麻豆社

Good morning.

A massive festival is taking place to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of the 9th Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadar, at the iconic Red Fort in Delhi, just a stone鈥檚 throw away from where he was executed on the orders of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb for defending the right to the freedom of religion and belief of non-Sikhs.

The location is significant. Orders from the Red Fort led to the persecution of Sikhs across the subcontinent. It was also conquered by Sikhs in the late 18th century, with the building being returned to the then Mughal Emperor on condition that several important gurdwaras be rebuilt across the city. The Red Fort was left intact, apart from a stone slab from the Mughal throne which was symbolically placed in chains and taken to Amritsar where it remains in a cell overlooking the Golden Temple.

The powerful symbolism in reclaiming a space on behalf of a community, even if only temporarily, is something we see on our shores too. A couple of weeks ago, the Tower of London hosted its first ever iftar dinner to mark Ramadan, whilst this weekend saw Trafalgar Square marking Vaisakhi, with the entire square awash with orange and blue flags.

The performance of Sikh martial arts at the base of Nelson鈥檚 Column would have been very familiar to two individuals whose statues on the Square were paid for by public subscription, both military officers who served in India on behalf of the British Empire. Sir Henry Havelock in particular would have recognised the martial displays from his role in the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845.

At the Vaisakhi event, I got speaking with someone who made their views very clear to me. 鈥淧ull down the statues鈥�, they said, 鈥渢hey did it in Bristol鈥�. My approach, however, is very different. As the 9th Guru himself showed, you can defend the beliefs of others, even if you vehemently disagree with them. We can鈥檛 change the future unless we remember the past, and I believe, contentious as it may be, that means we can鈥檛 sanitise the past either. The Red Fort in Delhi is a constant reminder of the subjugation of India by the Mughals, just as the statues in Trafalgar Square remind us how the Empire was lauded during its lifetime by many Brits despite the horrors experienced by people of colour who were killed or enslaved by it.

Instead, I revel in the thought that those who came before would be spinning in their graves if they knew what celebrations were taking place in their former homes or in the presence of their memorials. Aurangzeb would have found the Red Fort being a sea of orange as deeply painful and upsetting, whilst the 9th Guru would have been extremely proud of his Sikhs. What better way of subverting the past than doing so under the direct gaze of those who would have hated it?

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