I am extremely grateful to Peter Harnetty, Susana B. C. Devalle and James Scott for having read an earlier draft of this essay, and for having made many helpful criticisms and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.Google Scholar

¹ This perspective is clearly reflected in Memorandum on Ram Singh and the Kukas by Macnabb, J. W., Officiating Commissioner, Ambala Division, 4 November, 1871, reproduced inGoogle ScholarSingh, Nahar, Goroo Ram Singh and the Kuka Sikhs, I (New Delhi, 1965), pp. 143–52. Nahar Singh in a very useful three-volume collection has compiled British official documents on the Kukas available at the National Archives, New Delhi. Vols. I and II are published from New Delhi, 1965 and 1966. The final vol. is from Srī Jiwan Nagar, 1967. (hereafter these vols are cited as KS).Google Scholar

² For this interpretation see Macnabb's memorandum cited above.Google Scholar

³ This line of thought is clearly seen in Bajwa, Fauja Singh, Kuka Movement: An Important Phase in Punjab's Role in India's Struggle for Freedom (Delhi, 1965)Google Scholar,Ahluwalia, M. M., Kukas: The Freedom Fighters of the Panjab (Bombay, 1965)Google Scholar, and Singh, Joginder, Kuka Movement: Freedom Struggle in Punjab (New Delhi, 1985).Google Scholar

⁴ McLeod, W. H., ‘The Kukas: A Millenarian Sect of the Punjab’, in Wood, G. A. and O'Connor, P. S. (eds), W. P. Morrell: A Tribute (Dunedin, 1973), pp. 85–103.Google Scholar

⁵ Reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Kūkian dī Vithiā (Amritsar, 1944), letter no. 4, p. 25, my translation (hereafter Vithiā).Google Scholar

⁶ Examination of the accused number 3, Singh, Kaisra in ‘Copy of the Correspondence, or Extracts from Correspondence, relating to Kooka outbreak’, Parliamentary Papers, vol. 45, 1872, p. 43.Google Scholar

⁷ On the importance of a moral order for peasant societies particularly in the ‘economic’ domain see the well known work of Scott, James C., The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven, 1976). For its ramifications in the Indian sphereGoogle Scholar see Metcal, Barbara Daly (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority (California, 1984), pp. 1–22. Although she surveys the importance of the moral order in Islam, her study can illuminate similar concepts among other Indian traditions.Google Scholar

⁸ I have often used the term Kuka Sikhs here because the differences between the Kukas and the Sikhs had not fully crystallized in the nineteenth century and the two categories often overlapped. This is one reason why the British authorities found it so hard to judge the exact number of Kukas in the Punjab. But at the same time it must be acknowledged there were certain differences between sectors of the Sikh tradition and the Kukas, particularly doctrinal ones, which came to a head when Ram Singh visited the Anandpur shrine.Google Scholar

⁹ Ādi Granth is the title of the principal Sikh scripture compiled by Arjan, Guru in 1603–1604.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The Sanskrit word panth (literally path or road) is used to designate groups in India following particular teachers or doctrines. The early Sikh community was thus known as Nanak-panth or ‘followers of Nanak’. Later generations increasingly dropped the prefix, with the result that the community came to be known as simply, ‘the Panth’. This remains the preferred title today, in English usage as in Hindi or Punjabi.

¹¹ Temple, R. C., ‘Honorific Class Names in the Punjab’, Indian Antiquary II, 1882, p. 118.Google Scholar

¹² Singh, Kirpal, An Historical Account of Bhai Vasti Ram and Bhai Ram Singh (Amritsar, n.d.), p. 9.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., p. 17.

