Images: Below, first from bottom - Sardar Bhagat Singh. Second from bottom - Sardar Udham Singh, doing langar seva in a London gurdwara shortly before he confronted O'Dwyer. Homepage and thumbnail - young Bhagat Singh.
History
Marching to a Different Drummer
by BHUPINDER SINGH MAHAL
In July 2010, Muneer Sheikh, Canada's Chief Statistician, sent ripples through he political world by quitting over a highly publicized policy disagreement with the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. His falling on his sword was accoladed as "brave", "honorable" and "admirable".
He probably had other worthy traits known only to those close to him but it was his public gesture that defined him.
An individual's personality is defined by his traits and qualities that set him apart from others. A trait is fluid until, with repetition, it becomes entrenched as an attitude. One's behaviour begins to be tailored by parental guidance and discipline at home and through observing how the elders comport themselves. Some attitudes and mannerisms are learned at school and through peer interaction.
A single trait, however, does not a personality make. A person's disposition or temperament is the sum total of his traits. Thus, a person may be described as gregarious and sociable; reserved and shy; assertive and dominant; narcisstic and selfish; or Machiavellian and untrustworthy, and so on. These descriptors speak to an individual's personality.
Like an individual, each nation, too, has its unique qualities that define its national character; a character that is moulded by its geography, history, laws, education, class structure, cultural and religious mores.
Whereas an individual may be fairly judged by specific, habitual behaviour, constructing a composite of a people (nation, quom), in a sort of pigeonholing, is fraught with risks. To begin with, classifying commonalities from among disparate personalities may lead to biased categorizations. And, once an impression gets entrenched, it becomes difficult to change it and there is a tendency to ignore the imperative that people or individuals may change over time and no longer fit the category in which they were placed.
Impressions of others are how a people (nation, quom) or an individual get characterized.
For example, the English are renowned for their good qualities such as self-control, stiff-upper-lip, fair play, adventurism, and generosity and for their less than desirable qualities such as snobbishness, chauvinism, social class distinctions.
By the same token, the Sikh collectivity or quom has come to reflect a certain quintessence of ethos. The Sikh quom is known for good soldiering and chivalry, taking up the cudgels on behalf of the disadvantaged or the oppressed, big-heartedness (vund
chhakna), dignity of work (kirat karni), meditation and devotion (naam japna); and with faults like tribalism, internecine warfare and stubbornness.
At the individual level, the English cultivated a special personal image of being gentlemen. "And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to be a gentleman" - thus did Anthony Trollope define his ideal. That behaviour was instilled in English boys at the elite boarding schools of England. The Duke of Wellington is reputed to have declared that "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton".
The fate of Etonian Lawrence Oates in the Antarctic is the epitome of gentlemanly conduct. He was a member of Scott's ill-fated 1912 Antarctic expedition. Disconsolate after losing their race to Edmundson to reach the South Pole and while trekking back to base camp, Scott and his companions were caught in a severe blizzard. Oates had severely frostbitten feet, making it painful to walk. He knew his companions would not abandon him and he in turn did not want to doom them to certain death.
After dinner, Oates turned to his companions and said "I am just going outside and may be some time." He walked into the blinding whiteness and vanished for ever, leaving no trace of himself. That noble gesture was what was expected of a gentleman.
Etched in the hearts of a Sikh are the words that Guru Gobind uttered near Pir Nur Din's bagh: "It is when I make sparrows fight hawks that I am called Gobind Singh".
Imbued with that spirit, Sikhs like Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh battled British injustices in India.
Udham Singh was a young boy when he witnessed the April 1919 massacre of hundreds of innocent men, women and children by the British army at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab. He took a solemn oath to punish the then Governor of Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer, who had masterminded the massacre. Twenty-one years later, he found his opportunity and shot O'Dwyer dead as he spoke at a meeting of the East India Association at Caxton Hall in London, England, boasting of his exploits in India. That noble gesture was what was expected of a Sikh freedom fighter.
It is the gallantry and generosity of the individual that is filed in the archives of the mind, which qualities ultimately merge into the psyche of the nation (quom).
The likes of Lawrence Oates (an Englishman) and Udham Singh (a Sikh) will continue to march to the beat of their own drum and by so doing enrich their respective quoms.
August 3, 2010