Amritsar Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle

by Mark Tully

The Nirankaris started as a revivalist group in the last century. Their founder, Baba Dayal Das, preached against the growing tendency of Sikhs to revert to Hindu practices like idolatry, Brahmin rituals, and pilgrimages to the Ganges. The Baba stressed the Sikh doctrine that God could not be described because he was formless. Nirankari means formless. The movement split and heresies crept in. The larger group of Nirankaris started to revere their founder and his successor as Gurus, in spite of Guru Gobind Singh's pronouncement that he was the last Guru. They forgot their founder's strictures against idols too, and even worshipped his sandals; but most offensive of all to orthodox Sikhs, were the scriptures which the Nirankaris have added to the Sikh canon. Some passages in them are regarded as blasphemy against the Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib. Faced with the growing popularity of the sect, the Sikh High Priests had issued a religious edict, a hukmnama, denouncing the Nirankaris as heretics. Sikhs were told to ostracise Nirankaris and prevent the movement growing. Tension between the Nirankaris and the orthodox Sikhs mounted and there were several riots.

Nirankari Sikhs