The book Sant Singh Sekhon - Makers of Indian Literature by Tejwant Singh Gill published by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi , aims to introduce readers to Sekhon's life and works in a scholarly and comprehensive manner. Gill's writing is clear and persuasive, encouraging other critics to critically assess Sekhon's growth as a writer, editor of sacred scriptures, translator, and literary historian.
Tejwant Singh Gill is an Indian author and professor of English in Guru Nanak Dev University who received the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2021. He is the contributor of The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. He has written more than 25 books.
Who is Sant Singh Sekhon?
Sant Singh Sekhon (1908–1997) was an Indian writer known for his plays and fiction, specifically in the realm of Punjabi literature. He belonged to a generation of authors who witnessed India's journey towards independence and the painful aftermath of partition.
Sekhon is generous and non-sectarian enough to appreciate Bulle Shah and other Sufi poets as the foundational figures of Punjab. However, he argues that it was with the rise of Sikh kingdoms that Punjabi literature gained its distinct significance. In his later essays on the history of Punjabi literature and the sacred tradition, Sekhon gradually starts equating Punjabi writing with the Sikh tradition, implying that only Sikhism can overcome the perceived fatalism of Hindus and the perceived oppressiveness of others.
Sekhon's father belonged to an area where the first Anglo-Sikh war took place, and where Guru Gobind Singh had spent some time. These historical events deeply influenced Sekhon's sense of his intellectual heritage, leading his later writings to focus on the historical fate and spiritual destiny of the Sikhs. It was surprising to witness this transformation in someone who had received education at Forman Christian College in Lahore, once identified as a Communist, and influenced by Freud.
Sadly, as Sekhon grew older, he seemed to forget that his own autobiography (1989) had been withdrawn from circulation due to its blasphemous content, as it did not conform to orthodox beliefs. It was hard to recognize him as the same writer whose initial play, Eve at Bay (1939), had stirred controversy among conservatives with its exploration of infidelity and female "disobedience" from a captivatingly libidinal perspective. It was also intriguing to recall that the man who now denied everything except the Sikh tradition had once declared that the love of his life was a Finnish woman, discreetly referred to as "Ms. Helmi" by Gill.
Literary works
Sekhon's first collection of one-act plays in Punjabi was published in 1942, during a time when communal hatred had infected almost everyone. The collection had a preface by Mohammad Taseer, the Principal of Islamia College, and was influenced by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and the Progressive Writers' movement. Gill acknowledges these influences but does not explain why Sekhon, who was once a religious iconoclast and a moral rebel, transformed into a Sikh ideologue.
Gill provides insightful comments on Sekhon's evolution as a writer, educator, and religious thinker. He appreciates Sekhon's incorporation of Freudian ideas and sexuality in his works and admires his role as a public intellectual. Sekhon had to resign from Khalsa College because he wrote that when sexuality is pushed into the dark recesses of shame and morally degraded, it eventually resurfaces in various personal, social, and political pathologies. By being estranged from the essential and fundamental human aspects in both men and women, sexuality can manifest as hysteria, lamentation, or irrational hatred. Sekhon wrote about sexual betrayal and the pain of suppressing natural instincts partly as a protest against colonial insolence and the cruelty inherent in sexual asceticism, particularly in a society where women are expected to be chaste while men are encouraged to be virile.
Sekhon's stories like "Murr Vidhwa" (Widow Again) and "Majhadhar" (Crosscurrent) focus on the moral legitimacy of the demands that sexuality places on individuals in their struggle to be fully human in the world. Gill argues, with some justification, that these stories were thematically daring for their time. However, compared to his contemporaries such as Tagore, Manto, or Jainendra Kumar, Sekhon's views on sexuality within the confines of marriage were more conventional. Gill, on the other hand, believes that the mere exploration of the theme of sexuality is enough to establish Sekhon's position as an explorer of forbidden topics.
The relevance of his plays
Apart from a few of his Partition stories, many critics have already concluded that the rest of Sekhon's work is outdated. Despite claiming to be modern, his plays appear to be old-fashioned moral tales, where the writer manipulates his characters like puppets, not to reveal their destinies, but to pass judgement and seek the reader’s approval.The readers are not expected to ponder their motives and actions; they are only expected to passively enjoy the clichés.
Interestingly, Gill, as a materialist critic, fails to mention that during the same period when Sekhon was exploring new forms for his plays and novels, as well as a different philosophy of life, there was a growing concern for the fate of ordinary people due to the anti-colonial movement and the emergence of a democratic and socialist consensus.
Sekhon could not have been unaffected by the Gandhian or Nehruvian belief that in a democracy, individuals deserve attention not because they are heroic, but because their fears, flawed reasoning, emotional scars, betrayals, and struggles for survival during political crises make them painfully human. If Gill had interpreted Sekhon in this light, he could have presented a compelling case for his significance in Indian literary history as an example of the radical changes in the cultural sensibility of his times.
Gill is unsure about whether Sekhon should be seen mainly as a writer of Punjabi literature or someone who believes that Punjab and Gurumukhi are exclusively for Sikhs. It could be that the confusion comes from Sekhon himself, who is a progressive thinker but still wants to maintain his connection with Sikh traditions of faith and heroic portrayal.
*Based on an article published in The Tribune on 3rd July 2008