The Nirankaris I
Vishwajit Singh
"During the reign of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Hindus of western Punjab
and Derajat came under the influence of Sikhism. A few accepted the pahul
and joined the Khalsa fraternity; most others continued to describe themselves
as Hindus but gave up the worship of Hindu gods and the recitation of the
Vedas, instead reading the Granth and joining Sikh congregations at the
gurudwaras. Among these Hindus there grew a custom of bringing up at least
one son as a kesadhari Sikh. This half-Hindu, half-Sikh community belonged
to the Khatri, Arora, or Bania castes. They continued to marry within their
castes regardless of the change in their religious beliefs.
Dyal Das (d.1855), a bullion merchant of Peshawar, belonged to this Hindu-Sikh
community. He condemned idol worship and making obeisance to 'holy' men; he
disapproved of going on pilgrimages and performing Brahamanical ritual. The
positive aspect of his teaching was that God was formless - nirankar (hence the futility of worshipping idols or 'saints'); consequently he described himself
as a nirankari. He coined the phrase:
dhan nirankar
deh dhari sab khwar
(Praise be to the Formless Creator;
Worship of mortals is of no avail.)
Dyal Das soon acquired the status of a guru and gathered around him disciples who, like him, described themselves as Nirankaris. They ran into opposition
first from Hindu Brahmins and, after Dyal Das moved from Peshawar to
Rawalpindi, from the Bedi descendants of Guru Nanak, who had a large following
in the district. The Nirankaris were ostracised by both the Hindus and the
Sikhs and had to build their own places of worship. The biggest was raised on
the banks of the stream Layee four miles outside Rawalpindi. When Dyal Das
died, his sandals became an object of veneration. They were placed alongside
the Granth, and the temple on the Layee was named after him as Dayalsar. It
became the headquarters of the Nirankari sect.
Dyal Das was succeeded by the eldest of his three sons, Darbara Singh. Darbara Singh built new centres (biras) for the Nirankaris and began the practice of
issuing encyclicals (hukumnamas) for the instruction of his followers. His
chief contribution was to standardise ritual connected with births, marriages,
and deaths. These rituals were a departure from the Hindu tradition inasmuch
as they were based on the Granth and not on the hindu sacred texts. Darbara
Singh (d.1870) was succeeded by his youngest brother, Rattan Chand (d.1909),
and Rattan Chand by his son Gurdit Singh (d.1947). The present head of the
Nirankaris is Gurdit Singh's son, Hara Singh.
Various estimates of the numbers of the sect have been made. The Nirankaris
themselves claim a following of nearly 100,000 comprised mainly of non-Jat
Sikhs and Hindus of the Arora Zargar (goldsmith) and Kshatriya castes. Until
1947, their influence was restricted to Sikh and Hindu communities of the
North West Frontier Province and Kashmir. After the partition of India,
Dayalsar was abandoned, and the centre was shifted first to Amritsar and
then to Chandigarh, the new capital of East Punjab.
The differences between orthodox Sikhism and the Nirankaris are limited to
the latter's worship of gurus other than the ten recognised by the Sikhs.
Nirankaris style Dyal Das and his successors with honorifics such as
sri satguru (the true guru) and sri hazur sahib (his holy eminence). They also
disapprove of the militant Khalsa.
The Nirankaris are fast losing their separate identity and may, within a few
decades, merge back into the Hindu or Sikh parent body. The importance of the
movement lies largely in the fact that it initiated ceremonial rites which
inculcated among the Sikhs a sense of separateness and thus checked the process of their absorption into Hinduism."
(p. 123 - 125 ; 1966 edition)
NOTES
1) The Nirankaris claim that they were the first to introduce the Anand marriage which is performed by circumambulating the Granth. The Anand Marriage Act
legalising such marriages was passed in 1909.
2) The census of 1891 records the number of Nirankaris as 50,724 of which
11,817 were Sikhs and 38,907 Hindus. Captain A. H. Bingley in his
"Handbook for the Indian Army" estimates the total figure of Nirankaris
at 38,000.
3) Two of the four Nirankari gurus were not baptised as Khalsa, and nirankaris
substitute the word 'nirankar' for 'sri bhagwati' (the sword) in the
invocation recited at the end of prayer because, say the Nirankaris, bhagwati
is also the name of a Hindu goddess. The only other point of difference
from orthodox Sikhs is in their form of greeting, which is dhan nirankar
instead of the orthodox sat sri akal.