“An Akalis Fanatical Devotee” by Mortimer Menpes, R. I.

An Akalis Fanatical Devotee

Mortimer Menpes

1903

Watercolor

Source: The Durbar, facing p. 42

“This old warrior is such a religious enthusiast that on the day on which the birthday of Govind Sinh was celebrated he clothed his pony in a pair of drawers and thus made a Sikh of him , for this article of clothing is one of the five things essential to the true Sikh.”

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Akalis Fanatical Devotee: One of the aged Sikh warriors who fought so bravely for us during the Siege of Delhi

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“One of the incidents that attracted my attention was the falsetto shriek of an old man standing under an archway at the entrance gate. He was a big man, though very old, with white hair and piercing black eyes ; and he was mounted on a tiny pony, the size of a Shetland. He wore a huge conical turban, about four feet in height, covered with steel daggers, and hoops, and weapons of all kinds. He was a celebrated religious fanatic from the golden temple of Amritsar. The song he was singing was the names of ten Gurus in the form of a chant. A few days before the Sikhs had celebrated the birthday of Govind Sinh, the tenth and greatest Guru, the man who made the Sikhs into a religious and political power. The ninth Guru, Teg Bahadur, was a very religious man. His ambition was to reform the Sikhs; but he fell into the hands of the Great Mogul, who wanted to kill him, and was con- tinually searching for some pretext to do so. At last Teg Bahadur, when walking outside his prison, was found guilty and accused of looking towards the Mogul's zenana, a heinous sin. He answered the accusation in these words: ‘I was not looking towards the zenana. I was looking south for the white race who will come from beyond the sea to tear down thy purdahs and destroy thine empire.’

Thus Teg Bahadur sealed his own fate. He was beheaded immediately. His words lived among the Sikhs afterwards, and his prophecy was spread far and wide ; while his memory was kept green by the next Guru, the wise Govind Sinh. On the day when the Sikhs helped us so bravely at the assault of Delhi, and the Mogul rule was ended, Govind Sinh shouted out as a battle-cry the name of Teg Bahadur. That is partly the reason why the Sikhs are so friendly towards us. They feel that British rule in India has come to stay, and that it was the wish of Teg Bahadur, the great Guru, that it should be. The name of this great and glorious martyr acted as an impetus to their courage, and the Sikhs flung themselves boldly into the thick of the fight. The day of the Durbar the Sikhs made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Teg Bahadur to renew their vows of loyalty to the King Emperor. Their sacred book, the Granth Sahib, was brought forward, and they saluted it reverently while their bands played ‘God Save the King !’ It was on this same anniversary that the screaming fanatic we saw at Jind clothed his pony in breeches and made a Sikh of him” (148-49).

Bibliography

Menpes, Mortimer. The Durbar. Text by Dorothy Menpes. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1903. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California at Los Angeles Library. Web. 27 May 2017.

Last modified 27 May 2017