Introduction

1 1 INTRODUCTION In recent months some developments have taken place, which have created the necessity of bringing out the present publication. One of them is the production of two volumes. The first is a Ph.D. thesis by one Pashaura Singh of Toronto University, supervised by W.H. McLeod, who makes the blasphemous statement that Guru Arjun changed, theologically and linguistically, the barn or hymns of Guru Nanak, and having done that, he passed these reconstituted hymns as the actual bani of Guru Nanak. The entire thesis of Pashaura Singh seeks to support the above proposition, and to attack the theological and linguistic originality and authenticity of the Aad Granth, now Guru Granth Sahib. This has been followed by publication of a small book, 'Studying the Sikhs', which comprises mostly generalised or defensive statements in justification of the earlier work of W.H. McLeod and his erstwhile colleagues in the Batala Mission, who have been criticised for some of their misleading, incorrect and even blasphemous statements. As expected, there was strong and spontaneous reaction to the work of Pashaura Singh, in the Sikh academic world in India and abroad. This reaction has been twofold. First is the proceedings of blasphemy initiated by the SGPC, Amritsar, after obtaining reports of two expert committees of Gurmat and university scholars, against Pashaura Singh before the Akal Takht. The second part is the publication of a large number of reviews, papers and articles by well known academicians who criticised the work of Pashaura Singh as 'blasphemous', and his findings 'preconceived', 'baseless', and 'motivated'. Since it is believed that the thesis of Pashaura Singh supported by McLeod, an ex-missionary from the Punjab Missionary organisation, is in continuation of the thinking and objectives of the Batala Group, it is necessary first to give the background, approach and history of some of its scholars, and to state concisely the substance and slant of Pashaura Singh's Thesis, and the criticism embodied in the 34 papers that form the body of this publication. 2 The Background and Approach: The Christian Mission appeared in the Punjab soon after the annexation of the state by the British in the middle of the last century. Almost since its inception, it has, apart from doing normal missionary activities, simultaneously been producing literature, subversive to the identity and growth of other religions, particularly Sikhism. It is well known that the reaction of the Singh Sabha was partly due to these activities of the Mission working under the wings of the British Administration. At one time, the Mission declared that three Sikh boys of their school at Amritsar would be openly converted to Christianity and their hair publically shaved. In order to understand the approach of the missions in Punjab, it is relevant to give the following decision of the World Council of Churches made in one of its meetings. A proposal was made by the North American Churches that, because of the danger of Secularism, Christian Churches should seek the co-operation of other religions in order to create a common front against the danger of Secularism. Metropolitan Paulo Mar Gregorios, a former Chairman of the World Council of Churches, reports: "TheAmerican view was that there are three realities: Christianity, other Religions, and Secularism, and that these three realities can either be allies. or enemies. It was argued that the Christians had to choose whether they were to ally themselves with other religions against Secularism. The Americans, especially the Boston Personalists, who were leading the debate at that time, took the view that Secularism is a common danger for all religions, and, therefore, there must be an alliance of all religions to fight Secularism. European theologians, particularly Barth, Brunner, and Kramer, took a totally different view. They maintained that Secularisation, not Secularism, is the primary process. It is a process in which some of the values of the Christian faith have been put into a secular framework, bringing about a powerful force which is destroying all old ideas. Hence Secularisation is an ally, because it will destroy Hinduism, Islam and other forms of what they considered to be superstition. So we should ally ourselves with Secularisation, and see it as the work of God. That was Bonhoffer's, Barth's, and Kramer's point of view." "A similar debate took place in 1932 or 1933 in Madras at the 3 next Missionary Conference. There the American .point of view' was totally defeated." "One of the books published during that era by Emil Brunner, the Swiss theologian, was called 'Either/ Or'. In it Brunner argued that the Christian Gospel has overcome all its enemies except one, and that is mysticism. Mysticism is an enemy, because it claims that you can have unmediated access to God, and as long as you can have unmediated access, there is no use for Jesus Christ. Therefore, mysticism