¹⁴ The Malwa region lies to the south and southeast of the Sutlej river.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Account based on Walker, T. Gordon, Final Report on the Revision of Settlement 1878–83 of the Ludhiana District (Calcutta, 1884), p. 61 (hereafter Ludhiana Report)Google Scholar and Chiefs and Families of Note in the Punjab, vol. I, 4th edition, revised by Chopra, G. L. (Lahore, 1940), pp. 203–9Google Scholar, and Khālsā Akhbār, 14 April 1888, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, p. 6.Google Scholar

¹⁷ This brief biographical note is based on Singh, Ganda, VithiāGoogle Scholar and Singh, Nahar, Nāmdhārī Itihās (Delhi, 1955), (hereafter Itihās). Both these works have made extensive use of primary sources in Urdu and Panjabi, particularly the literature produced by the Kukas themselves. For instance Santokh Singh, Satgur Bilās (unpublished)Google Scholar, Singh, Dhian, Sri Satgurū Bilās (Bhaini Sahib, 1942),Google Scholar and Alam, Nidhan Singh, Jug Paltau Satgurū, (Delhi, 1947).Google Scholar

¹⁸ MrsSteel, F. A., ‘Folklore in the Punjab’, The Indian Antiquary II, 1882, p. 42.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, letter number 44, p. 302.Google Scholar

²⁰ Singh, Nahar, Itihās, p. 46.Google Scholar

²¹ Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

²² On how the pure impure antinomy has influenced different cultures see Doublas, Mary, Purity and Danger (London, 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Sikh concerns with purity and pollution are clearly reflected in the Sau sākhīān anthology circulated within the community in the nineteenth century. In a list of sixty-four injunctions in the anthology, several are concerned with the maintenance of purity. For an English translation of the original text see Singh, Attar, Sakhe Book or the Description of Gooroo Gobind Singh's Religion and Doctrines (Benares, 1873), pp. 18–24.Google Scholar

²⁴ Eliade, M., Patterns in Comparative Religion (London, 1958), p. 194Google Scholar, cited in Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger, p. 161.Google Scholar

²⁵ For an early attempt at conceptualizing purity and impurity in India see an unsigned essay possibly by Dumont, Louis and Pocock, David F., ‘Pure and Impure’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 3, 1959, pp. 9–39.Google Scholar

²⁶ Singh, Nahar, Itihās, p. 51.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ibid., p. 65.

²⁸ Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, p. 16.Google Scholar

²⁹ Reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, pp. 313–14.Google Scholar Above passage translated by McLeod, W. H., Textual Sources For The Study of Sikhism (Manchester, 1984), p., 129 (hereafter Textual Sources).Google Scholar

³⁰ Sanehi, Swaran Singh, ‘Kukas as they live’ in Webster, John C. B. (ed.), Popular Religion in the Punjab Today (Delhi, 1974), pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

³¹ Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, p. 288.Google Scholar

³² Ram Singh's letter number 32 reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, p. 277.Google Scholar

³³ Singh's, Ram personal instructions in two different letters numbers 46 and 49 inGoogle ScholarIbid., pp. 305, 310.

³⁴ ‘A brief Narrative of the Kuka Sect with some account of Ram Singh of Bhaini’, in Singh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 27.Google Scholar

³⁵ Singh, Khan, Gurśabad Ratanākar Mahān Koś (Patiala, 1960, 2nd edition, first published 1930), p. 1034.Google Scholar

³⁶ These moral rules are constantly reiterated in Bhai Ram Singh's correspondence and rahit-nāmās. See Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, pp. 223, 225, 227, 240, 245, 261, 263, 287, 291, 297.Google Scholar

³⁷ Contemporary official reports repeatedly commented on how members of different castes were freely admitted into the Kuka ranks. For instance see ibid., p. 29.

³⁸ Inspector General of Police, Punjab, to Secretary to Government, Punjab, 20 January 1868Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS I, p. 64.Google Scholar

³⁹ Dumont, and Pocock, , ‘Pure and Impure’, p. 31.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Contemporary officials used the word tomb loosely without distinguishing between a grave, shrine or ancestral site.

⁴¹ From Thornton, T. H., Secretary to Government Punjab to J. W. S. Wyllie, Officiating Secretary, Government of India, Foreign Department, number 154–7, 2 February 1867, inGoogle ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 34.Google Scholar

⁴² Inspector General of Police Punjab to Secretary to Government of Punjab, 20 January 1868, inGoogle ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 70.Google Scholar

