Renewing GurSikh Patronage

I write from under the Duomo’s shade in Florence, nearing the end of my summer fieldwork. Spanning three continents, my research at Oxford on the transmission of the Gurbāṇī Kīrtan Paramparā led me to places as varied as Seattle, Amritsar, New Delhi, Pune, and Chandigarh. This week, I am in Italy with my elder gurūbhāī—the outstanding pakhāvajī Parminder Singh Bhamra—practicing together, interviewing him on the role of percussion in kīrtan, and documenting his experiences living and learning for many years with our ustād, Bhāī Baldeep Singh. Before Michaelmas term begins, I even hope to spend some time with the B-40 Janamsākhī at the British Library in London. 

It is presently too early to comment publicly on my findings, but my travels and conversations with exceptionally knowledgeable men and women have more generally prompted some far-ranging reflections that may be of value to those who likewise yearn to help nurture the renaissance in GurSikh affairs. My concern with cultural renewal—and more generally, with how groups of people relate to their own pasts—impelled me to add two extra stops to my itinerary: Shantiniketan and Florence. These additions were respectively prompted by my regard for Tagore as a man of letters as well as an institution-builder and by my longtime fascination with the Italian Renaissance—from its artistic to its philosophical achievements. Partially inspired by these stops, the indispensability of responsible patronage emerges as a theme and receives some analysis in the course of these reflections. 

Standing in the Uffizi’s courtyard, I found myself flanked by statues of many eminent men. Dante, Machiavelli, and Galileo looked down from their stately pedestals. Yet it was Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) whose visionary gaze upwards transfixed me the longest. Only gradually did I come to notice what he was holding: an obscure fragment of some kind, perhaps graced with a line or two of verse. Widely hailed as the ‘father of the Renaissance’, Petrarch compared the ecclesiastical Latin of his day with the eloquence of Cicero, articulating the distance of fourteenth century Rome from her past triumphs. In recognition of the excellence of his Latin verse, Petrarch in 1341 became the second poet to be crowned poet laureate at the Roman Capitol since classical antiquity—the first being Albertino Mussato of Padua, who was laureled the year after Petrarch’s birth. Incidentally, I scoured Florence’s street stalls and shops in vain for a bust of Petrarch. Machiavelli, fortunately, proved less elusive. 

The capacity to form a reasoned assessment of the cultural production of one’s own time, responsibly grounded in knowledge of earlier achievements is a rare gift. Large-scale critical judgments of this kind, if they are to hold appreciable validity, must not be rooted in personal dispositions, whether gloomy or sanguine. Cases where the question of decline—at last in some domains—arises prove especially delicate. Meaningful appraisals presuppose considerable understanding of precisely those virtues and excellences which may no longer be prevalent among one’s contemporaries. Especially rare is the ability first to perceive decline and then to successfully give fresh life to the cultural forms one has inherited. 

Independent of the reverence one naturally feels towards one’s maestro, historical study and careful observation spanning fifteen years leave me certain that the GurSikh Panth is presently blessed with a protagonist of such accomplishments in the person of Bhāī Baldeep Singh. It is no coincidence that he is known as ‘the Renaissance Man of Punjab’. Neither is it a coincidence that Dr. Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker—drawing on her study of the joṛī-pakhāvaj under Bhāī Baldeep Singh—titled her 2014 doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan “The Renaissance of Sikh Devotional Music”. In a biographical write-up I prepared for The Anād Foundation, I distinguished between “two distinct senses” in which it is apt to designate him as a ‘Renaissance Man’.

“The more familiar sense will recall the many talents of the polymath Leonardo da Vinci, for Bhāī Baldeep Singh is a formidable percussionist and singer, film-maker and politician, luthier and poet. The less familiar but more fundamental sense evokes the exquisite historical sensibility and cultural interventions of the poet Francesco Petrarca, who perceived Rome’s decline and envisioned her rebirth.” If Bhāī Baldeep Singh then delivers genius—an indispensable ingredient for eras of profound civilizational renewal—what has yet to emerge within today’s Panth is the no less necessary blessing of foresighted patrons. It is again no coincidence that masterpieces by Botticelli, da Vinci, and Michelangelo grace the city of Florence to this day; Lorenzo de’ Medici of the great banking dynasty established a rich culture of patronage within the Florentine Republic.  

