Sikh perspectives of ANZAC Day

Why should we treasure the 25th of April?

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh

On the 25th of April, as a deluge of ANZAC speeches reverberate all around Australia and on the battlefields of Europe, people of various backgrounds cannot help but step back and contemplate the actions of their forebears.

After the partition of the subcontinent, intellectuals went into a frenzy of speculation as to why the British was able to control 4 million square kilometers of foreign land. Narrowing it down to the Sikhs area of influence, the various theories can be separated into two broad schools of thought, which I will call “the psychological attrition of the Sikhs” and “the martial Sikhs”. Needless to say, not every idea fits neatly into one camp or the other, but this division is still a useful way to focus things.

“The psychological attrition of the Sikhs” asserts — fiercely — that the racist, imperial wars fought by the British utilized Sikh manpower as fodder for their colonial cannons. The blood that drenched the soil of Flanders, the sands of Gallipoli, was of the East for the glory of the West. The same West that suppressed and restrained the spirit of the East. This definitely has merit; the British skillfully divided and conquered South Asia and then used this new deposit of manpower to project their power into further into East Asia and Africa. In 1904, a short story was written in a Chinese journal ‘Jiangsu’, a nightmare evoking the Indian enslavement of the Chinese intellectuals. The character, Huang Shibiao had a nightmare of himself walking through Shanghai. “Shibiao looked closely at these people and they all had faces as black as coal. They were wearing a piece of red cloth around their heads like a tall hat; around their waists, they wore a belt holding wooden clubs. Shibiao asked the old man: are these Indians? The old man said, yes, the English use them as police…Shibiao asked, why do they not use an India as the chief of police? The old man answered: who ever hear of that! Indians are people of a lost country: they are no more than slaves”. We saw this resentment of British domination fester through the creation of the Indian National Army (INA).

Au contraire, intellectuals of the “the martial Sikhs” see Sikh service in the wars as both a testament to Sikh character and a political necessity of the time. The Sikhs were awarded Battle Honours for their service at France and Flanders, Gallipoli, Egypt (to name a few) in WWI and El Alamein, Monte Calvo and Irrawaddy River among others in WWII. The battlefield prowess of the Sikhs is often talked about by the community, however the political necessity of supporting the WWII is seldom mentioned. In 1939, the Sikhs found themselves in a precarious situation. Support the Muslim League or Congress movements — one which would divide the home of Sikhs, the other conceding the privileges afforded to the Sikhs by the British — or exploit Congress-League differences and extract concessions from both through building a rapport with the rapidly withdrawing British.

‘A century ago we got it wrong. We sent thousands of young Australians on a military operation that was barely more than a disaster. It’s right that a hundred years later we should feel strongly about that. But have we got our remembrance right? What lessons haven’t we learned about war, and what might be the cost of our Anzac obsession?’ Anzac’s Long Shadow by James Brown

Personally, I sit comfortably on the fence. The Sikhs are a proud martial race who display their military service with great joy. The willingness of Sikhs to serve for the Australian Imperial Force is a testament to this fact, which reduces the accuracy of the “The psychological attrition of the Sikhs” assertion. However, in line with James Brown, our panthic obsession to sanctify our forebears is counterproductive.

I feel we must carefully accept aspects of both broad schools of thought and define ourselves in a manner of our choosing. We should not project our self-image using definitions of a conqueror-cum-counselor or through emotions of animosity or spite.

For Sikh service as part of the Australian Imperial Force, be sure to check out http://www.australiansikhheritage.com/