Part I: Chapter 21

LEARNING NOT ENOUGH, WIELD A WEAPON-KRIPA RAM DUTTA

Aurangzeb, a bigot to the marrow of his bone, was a scourge for the Hindus and worked havoc on them through forcible conversions to the Islamic faith. It was at his behest that the governor of Kashmir, Iftikhar Khan (1671-75) equally a bigot, unsheathed the sword of Islam against the Kashmiri Pandits with the objective of securing their conversion to Islam. At this moment of grave crisis, some Pandits, wise and learned, under the leadership of Kripa Ram Dutta of Bhawan, District Anantnag, decided to repair to the Amarnath cave, held as an abode of Shiva, to pray to the Lord and seek His guidance for the resolution of crisis they were faced with.

At the holy cave, Kripa Ram, an ardent believer in Shiva's grace, had a dream in which Lord Shiva introduced him to the address of Guru Tegh Bahadur and directed him to seek his guidance to meet the challenge posed by the demon of bigotry and religious blindness. Acting upon the Lord's Counsel, Kripa Ram at the head of a delegation of 500 Kashmiri Pandits crossed over the mountain ramparts to reach Anandpur village in the Punjab to call on Guru Tegh Bahadur.

The Pandits in extreme agony and distress presented a petition to the Guru in which it was stated that they were being subjected to religious persecution, the sacred threads that they were putting on as a mark of religious initiation were being forcibly removed from their person and each day such threads weighing a maund and a quarter were being snapped and burnt and cows without number were being mercilessly slaughtered to inflict grave hurt on the Hindus. Finally they sought for his intercession and protection.

The Guru in great distress and anguish pondered for a while and informed the suppliant Brahmans that the brutal atrocities on the Hindus could be stemmed only after a great sacrifice.

Tegh Bahadur's son, Gobind Rai, prescient and precocious, present on the scene fully realising the gravity of the distressing situation and exhibiting exemplary courage and zeal urged his father to undertake the sacrifice for the protection and preservation of Hindu faith, which was under a severe onslaught from the Muslim fanaticism and bigotry.

Guru Tegh Bahadur advised the Kashmiri Pandits to go to Delhi and tell the bigot in the emperor that he should first convert Tegh Bahadur to Islamic faith and then all of them would follow suit sans any equivocation. The same was verbatim conveyed to the emperor. Losing his cool and flying into a spasm of rage, he summoned the Guru to Delhi. The Guru accompanied by five of his trusted and faithful disciples arrived in Delhi and Aurangzeb in all his fanatic fury and wrath asked him to embrace Islam or show some miracle to establish and prove his credentials of guruship As a spiritualist of high order, the Guru denied that he could perform a miracle and valiantly and without a quiver refused to join the fold of Islam. Aurangzeb ordered his execution and it was thus that the guru attained martyrdom.

The martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur proved a waterlog for the forces of intolerance, hate and religious fanaticism. The Hindus throughout the country were aflame with a deep sense of revenge and in the end it got forged and mobilised into a strong resistance movement led by Guru Gobind Singh, who formed the 'Khalsa Panth' with the avowed objective of fighting and defeating the Muslim bigotry and fanaticism. In generating and organising the resistance movement, Kripa Ram Dutta played a remarkable role by nurturing and teaching Guru Gobind Singh at the preparatory stage till he flowered as the guiding symbol of the resistance movement against intolerance and fanatic orthodoxy. It was Kripa Ram, who is said to have innovated the vital idea of combining Shastra (learning) with Shastra (Weapon) and infused the same into the great Guru, who through his divine vision and prescience moulded the Sikhs into a patriotic martial race. He taught the Guru Sanskrit and through it introduced him to the entire store-house of Hindu lore and learning and as a follower of Sikh faith fell to the forces of bigotry in the battle of Chamkaur, thus materialising his significant thesis into actual praxis.