The Two Memories of 15 August
Independence, Partition, and the freedom the Guru teaches
Plain-English renderings are mine.
Excerpt
On 15 August, India celebrates its independence, and the Sikh wishes the country well, sincerely and without reservation. But the Sikh carries a second memory of the same day. The line drawn in August 1947 ran through Punjab. The land of the Gurus was cut in two. The birthplace of Guru Nanak Sahib came to lie in another country. The Sikh holds both memories at once, and Gurbani teaches how: honour the freedom, grieve the cutting, and keep hold of the deeper freedom that no border can grant and no border can take away.
Today is 15 August, and India marks the day its freedom came. That freedom was real, it was won at great cost, and the Sikh share of that cost was not small. We say plainly, and with goodwill: may the country flourish, and may its freedom be a blessing to every one of its people.
But for the Sikh, and for Punjab, this date holds two memories, not one. The Sikh would be false to history, and false to his own dead, if he spoke only of the first.
The first memory: the price the Panth paid for freedom
The struggle against colonial rule ran through Punjab, and it ran through Sikh lives.
It was at Amritsar, on Vaisakhi day in April 1919, a short walk from Sri Harmandir Sahib, that the gathering at Jallianwala Bagh was fired upon. The Ghadar movement that set out to overturn the empire drew heavily on Punjabi and Sikh emigrants; Kartar Singh Sarabha went to the gallows for it in 1915, aged nineteen. The passengers of the Komagata Maru, most of them Sikhs, were turned away from Canada in 1914 and met with bullets at Budge Budge on their return. The Akali morchas of the 1920s, fought to free the gurdwaras, were among the largest disciplined non-violent campaigns the country had then seen, and they filled colonial jails. Bhagat Singh, son of a Punjabi family steeped in that struggle, was hanged in 1931. Udham Singh carried the memory of 1919 for two decades and was hanged in London in 1940.
These are not claims. They are names. The freedom celebrated today was paid for, in real part, in Punjabi and Sikh blood. The Sikh does not say this to claim a debt. The Sikh says it so that the second memory cannot be dismissed as the grievance of a people who stood apart.
We did not stand apart.
We stood in front.
The second memory: the day the land was cut
When freedom came, it came with a line, and the line ran through Punjab.
In the months around 15 August 1947, Punjab was divided, and the division was paid for in suffering beyond full counting. Millions were uprooted from homes their families had held for generations. The dead were never completely numbered. Communities that had lived side by side for centuries were torn from one another in weeks.
And the Panth was cut from its own holiest ground. Nankana Sahib, where Guru Nanak Sahib was born. Kartarpur Sahib, where he farmed, taught, and left his body. Panja Sahib. Dera Sahib in Lahore, where Guru Arjan Sahib was martyred. After Partition, all of it lay across an international border.
The Panthic Ardas still carries the plea for khulhe darshan deedar — open access to the gurdwaras and gurdhams from which the Panth was separated. In this way, the Panth continues to carry Partition in daily prayer, often without needing to name the year. When the Kartarpur corridor opened in 2019 and, for a time, Indian Sikh pilgrims could walk to the Guru’s own fields again, the tears on both sides of that walkway were seventy years old.
So when 15 August comes, the Sikh does not refuse the celebration. The Sikh stands inside it carrying something more. Independence and Partition arrived in the same hour. One memory honours the living. The other mourns the dead and the divided. The Sikh is not permitted to drop either.
The Guru’s witness when powers clash
This is not the first time the Panth has watched empires change hands over the bodies of ordinary people. Guru Nanak Sahib saw it himself, when Babar’s invasion broke over Punjab, and he set what he saw into Bani. On Ang 360, in Raag Asa, the Guru speaks:
ਖੁਰਾਸਾਨ ਖਸਮਾਨਾ ਕੀਆ ਹਿੰਦੁਸਤਾਨੁ ਡਰਾਇਆ ॥
Khuraasaan khasmaanaa keeaa Hindusataan daraaiaa.
Ang 360
Plain-English sense: Having seized Khurasan, he terrified Hindustan.
And in the same Shabad:
ਏਤੀ ਮਾਰ ਪਈ ਕਰਲਾਣੇ ਤੈਂ ਕੀ ਦਰਦੁ ਨ ਆਇਆ ॥੧॥
Etee maar paee karlaane tain kee darad na aaiaa.
Ang 360
Plain-English sense: Such slaughter fell, such crying out. Did it not bring You pain?
This is the oldest Sikh response to the violence of changing powers: not propaganda for one side, not silence, but witness before the One. The Guru does not ask which empire deserved to win. The Guru names the suffering of the people, and takes even that grief to the Divine door.
In 1947, as in Guru Nanak Sahib’s own time, when powers clashed over the land, it was ordinary people of Punjab, of every faith, who paid. The Sikh way of remembering 15 August stands in the line of the Babar Vani: tell the truth about the suffering, mourn it before the One, and hate no people for it.
The freedom beneath the flag
And here the day’s deepest question opens. What is freedom, under the Guru?
Political freedom matters. The Panth fought for it, bled for it, and respects it. A people should not be ruled against their will, and the end of colonial rule was a genuine good. Nothing in Sikhi belittles that.
But Gurbani teaches that there is a freedom beneath political freedom, and that the second cannot substitute for the first. A country can lower one flag and raise another while every heart in it remains enslaved to haumai. And a Sikh can stand in chains and be free.
