The Gurdwara Reform Movement and the Sikh Awakening #267664

I consider it an honour to be asked to introduce this book to the public with a few words of my own. In the rapid march of events all over the country during the past two years, nowhere has Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent non-co-operation been so completely vindicated as at Tarn Taran, Nankana Sahib and Gum-ka-bagh by the calm and cool courage, and the patient, and even cheerful, sufferings of the Akalis in the face of cruelties, inhumanities and death. The story of the recent remarkable awakening among the Sikhs, their struggles for the freedom and purification of their historical places of worship, their disappointments and triumphs, will, I am sure, be read everywhere with absorbing interest. As an eye-witness of some of the thrilling, if tragic, incidents narrated by the author, I cannot help remarking that the simple rustics, who mainly composed the Akali Jathas, appeared to us as the heroes of a twentieth century Epic which was being enacted before our very eyes. I hope it will not be long before the story of their heroism, inspired by a sublime idealism, is immortalised in verse by a poet of eminence.