charges of any “mala fide
(in bad faith) intentions” on his part cannot be justified.
Doubts were expressed about his treatment of the Janamsakhis in his
first publication “Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion”. However, scholars
defended the right of a historian to discard “fiction”. Serious debate
started with McLeod’s provocative “The Evolution of the Sikh Community”
published in 1975 in which McLeod chose to ignore much traditional and
contemporary evidence. Instead he promoted own views about the impact
and influence of environmental factors in changing the direction of
Guru Nanak’s Panth. Ignoring the essential continuity of Guru Nanak’s
mission, he regarded the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev ji’s as a
watershed (change of direction) in Sikh ideology.
McLeod seems to have missed the “political” (miri) aspect inherent in
Guru Nanak Sahib’s Gurbani which combined simran (meditation) with
serving the creation here and now by creating a just society in which
no one inflicted pain on another. He gave too little importance to the
underlying political idiom in Guru Nanak Sahib’s thought and the
institutional and organisational developments which took place during
the Guru period from Guru Nanak Sahib to Guru Arjan Dev, which became
the cause of Guru Arjan Dev’s martyrdom. Contemporary evidence shows
that these developments were noted with apprehension by rulers like
Jehangir. He gave too much importance to the consequences of Guru
Sahib’s martyrdom and the influx of Jat peasantry of Panjab into
Sikhism. He ignored Guru Hargobind Sahib’s lead in taking Guru
Nanak-Gobind Singh mission to the next (miri) stage.
Wrote Dr J S Grewal:- "Jagjit Singh put forth the idea that acquisition
of political power for a noble cause could be "a legitimate spiritual
pursuit". Unfamiliar with the idea, most of the scholars failed to
appreciate the novel doctrine of “miri-piri”. The hypothesis that the
Sikh movement was a purely religious movement before it took a
political turn with the martyrdom of Guru Arjan was a "distortion".
Guru Arjan's "direct political involvement" was evident from the fact
that he helped the rebel prince Khusrau……Thus, it was not Guru Arjan's
martyrdom which gave a political turn to the Sikh movement; rather it
was the political ethos of the Sikh movement that contributed to his
martyrdom."
“Even a casual study of Guru Nanak's Gurbani brings out the, "The
distinctive Sikh view of nam marg was not wedded to the doctrine of
ahinsa. The obligation to bear arms and to be linked with nam was
considered by the Khalsa to be complementary and not mutually
exclusive." (Above quotes are from Dr J S Grewal's remarkable
publication, "The Sikhs: Ideology, Institutions and Identity”,
collection of essays 2009, Oxford University Press)
Dr Hew McLeod did not revise the obvious flaws in his understanding of
the Sikh political ethos, which was always an inseparable part of the
bhagti-shakti (meditation & acquisition of power to create an
egalitarian society), deg-teg (community sharing & the sword),
miri-piri (temporal & spiritual), twin-track revolutionary
egalitarian mission of Guru Nanak Sahib. That political aspect comes
through in Guru Sahib's "political" reaction to Babar's invasion and
cruelty; and in Banis like Asa ki Vaar.
To quote Ishwinder Singh (IOSS), “The author [Hew McLeod] trained in
the western tradition did much for bringing Sikhism to western
academia's attention but often missed the point of Sikhism. His death
may provide an occasion and trigger to look deeply at not just his
position and location in the Sikh scholastic mindscape but also the
Sikh Nation's continuous fight to safeguard its traditions, history and
spirit.”
Dr Noel Q King put it in a nutshell about Dr McLeod's works, that
despite "meticulously and exhaustively carried out drills in certain
methods of Western criticism" "The reader seeking the well-springs of
what Sikhism is will not be assisted. The only successful opponent
[Sikh nation] to thousands of years of passing conquerors must have
something that makes him tick!" ("Perspectives On The Sikh Tradition")
Regrettably, due to his "static" approach and failure to appreciate the
progressive "continuum" of Guru Nanak's miri-piri mission, Dr McLeod
failed to discover what made the Sikh nation "tick".
I conclude with a quote from a post on Gurmat Learning Zone (GLZ) by
Professor Nirmal Singh, “Hew McLeod came in at a low point in Sikh
studies and gave it a jolt to remember that the era of Macauliffe,
Theosophical Society, Teja Singh, Ganda Singh, Puran Singh had passed
by and that the Sikh academia could do with some fresh thinking. For
this we owe him thanks and must honor his memory.”
[On one occasion Dr J S Grewal, who was passing through, dropped in for
an evening chat. He explained the background to the controversy in Sikh
studies, which centred around Hew McLeod. I asked, what about applying
similar “rigorous analytical methodology” to the orthodox world
religions? He smiled and said something like, “No point, because they
lost the argument centuries ago! Sikhism will always stand up to such
scrutiny.” That sort of confidence assumes a high standard of Sikh
scholarship from within to withstand the external threat and
challenges.]
------------------------------------
* To quote Dr Kanwar Ranvir Singh (of GLZ) who met Dr McLeod at Dr J S
Chadha’s place in LOndon: “Upon learning that Hew was an atheist, he
[Dr Chadha] was shocked. He tried to convince Hew that there was a
Creator but as Hew smiled away his efforts, Dr Sahib looked amazed.
"What can a man who does not know his Maker, know? How can he
understand a person of faith and if he can't understand them, what can
he write about them?"
**Dr J S Grewal summed up eight propositions attributed to Hew McLeod,
which, according to Justice Gurdev Singh “stand refuted” in the
“Perspectives on the Sikh Tradition.” as follows:-
“One, that Guru Nanak belongs to the sant tradition; two, that his
successors did not preach one set of doctrines, giving up at one stage
his teachings in favour of militancy; three, that the Panth got armed
not because of any decision of Guru Hargobind but because of Jat
inflix; four, that the traditional account of the founding of the
Khalsa cannot be accepted; five, that the Sikh code of discipline and
Sikh symbols were evolved during the eighteenth century and not
promulgated by Guru Gobind Singh on the Baisakhi of 1699; six, that the
Gurus denounced caste system but they were not sincere or serious in
removing caste differences; seven, that the succession Granth Sahib as
the Guru after Guru Gobind Singh was a subsequent adoption and not due
to his injunction; eight, that the authenticity of the current version
of Guru Granth Sahib is open to question.”
(Published in a special issue of The Sikh Review dedicated to Dr Hew
McLeod)
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