⁴³ Major, Andrew J., ‘Return to Empire: The Sikhs and the British in the Punjab 1839–1872’, unpublished PhD thesis, The Australian National University, Canberra, 1981, p. 320.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Leach, Edmund, Culture and Communication (Cambridge, 1976), p. 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ For sake of convenience in the rest of this section I will be calling these various sacred spots simply village sites.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Foreign Departmental Political, 8 October 1866,Google Scholar in Singh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 28.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Quoted in Thornton, T. H. to J. W. S. Wyllie (see fn. 41), my translation.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ From Inspector General of Police, Punjab to Secretary to Government, Punjab, number 11–188, 20 January 1868Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, pp. 70–1. The usage of the term grave here conveys a misleading impression. As the report itself indicates these were not graves but maṛhīs constructed at the cremation grounds.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ On how the British administration repeatedly tried to disassociate its political authority from the local religious culture in the Punjab, although often without any success, see Kerr, Ian J., ‘British relationships with the Golden Temple, 1849–90’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 21, 1984, pp. 139–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gilmartin, David Paul, ‘Tribe, Land and Religion in the Punjab: Muslim Politics and the Making of Pakistan’, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1979, pp. 53–105.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Marvin Harris, an anthropologist, in numerous writings has argued that Indian attitudes towards cattle have to do with ecological adaptation, nutritional efficiency and bioenergetic productivity. For instance, see his ‘The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle’, Current Anthropology 7, 1966, pp. 51–66CrossRefGoogle Scholarand ‘India's Sacred Cow’, Human Nature I, 1978, pp. 28–36.Google Scholar This perspective has been bitterly opposed by Diener, Paul, Nonini, Donald and Robkin, Eugene E., ‘The Dialectics of the Sacred Cow: Ecological Adaptation Versus Political Appropriation in the Origin of India's Cattle Complex’, Dialectical Anthropology 3, 1978, pp. 221–41. These authors argue the position of the cow can be understood through an analysis of class conflict, power equations, appropriation of surplus and the rise of Indian empires. Both these approaches remain locked within the polemics of materialism and are uninterested in cow symbolism or its sacredness.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵¹ Brown, W. N., ‘The Sanctity of the Cow in Hinduism’, Economic Weekly 16, 1964, pp. 245–55.Google Scholar

⁵² Quoted in Rice, Edward, Eastern Definitions (New York, 1978), p. 111.Google Scholar

⁵³ Walker, Benjamin, The Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism, vol. I (New York, 1968), p. 256.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Smith, Vincent A., Akbar the Great Mogul: 1542–1605 (Oxford, 1919), p. 220.Google Scholar Quoted in Mclane, John R., Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress (Princeton, 1977), p. 277.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Crooke, William, Religion and Folklore of Northern India (Oxford, 1926), p. 364.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ McLane, , Indian Nationalism, p. 279.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Douglas, Mary, Implicit Meanings (London, 1975), p. 285.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ The literature on this subject is vast, see especially Strauss, Claude Levi, The Savage Mind (Chicago, 1966);Google ScholarLeach, Edmund, ‘Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse’, in Lenneberg, Erik H. (ed.), New Directions in the Study of Language (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 23–63;Google ScholarBulmer, Ralph, ‘Why is the Cassowary not a Bird? A Problem of Zoological Taxonomy Among the Karam of the New Guinea Highlands’, Man (N.S.) 2, 1967, pp. 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ For the following observations on the ritual importance of the cow I am indebted to an essay by Hershman, Paul, ‘Virgin and Mother’, in Lewis, loan (ed.), Symbols and Sentiments (London, 1977), pp. 269–92. Although this work is based on a study carried out in the 1970s there is no evidence to show the situation was any different in the nineteenth century. Occasionally, I have supplemented Hershman's findings with other contemporary sources.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Purser, W. E., Revised Settlement of the Jullundur District (Lahore, 1892), p. xxxiii.Google Scholar