On Ang 1, Japji Sahib closes its account of Hukam with the real liberation:
ਨਾਨਕ ਹੁਕਮੈ ਜੇ ਬੁਝੈ ਤ ਹਉਮੈ ਕਹੈ ਨ ਕੋਇ ॥੨॥
Naanak hukamai je bujhai, ta haumai kahai na ko-e.
Ang 1
Plain-English sense: O Nanak, the one who understands Hukam no longer speaks in ego.
That is the freedom no empire ever granted and no empire ever revoked: freedom from the tyranny of haumai, life lived knowingly within Hukam. It was available to the Sikh under the Mughals, under the British, and it is available now. It does not wait for a government, and it does not fear one.
And on Ang 534, in Raag Devgandhari, Guru Arjan Sahib states the Sikh’s final desire, and it is neither a throne nor even release:
ਰਾਜੁ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮੁਕਤਿ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮਨਿ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਿ ਚਰਨ ਕਮਲਾਰੇ ॥
Raaj na chaahau mukat na chaahau man preet charan kamlaare.
Ang 534
Plain-English sense: I seek no empire; I seek not even liberation; my mind longs for the love of the Beloved’s lotus feet.
Read that line on Independence Day and the Sikh’s position becomes clear. Political freedom matters, and Sikh sovereignty has its own history. But the Sikh’s final centre is not rule for its own sake. It is the Guru.
That is why the Sikh can wish the country’s freedom well with a whole heart, and at the same time refuse to let any flag, any anniversary, any national story become the frame that defines what a Sikh is. The state can have the Sikh’s good citizenship, his service, and his sacrifice; history shows it has had all three in abundance. What it cannot have is the seat of the Guru.
What the Sikh does with this day
So this is the teaching of 15 August, held under Shabad.
Honour the freedom. It was real, and our people helped win it.
Tell the truth about the cutting. Punjab was divided, the dead were beyond counting, and the Panth still prays for the gurdwaras across the line. Grief that is named does not curdle; grief that is denied does.
Hate no one. The opening words of Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji name the One as ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ, Nirbhau Nirvair — without fear, without enmity — and the Sikh is asked to grow a little like what he worships. The neighbour, of any faith, on either side of any border, is not our enemy and never was.
And keep the deeper freedom. Flags change. Borders have changed within living memory; that is the way of worldly powers. The freedom the Guru gives — freedom from haumai, life under Hukam, the love that wants neither raj nor even mukti — has not changed since Ang 1 was first uttered, and will not.
May the country be blessed on its day. May the divided land one day know open roads to every gurdham. And may the Sikh, on this day of two memories, hold both with a steady heart, under the Guru alone.
Verify
Checked 10 June 2026.
The Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji lines quoted in this piece are:
ਖੁਰਾਸਾਨ ਖਸਮਾਨਾ ਕੀਆ ਹਿੰਦੁਸਤਾਨੁ ਡਰਾਇਆ ॥
Ang 360 — Raag Asa, Mahala 1, Guru Nanak Sahib, Babar Vani.
ਏਤੀ ਮਾਰ ਪਈ ਕਰਲਾਣੇ ਤੈਂ ਕੀ ਦਰਦੁ ਨ ਆਇਆ ॥੧॥
Ang 360 — Raag Asa, Mahala 1, Guru Nanak Sahib, Babar Vani.
ਨਾਨਕ ਹੁਕਮੈ ਜੇ ਬੁਝੈ ਤ ਹਉਮੈ ਕਹੈ ਨ ਕੋਇ ॥੨॥
Ang 1 — Japji Sahib, Guru Nanak Sahib.
ਰਾਜੁ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮੁਕਤਿ ਨ ਚਾਹਉ ਮਨਿ ਪ੍ਰੀਤਿ ਚਰਨ ਕਮਲਾਰੇ ॥
Ang 534 — Raag Devgandhari, Mahala 5, Guru Arjan Sahib.
ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ
Ang 1 — Mool Mantar, Guru Nanak Sahib.
Cross-check instruction
Open each cited Ang on SearchGurbani.com and SriGranth.org and confirm that the Gurmukhi line, Ang number, Raag heading, and attribution match.
Historical note
The events referred to in this piece are the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar on Vaisakhi, April 1919; the Ghadar movement and the execution of Kartar Singh Sarabha in 1915; the Komagata Maru episode in 1914; the Akali gurdwara reform morchas of the 1920s; the executions of Bhagat Singh in 1931 and Udham Singh in 1940; the Partition of Punjab in 1947; the Panthic Ardas plea for open access to separated gurdwaras and gurdhams; and the opening of the Kartarpur corridor in 2019.
Figures for Partition deaths and displacement vary widely between sources and are therefore stated here without numbers.
Correction note
If you spot any mismatch in text, Ang reference, attribution, transliteration, or English sense, PanthSeva will correct it publicly, calmly, and with a dated correction note.
Source note
The doctrinal judgment in this piece is grounded in Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji alone.
This piece is offered with goodwill toward India and its people on the country’s day of independence. It speaks against no community and no neighbour. It holds together what the date itself holds together: a freedom worth honouring, a wound worth naming, and a Guru above both.
Strong disagreement is welcome. Contempt is not.
Bhul chuk maaf.
Gurjit Singh Sandhu
PanthSeva