Consider the excellence the Gurūs themselves endowed us with and the literary, musical, theological, architectural, and martial splendor they cultivated within their darbārs. From employing rabābīs to establishing cities, from collecting the revelatory verse of earlier centuries to funding living poets, from discovering rāgas to inventing musical instruments, the Gurūs not only made tremendous contributions within their own times but also left behind an immortal bequest for posterity. It is noteworthy that the Gurūs themselves sang Bāṇī as they received it, since music palpably demonstrates a keystone virtue shared by all truly great patrons: the ability to perceive excellence that may be and to render it perceptible for all the world’s delight. 

It is easy to applaud a completed work performed virtuosically with full orchestration; the real test of a connoisseur patron is whether he or she can discern a nascent masterpiece from a maestro’s smile. Sensitivity of this order demands great cultivation in artist and patron alike. Michelangelo understood himself as freeing the forms trapped in the marble, chiseling away whatever was not the sculpture. Noting the young Michelangelo’s gifts, Lorenzo brought him into the family palace to be educated alongside his own children. The conception of active patronage I submit the Panth must rediscover involves more than furnishing those with great potential the leisure wherefrom serious work may be undertaken: it actively seeks to offer genuine enrichment, in a sense constituting a creative endeavor itself. 

Beyond the requisites of cultivation and creativity, a third attribute of the ideal patron is consolidation, in particular in forging bridges to join excellence with excellence. True patrons spurn insularity, whether geographical or temporal. Lasting achievements are built with an uncompromising commitment to quality, wherever or whenever it may be found. As C.S. Lewis astutely noted, we do not have access to the future, so the best we can do is to sift the gold from the vast sweep of human experience that preceded us. Wise patrons thus build upon the best of what came before, forging bridges linking past accomplishments to a dynamic future.

Darbār Sāhib undoubtedly numbers among my favorite places on the planet, so I planned my stay in Amritsar to maximize my time there. Open to the four corners of the world, the ‘Golden Temple’ requires no entry ticket. Sikhs and non-Sikhs, men and women, rich and poor alike descend the steps leading down to a magnificent view of a gleaming edifice housing the darbār of Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib in the center of and reflected in the sacred pool. Free drinking water is mercifully available at the four corners of the parikarmā for the sun shines down fiercely, and the langar offers a vegetarian meal free of charge to all visitors, who sit together in rows and are served by the devotees. From early morning into the night, hymns in praise of the One are sung to instrumental accompaniment.  

When it comes to securing a legacy, one might do worse than Māhārājā Ranjit Singh, whose considerable restorations and adornments of Darbār Sāhib in marble, copper, and gold at the beginning of the nineteenth century have given this central citadel of Sikhī its name in English, the ‘Golden Temple’. If less commonly known, his patronage of the pakhāvaj of the Gurūs’ darbār with the establishment of a jagīr for Bābā Maiya Singh is no less enduring. Through Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s peerless fieldwork and extraordinary custodianship, the resilient repertoire of the Sultanpur Lodhi-Amritsarī Bāj once again resounds alongside centuries-old Sabad rīts across the world. No matter how great an individual contribution, no giving can secure the future of a tradition for all time; the preservation of cultural heritage—both tangible and intangible—demands continual service, learning, and renewal.  

Darbār Sāhib itself suffered grave depredations and desecrations by Mughal and Afghan rulers in the eighteenth century. During the twentieth century, the city of Amritsar witnessed the British army’s massacre of civilians at Jallianwala Bagh and the Indian army’s genocidal assault on Darbār Sāhib. Upon entering the holy city of Amritsar, I was flooded with grief for the enormities inflicted upon it over the centuries and wonder at the extraordinary strength of its people. Where patronage like that of Māhārājā Ranjit Singh contributes to the healing of historical wounds, such giving ascends to statesmanship.