⁶² Hershman, , ‘Virgin and Mother’, p. 281.Google Scholar

⁶³ Rose, H. A., A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province (Lahore, 1911), I, p. 139.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Hershman, , ‘Virgin and Mother’, p. 283–4.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For an explicit Sikh statement on this see Singh, Giani Gian, Pustak Khālsā Dharam Patit Pāvan Bhāg (Amritsar, 1903), p. 20.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchicus (London, 1972), pp. 85–7.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ These themes are well illustrated by the treatment meted out to a person found guilty of killing a cow, among the Sikhs. He was immediately ostracized from the community and to be admitted back had to undergo prolonged penance. To begin with the offender had to visit a major Sikh shrine at Amritsar, Tarn Taran, or Patiala where he had to bathe and thoroughly cleanse his clothes in the attached holy tank. Thereafter, he had to sleep on the surface of the earth for eleven days, eat a frugal meal once a day and repent his heinous crime. Having done this, he could present himself before the local community and ask for forgiveness. If this was granted he was to feed community members and holy men. Only on the completion of these prescribed steps could a Sikh regain his purity and be readmitted to the community. See Singh, Giani Gian (see fn. 65), pp. 132–3.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ The oft-reiterated nationalist position that British authorities introduced cow slaughter to divide Hindu and Muslim populations is oversimplistic and at present has nothing to support it. For the nationalist argument see the works listed in footnote 3 above.

⁶⁹ For several instances see Singh, Nahar, Itihās, pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Home Judicial Proceedings, 29 07 1871, (A) 45–61, National Archives of India, New Delhi. Many British officials used the term Hindu comprehensively and included Sikhs within it.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Singh, Nahar, Itihās, p. 123.Google Scholar

⁷² Thapar, Romila, ‘The Image of the Barbarthn in Early India’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 13, 1971, pp. 408–36, a comprehensive paper on the evolution of the ideology of mleccha, the nuances and subtle distinctions in its usage and its cultural implications for Indian history, particularly when the term was used for indigenous populations.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ Nabha, Kahn Singh, Gurśabad Ratankāar Mahān Kosé (Patiala, 1960, first published 1930), p. 957.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Memorandum by McAndrew, Lieutenant Colonel G., Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ambalah Circle, 20 November 1871,Google ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 152.Google Scholar Ram Singh expressed similar views in a letter reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, letter number 14, p. 245.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ ‘Copy of the Correspondence, or Extracts from Correspondence, relating to Kooka outbreak’, Parliamentary papers, vol. 45, 1872, p. 46.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ For example see Lanternari, Vittorio, The Religions of the Oppressed (New York, 1965);Google ScholarHobsbawm, Eric, Primitive Rebels (Manchester, 1959);Google ScholarWorsley, Peter, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of Cargo Cults in Melenasia (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Domin, Dolores, India in 1857–59: A Study in the Role of the Sikhs in the People's Uprising (Berlin, 1977), p. 63.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Ibid., p. 224.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 212.

⁸⁰ On the ‘boom’ in Punjab's rural economy in the second half of the nineteenth century see Kessinger, Tom, Vilyalpur 1848–1968: Social and Economic Change in a North Indian Village (California, 1974);Google Scholar and Mishra, Satish Chandra, ‘Commercialization, Peasant Differentiation and Merchant Capital in Late Nineteenth-Century Bombay and Punjab’, Journal of Peasant Studies 10, 1982, pp. 3–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸¹ Richards, J. F.Hagen, James R. and Haynes, Edward S., ‘Changing Land Use in Bihar, Punjab and Haryana, 1850–1970’, Modern Asian Studies 19, 1985, pp. 699–732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸² Van den Dungen, P. H. M., ‘Change in Status and Occupation in Nineteenth Centuty Punjab’, in Low, D. A. (ed.), Soundings in Modern South Asian Histoy (Canberra, 1968), pp. 55–93.Google Scholar

⁸³ Details in Davidson, H., Report on the Revised Settlement of the District of Ludhiana (Lahore, 1859)Google Scholar and Walker, T. Gordon, Settlement Report.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Walker, T. Gordon, Settlement Report, p. 124.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ ‘Memorandum on the Famine in the Panjab, during 1868–69’, Punjab Administration Report: 1868–69 (Lahore, 1869), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Yang, Anand A., ‘Sacred Symbol and Sacred Space in Rural India: Community Mobilization in the “Anti-Cow Killing” Riot of 1893’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 2, 1980, pp. 594.Google ScholarDavis, N. Z. in her ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth Century France’, Past and Present 59, 1973, pp. 51–99, in what has now become a classic essay, advances a similar argument about the nature of religious violence.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁷ On urban and rural linkages for the protection of the cow see Freitag, SandriaB., ‘Sacred Symbols as Mobilizing Ideology: The North Indian Search For a Hindu Community’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, 1980, pp. 597–625. Curiously enough, this fascinating paper, influenced by a diffusionist model, views peasants as passive receptacles of urban ideology, waiting for ideas to fill them.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁸ For Malwa region see footnote 14. The Doaba region lies between the Sutlej and Beas rivers.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ The Majha is the area of central Punjab lying between the Beas and Ravi rivers.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Thornton, T. H., Secretary to Government Punjab to J. W. S. Wyllie, Officiating Secretary to Government of India, Foreign Department, 154–7, 2 February 1867,Google ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 30.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Ibid., p. 37.

