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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The spring month of Māgh heralds festivals, pilgrimages and popular rituals in the north Indian countryside. In 1872, the small village Bhaini, in Ludhiana district, was the scene of feverish activity. Participants in a millenarian community popularly known as Kukas had collected there in connection with the spring festivities on the 11 and 12 of January. They had, however, very little to celebrate. In the past four months nine of their numbers had been hanged by the colonial authorities on charges of attacking slaughter houses and killing butchers, others had been imprisoned, and many more were subjected to increasing surveillance and restrictions. British officials nervously shifted their views of the Kukas. Earlier seen as religious reformers within the Sikh tradition, they were now deemed to be political rebels. As those present felt heavily suspect in the eyes of the administration, the atmosphere at Bhaini must have been tense and unnerving.
I am extremely grateful to Peter Harnetty, Susana B. C. Devalle and James Scott for having read an earlier draft of this essay, and for having made many helpful criticisms and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.Google Scholar
1 This perspective is clearly reflected in Memorandum on Ram Singh and the Kukas by Macnabb, J. W., Officiating Commissioner, Ambala Division, 4 November, 1871, reproduced inGoogle ScholarSingh, Nahar, Goroo Ram Singh and the Kuka Sikhs, I (New Delhi, 1965), pp. 143–52. Nahar Singh in a very useful three-volume collection has compiled British official documents on the Kukas available at the National Archives, New Delhi. Vols. I and II are published from New Delhi, 1965 and 1966. The final vol. is from Srī Jiwan Nagar, 1967. (hereafter these vols are cited as KS).Google Scholar
2 For this interpretation see Macnabb's memorandum cited above.Google Scholar
3 This line of thought is clearly seen in Bajwa, Fauja Singh, Kuka Movement: An Important Phase in Punjab's Role in India's Struggle for Freedom (Delhi, 1965)Google Scholar,Ahluwalia, M. M., Kukas: The Freedom Fighters of the Panjab (Bombay, 1965)Google Scholar, and Singh, Joginder, Kuka Movement: Freedom Struggle in Punjab (New Delhi, 1985).Google Scholar
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5 Reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Kūkian dī Vithiā (Amritsar, 1944), letter no. 4, p. 25, my translation (hereafter Vithiā).Google Scholar
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7 On the importance of a moral order for peasant societies particularly in the ‘economic’ domain see the well known work of Scott, James C., The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven, 1976). For its ramifications in the Indian sphereGoogle Scholar see Metcal, Barbara Daly (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority (California, 1984), pp. 1–22. Although she surveys the importance of the moral order in Islam, her study can illuminate similar concepts among other Indian traditions.Google Scholar
8 I have often used the term Kuka Sikhs here because the differences between the Kukas and the Sikhs had not fully crystallized in the nineteenth century and the two categories often overlapped. This is one reason why the British authorities found it so hard to judge the exact number of Kukas in the Punjab. But at the same time it must be acknowledged there were certain differences between sectors of the Sikh tradition and the Kukas, particularly doctrinal ones, which came to a head when Ram Singh visited the Anandpur shrine.Google Scholar
9 Ādi Granth is the title of the principal Sikh scripture compiled by Arjan, Guru in 1603–1604.Google Scholar
10 The Sanskrit word panth (literally path or road) is used to designate groups in India following particular teachers or doctrines. The early Sikh community was thus known as Nanak-panth or ‘followers of Nanak’. Later generations increasingly dropped the prefix, with the result that the community came to be known as simply, ‘the Panth’. This remains the preferred title today, in English usage as in Hindi or Punjabi.
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68 The oft-reiterated nationalist position that British authorities introduced cow slaughter to divide Hindu and Muslim populations is oversimplistic and at present has nothing to support it. For the nationalist argument see the works listed in footnote 3 above.
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