Sikh nationalism is back in the headlines, fueled by the increasing stridency of diasporic organizations coupled with grave allegations that India murdered a Sikh separatist leader of Canadian citizenship on Canadian soil and that it may likewise pose a credible threat to Sikh American leaders. As I pray for prudence to prevail, I cannot but wonder by what means and in what manner the Panth may regain the capacity for self-determination. A few experiences from my recent time at Darbār Sāhib, alongside everything beautiful and uplifting, have given me some cause for concern.

As a turbaned Sikh living in the West, I have grown accustomed to heightened scrutiny at airports and other security checkpoints. Whenever I entered or exited Darbār Sāhib on this visit, I was cursorily waved through by the sevādār on duty, despite wearing a backpack with my camera and other research materials. Non-kesādhārīs carrying simple bags seemed to receive more probing inspection. Perhaps such profiling corresponds to a heightened security risk in fraught times. Then again, perhaps it signifies a hardening of communal boundaries in a place constructed to exist beyond them. 

Arriving reasonably early one morning—about half-way through Āsā dī Vār—I queued alongside the other devotees on the main causeway to offer my obeisances before the Gurū. Just over an hour-and-a-half later, I finally made it to the center of the complex, experiencing both moments of communion and dismay along the way. It was moving when the voices of strangers in a crowd would join together in sangat rūp to recite more familiar lines from Āsā dī Vār. It was also heartening to see that despite the sea of people, women received more elbow room and were thus less at risk of being be poked by a protruding belly or being employed as an armrest by some overly-familiar uncle. Nonetheless, some women jostled their way through the sangat—indicating with their hands the children and assorted family members behind them—with imperious cries of ‘side do’. Perhaps this was a pragmatic solution to the unpleasantness of wailing children in a virtually stationary line. Then again, when it was other children patiently waiting to see the Gurū who were abruptly shoved aside, I began to wonder if it were perhaps those most in need of learning the virtue of patience who missed out on the lesson. It took one hundred and forty years for the Florentine Republic to build its great Cathedral. Is today’s Panth ready to undertake projects whose fruition lies more than a century in the future? 

I was pleasantly surprised to find the sevādār in saffron and navy who oversees the golden gate controlling access to the seating area directly behind the kīrtanīās gesturing to me in invitation to enter. I gratefully accepted the offer and soon found myself seated right between the lead singer holding what passes for a tāus nowadays and a tablā player who presented no substance during the śān, soon after peppering his accompaniment of Sabad Gurū with gratuitous TiṬKiṬs. Completing the jathā  was a Singh desultorily grasping a ‘rabāb’. He occasionally plucked a note or two, yet these bore minimal relevance to the weak melody being sung. Despite the dismay I felt at what passes for kīrtan in Darbār Sāhib today, I could not but be profoundly moved to sit in the Harimandar Sāhib of Gurū Arjan Dev, surrounded by the sarovar of Gurū Ram Das, and sang along throughout. 

Regrettably it did not prove possible for me to see very much inside Shantiniketan’s Visva-Bharati beyond the Tagore Museum, but this afforded sufficient intimation of the kind of institution Bhāī Baldeep Singh might have built in Sultanpur Lodhi. If in place of facing persecution at the hands of the Punjab Police (India) he received adequate support to realize his extraordinary vision, GurSikh affairs would already be on a far better trajectory. Across the board, my interviews with custodians of remarkable kīrtan have underscored the importance of one’s sangat and the existence of an environment where those committed to attaining excellence may flourish. With the forthcoming publication of Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s landmark tome, notations for hundreds of melodic and rhythmic marvels from the Gurbāṇī Kīrtan Paramparā will become unprecedentedly accessible. Few individuals—whether they deal primarily in the coin of tana, mana, or dhana—have thus far managed to distinguish themselves as true patrons by discerning the secret of the maestro’s smile. Yet as the seeds Bhāī Baldeep Singh collected from Bābā Nanak’s orchard bear still greater harvests, no one with a genuine love of the Gurū will be able to resists partaking of the amrit-filled fruits. 

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Nihal Singh