⁹² Walker, T. Gordon, Settlement Report, p. 57.Google Scholar

⁹³ From Inspector General of Police, Punjab to Secretary to Government Punjab, 20 January 1868,Google ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, I, pp. 79–81.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Chiefs of The Kuka Sect, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, pp. 156–63. Eight persons are common between this and the report cited above.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Memorandum on Ram Singh and the Kukas by Macnabb, J. W.. Late Officiating Commissioner, Ambala Division, 4 November 1871Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Griffin, L. H., Officiating Secretary to the Government of Punjab to E. C. Bayley, Secretary to the Government of India, 22 February 1872 and The Englishman, 14 February 1872.Google Scholar Both in Singh, Nahar, KS, III, pp. 192, 245–6.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Walker, T. Gordon, Settlement Report, p. 57.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ From Thornton, T. H., Secretary to Government Punjab to J. W. S. Wyllie, Officiating Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign department no. 154–7, 2 February 1867Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Memorandum by Lieutenant Colonel McAndrew, G., Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ambala, 20 November 1871Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 154.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Bajwa, Fauja Singh, Kuka Movement (Delhi, 1965), p. 36.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Forsyth, T. D., Commissioner Jullundur Division to T. H. Thornton, Secretary to Government Punjab, 21 March 1867 and Inspector General of Police Punjab to Secretary to Government Punjab, 20 January 1868,Google ScholarSingh, Nahar, KS, pp. 51 and 76.Google Scholar

¹⁰² An envious British official angrily remarked ‘he [Ram Singh] visits you attended by half a dozen horsemen; he is followed by scores of men on foot; he comes into your room surrounded by a court like a prince. He and his people are dressed in exquisitely fine clothes’, Memorandum by McAndrew, Lieutenant Colonel G., Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ambalah Circle, 20 November 1871Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, I, p. 154.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ For an English translation of the Sau Sakhiān anthology used by the Kukas see Sardar Attar Singh of Bhadaur, Sakhee Book or the Description of Goroo Gobind Singh's Religion and Doctrines (Benares, 1873). He believes the circulation of the prophecies was the only reason for the Kuka ‘disturbances’.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ See my ‘Two Poles of Akali Politics’, The Times of India, 1 June 1983.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ For Kuka usage of these concepts see Bhāī Ram Singh's correspondence reproduced in Singh, Ganda, Vithiā, pp. 212–314, and statements of official witnesses inGoogle ScholarGriffin, L. H. Secretary to Government Punjab, to Secretary to Government of India, 20 February 1872Google Scholar, Singh, Nahar, KS, II, p. 189.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ McLeod, W. H., Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion (Oxford, 1968), pp. 199–203.Google Scholar Also see Singh, Sahib, Sri Gurū Granth Sāhib Darpan, vol. I (Jullundur, 1962), pp. 50–1, for an exposition on the doctrine of hukam.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Gauri 2, Ādi Granth, p. 151Google Scholar, W. H. McLeod's translation in ibid., p. 201.

¹⁰⁸ Maru 3, Ādi Granth, pp. 1063–4, my italics.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Walker, T. Gordon, Settlement Report, p. 36.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ For numerous examples of this genre see Ranajit, Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies. Writings on South Asian History and Society, Delhi, vol. I, 1982, vol. II, 1983.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ O'Hanlon, Rosalind, ‘Recovering the Subject Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia’, Modern Asian Studies 22, 1988, pp. 213–15.Google Scholar

¹¹² See Scott, James C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven 1985).Google Scholar