The Gurdwara in Sikh History

The Gurdwara is more than a place of worship. It’s where the Guru Granth Sahib, the eternal Guru of the Sikhs, is installed, and where the sangat gathers for prayer, reflection, and service. From the earliest days of Guru Nanak, these places were founded wherever the Guru travelled. They were called dharamsaals (houses of dharam) where the sangat came together to sing kirtan, hear shabad, and learn directly from the Guru’s teachings.

Bhai Gurdas, the great Sikh scholar and poet, captured the spirit of this movement in one line:

ਜਿਥੈ ਬਾਬਾ ਪੈਰੁ ਧਰਿ ਪੂਜਾ ਆਸਣੁ ਥਾਪਣਿ ਸੋਆ ॥

Jithhai baabaa pair dhhar poojaa aasan thhaapan soaa. “Wherever Baba Nanak placed his feet, a religious place was established.” (Vaar 1, Pauri 27)

Over time, dharamsaals became the institutional centers of the community. Kartarpur, Khadoor Sahib, and Goindwal were not just villages with shrines; they were hubs of administration, education, and collective life under the personal supervision of the Gurus.

By the eighteenth century, the word “Gurdwara” had taken hold, and its meaning had deepened. When Guru Gobind Singh bestowed Guruship upon the Guru Granth Sahib in 1708, the dharamsaal was transformed. Now it was the Gurdwara: the dwelling of the living Guru in scripture. It was no longer only a place of prayer. It was the Guru’s very presence, a sanctified space where spiritual authority remained continuously alive.

The word itself speaks volumes. Guru’s dwara. The Guru, the one who pulls a soul out of darkness (gu) into light (ru). The dwara, the abode or gateway. Taken together, the Gurdwara is the doorway to the Guru, the place where God Himself can be realised.

From that point onward, the Gurdwara stood at the centre of Sikh life. The cycle of human existence (birth, marriage, death) was marked there. It provided education, hospitality, shelter, and through langar it offered food to all, without distinction. It was a complete institution, nourishing body, mind, and spirit, while symbolizing equality, openness, and the collective identity of the Panth.

But history reminds us: wherever there is power, there is also the temptation to misuse it.

In the time of the Gurus, dharamsaals were managed either directly by the Guru or by appointed representatives called manjidars, later masants. They collected offerings, oversaw charitable works, and kept the institutions running. Over time, however, corruption crept in. By Guru Gobind Singh’s era, stories of misappropriation and abuse were rampant. In 1697, he abolished the system outright and instructed Sikhs to send their dasvandh directly to him.

After Guru Gobind Singh’s passing in 1708, the military leadership passed to Banda Singh Bahadur, even as Mughal attacks intensified. Mata Sundri, the widow of Guru Gobind Singh, steered the Panth from Delhi, appointing Bhai Mani Singh as head granthi of Darbar Sahib, where he remained until his martyrdom in 1738.

The decades that followed were brutal. