April 12, 1999
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THE
SIKHS Chronicle Untold The perils of rehash masquerading as scholarship. By K P S Gill THE SIKHS
I can't, moreover, understand how the history of such a dynamic, flamboyant and volatile people can be reduced to such utter tedium; but Singh has proved that this is entirely possible. The Sikhs amounts to no more than a poor rehash, entirely dependent on secondary and tertiary sources. Any claims to scholarship would demand an enterprise that goes beyond these. Far from seeking out the facts, Singh prefers to argue from a position of unyielding prejudice and indefatigable ignorance. To take an example, while discussing the period of terrorism in Punjab, Singh states, sweepingly, without qualification and without any evidence, that "everyday crime was also attributed to the Sikhs -- as if the state were free of all crime except for the criminal activities of 'terrorists'!". Had there been a modicum of honest effort Singh would have discovered that even in 1990-92, generally acknowledged as the peak of terrorism, the registration of cases of general crime rose dramatically. For instance, comparisons between murders categorised as terrorist/general crime give the following figures -- 1990: 2,467 (terrorist)/1,570 (general); 1991: 2,591/1,810; 1992: 1,518/ 1,169; the figures in the general category are almost twice the present peace-time average. Statistics on other kinds of serious crime follow similar trends. None of this is classified information. A trainee journalist could have walked into the police HQ in Chandigarh and got the data. Nor is Singh particularly analytical in his use of secondary material. He quotes as authority an American academician's exhortations in a "path-breaking book" on terrorism in Punjab to "study violence by talking with and being with people who engage in it" rather than to "find better ways of technologically defeating terrorists". Singh does not bother to ask whether this 'dispassionate objectivity' influences western (and particularly American) scholarship when it reflects on acts of terror directed against citizens of the First World. All this, and much more in The Sikhs, amounts to only an oblique justification of terrorism. It is high time that something approximating serious and responsible scholarship focused on the history of the Sikhs. Patwant Singh's present effort certainly fails to qualify. Nevertheless, his book needs to be read, if only to discover the sheer narrowness of vision, the confusion and the shoddiness that characterise those who pass off as intellectuals among the Sikhs today. » Beijing! »
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Patwant Singh's The Sikhs is
a melange of religion, history and a highly subjective examination of events in Punjab in
the post-Independence era. The book comes out at a historical moment for the Sikhs, the
tercentenary of the Khalsa, but the author fails entirely to create a perspective that
could have any relevance for the community. On religion, it provides no exceptional
insights and demonstrates only that the author's knowledge of the scriptures is probably
poorer than a village granthi's. The book tells the average Sikh much less than what he
already knows. And to those who don't know Sikhism and the community, I would not
recommend the book because they would learn little -- and much of it would be a
distortion. 