is the only remaining enemy, and one has to make a clear choice: either the Gospel or Mysticism." "That is why at the World Council of Churches it was almost impossible to begin any kind of dialogue." At another meeting in 1975 at Nairobi the Chairman was confronted with the observation, "We do not feel we have anything lacking. And so we are opposed to dialogue, unless it is for the sake of testifying to Jesus Christ." "That was it. Then they passed a resolution saying that under no circumstances should multi-religious dialogues be undertaken, because multi-religious dialogues put Christianity at the same level as other religions, and this is unacceptable." "That is the point of view that has triumphed in the World Council of Churches. Some of us are still trying to change that point of view, but it is difficult." We do not say that honest attempts at inter-faith dialogue are not taking place, but the general approach governing missionary activities is quite clear. Even after the Akali Movement of the twenties and the Indian Independence, the work of mission continued in Punjab. A branch of the Mission called the Batala Group, organised a special Centre of Sikh Studies, which has from time to time been producing half-baked literature that seeks in many subtle and even unsubtle ways, to attack the institutions of Sikhism. Missionaries or ex- missionaries and their associates have been quite prolific in bringing out such material, and three of them, Loehlin, McLeod and McMullen, are considered their experts in Sikh Studies. Literature produced by this group on Sikhism and its institutions, is controversial. From both universities and other institutions, a large body of criticism has appeared to show 4 how superficial and biased the works of McLeod and his associates, are. Here we shall indicate only one of the blasphemous issues raised by McLeod in his books. McLeod Attacks the Authenticity of Guru Granth Sahib: McLeod's small volume; "Evolution of the Sikh Community", contained an unfounded attack on the authenticity of the Kartarpuri Bir, which forms the basis of the Guru Granth Sahib, worshipped by all Sikhs the world over, as their living Guru. The level of the scholarship of the author is evident from the following extracts from the reviews published in the Journal of Sikh Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. "In the short space of 104 pages the author attempts to cover the background, origin and growth of ideology, and all the institutions of the Sikhs, and naturally the method adopted is journalistic and speculative, rather than comprehensive and academic." "It is the common failing of persons with mechanistic views to ignore the role of ideas and ideology as a cementing and directing force in human history and to overstretch and overestimate the significance of ordinary facts and routine events which otherwise, in similar circumstances have never shown any like potential. If oddity is originality, and conjectural assertions and assumptions pieces of historical evidence, the book abounds in them." The assessment in the Sikh Review, Calcutta is : "Dr McLeod has turned his attention on the Sikhs and their religion with a view to giving special notoriety to his views on Sikhs and Sikhism as he wants to or does see it. The result is dearly a mildly and certainly a perverted version of the Sikh esoteric principles and Sikh history and its exposition... It would rank with Trumpp's translation of Guru Granth Sahib; the Dhirmalian's 'Var Piran Pikambran ki'; or the contemporary, 'the bani of nakli Nirankaris', to mention just a few of the gems of envious literary genius ever ready to knock down the prophetic mission and achievements of the Sikh Gurus." This book is full of unsupported generalisations and even blasphemous statements against the Guru Granth Sahib and the Sikhs. Over the subsequent years controversies about it have continued, especially about his libellous or blasphemous statement against the authenticity of the Guru Granth Sahib. Without going into many of his other unacademic statements like, "This is widely regarded as a great pity, even within the 5 Sikh society, where the numerically preponderant Jats commonly bewail the fact that there was never a single Jat Guru.", we shall here confine ourselves only to one issue about his statement against the authenticity of the Kartarpuri Bir or Guru Granth Sahib, which is principally relevant to our present volume. The worst part exposing the perfunctory scholarship and the underlying motive of McLeod is that he made, and continued to repeat, these unfounded statements without examining the Kartarpuri Bir of 1604 AD, without examining the Banno Bir. of 1642 AD, and without studying the related literature on the subject. His allegation is that Guru Granth Sahib, is a tampered with, or a forged Granth, out of which inconvenient hymns have been obliterated by the Sikhs.

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