Not many Pakistanis would be aware of the fact that after Partition, the larger part of Sikh heritage was left behind on the western side of the line drawn by Cyril Radcliffe. With almost all Sikhs having left for the eastern part of Punjab and elsewhere in India, there were hardly any left to run the gurdwaras (Sikh places of worship). Also, most havelis owned by Sikhs and Hindus were occupied by Muslim refugees who, under similar circumstances, had had to leave behind mosques, shrines and their houses, large or small, in East Punjab. Only a few were left behind in the tiny Muslim state called Malerkotla.

Gorakhpur-born and Singapore-based Amardeep Singh was fed scary stories by his elders who had been uprooted from Muzzaffarabad in 1948 when armed tribesmen attacked Kashmir to liberate the princely state from the Dogra ruler — like the Nizam of Hyderabad deep down in south India, he, too, had decided to retain the independence of his princely state.

Says Singh: “I have grown up amidst such poignant, real-life stories, footprints of which had only grown larger [...] This was the background of my journey across Pakistan, in search of our community’s roots and its lost heritage.”

A visitor from Singapore journeys across the country in search of lost Sikh heritage

Singh’s tome, published as a bulky coffee-table book, gives a brief history of the Sikh empire which gained strength in the early 19th century when Maharaja Ranjit Singh reigned supreme after defeating the Afghans.

Singh debunks stories about the Maharaja’s destruction of the Shalimar Gardens and more importantly, using the Badshahi Mosque, built by the Mughals, as a stable for his horses. He says that with as many as eight Muslims holding key positions in Ranjit Singh’s cabinet, such disrespect could not have been shown to a mosque, of all places.

The most powerful of all the rulers of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh had a streak of secularism in him. Singh quotes at least three Europeans to prove his point. He also argues that since the mosque was built on elevated ground with steep steps leading to it, the gradient of the steps would have posed severe danger to a horse and its rider.

With unstinting help from his Muslim friends and Pakhtun Sikhs, most of whom practice Unani medicine, Singh could visit many gurdwaras and havelis owned by Sikhs who migrated to India at the time of Partition. He takes the reader to the very well-maintained Nankana Sahib, where Guru Nanak was born and where Sikhs congregate every year from all over the world.

The most moving experience, at least for this reviewer, was reading about the gurdwara in Pakistan’s Kartarpur, which is about a kilometre or two from the Indian border. Sikhs from India get to see the sacred place of worship from a raised platform, but they can’t visit it. It is said that during his tenure as president of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf had offered to build a walkway for pilgrims from the other side of the border, but India was not amenable to the idea.

Guru Nanak, revered by Muslims and Hindus, spent the last 17 years of his life in Kartarpur where he tilled the fields and propagated monotheism. When he passed away, Muslims and Hindus entered into a dispute. While the former wanted to bury the saint’s mortal remains, the latter wanted to cremate him. The next morning when they opened the room where his body was supposed to be resting, all they found on his bed were a few fresh flowers and a piece of cloth. This was cut into two halves and the followers of the two religions were able to pursue their beliefs.

Before Singh embarked upon his journey to Pakistan, his friends and well-wishers in India thought he was undertaking a perilous trip, more so because his turban and his beard gave away his religious identity. Actually, these proved to be an asset. The people he met in Pakistan were, according to him, friendly and quite often magnanimous and hospitable.

He was warned against going to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because of the perceived fear of the TTP, but the man with a one-month visa for the entire country went right up to Jamrud. On the way back he went to Abbottabad, where his mother was born. He couldn’t trace her ancestral house, so all he did was to touch the soil reverentially.

One gurdwara, not too far from the Indian Punjab, is the Padhana Gurdwara. It was occupied by the Indian army during the 1965 war. When the invaders left they took away some relics from the place of worship.

Sadly, the Lahore Museum, which has a rich collection of Sikh artefacts, arms, ammunitions and sacred texts, was closed for renovation so the visitor could not feast his eyes on them, but he did get to see the privately owned Fakir Khana Museum in the walled city of Lahore, that has a treasure trove from the days of the Sikh kingdom.

Singh visited the mausoleums of Sufi saints such as Mian Mir, who was invited to lay the foundation of Harminder Sahib or the Golden Temple, Baba Farid Ganjshakar in Pakpattan and Bulleh Shah in Kasur.

The volume under review is laced with anecdotes that make it readable, but what increases its worth is the inclusion of priceless photographs and their fine reproduction. Singh should have engaged a professional to edit the text to make the volume flawless.

The reviewer is a senior journalist and author of four books, including Tales of Two Cities

Lost Heritage: The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan
By Amardeep Singh
The Nagaara Trust in association with
Himalayan Books
ISBN 978-8170021155
492pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 21st, 2017