A few days back, while looking for the meaning of a verse, I scrolled through Navtej Sarna’s English translation of Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama. Zafarnama, the ‘Epistle of Victory’, was written in Persian by Guru Gobind Singh to Aurangzeb, sometime in 1705.
In its
introduction he writes – “An understanding of the Zafarnama presupposes some
familiarity with the immediate historical events it refers to—the battles
between the Sikhs and the Mughal army along with the supporting hill rajas, the
evacuation of Anandpur by the Sikhs on the basis of false oaths sworn on the
Quran by the Mughals, the historic battle of Chamkaur, the martyrdom of the
Guru’s four sons, and so on. To grasp the full philosophical message of the
Zafarnama it is necessary to delve deeper and to trace, even if briefly, the
emergence of the Sikh faith as an independent religion as well as its
development as a political movement that ultimately challenged Mughal rule in
northern India. In short, one has to go back to the time when Guru Nanak
(1469–1539) began the moral and spiritual renaissance of a populace steeped in
ignorance and superstition. This renaissance was to become, under the guidance
of the tenth Guru two centuries later, a miraculous transformation of the human
spirit that would see an oppressed people fight bigotry and religious
persecution with scarcely imaginable courage.”
On this cold
dark late December evening at Singhu Border, thousands sit facing the little stage where speaker
after speaker come and speak/sing from Gurbani, in remembrance of the sacrifice
of the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh. One of them highlights the same
point that Navtej Sarna makes in the last line above – The Gurus fight wasn’t
against another religion, they fought persecution and bigotry. They fought a
tyrant and the tyrannical policies of a throne.
The verse whose
meaning I was looking for –
Chiya shod ki chu bachgan kushteh char
Ki baqi bimand ast pechideh mar.
You killed my four sons:
What difference does that make,
When after their deaths there still
Remains behind a coiled snake?
Walking along
the tractor-trolley township, under the metro line at Tikri, I encountered a
coiled snake. Pasted on a poster, held aloft by a group of youngsters the words
read -
“56 inch di chati waleya, Pauna tera
gaah.
112 inch de sappan naal nitt painda sada
vaah”
“Oh you with 56inch chest, we will burst
your bubble.
Taking care of 112inch snakes, is our
daily struggle.”
The farmers have protested for many months now – first on roads and railways tracks without any relief and now for over a month at the borders of Delhi, under elements in biting cold. It will be prudent for the Delhi throne to wake up, before the coiled snake wakes up and listens to the most often remembered verses of Guru Gobind’s Zafarnama.
Chun kar az hameh heelate dar guzasht
Halal ast burdan bi-shamsher dast
When all has been tried, yet
Justice is not in sight,
It is then right to pick up the sword,
It is then right to fight.
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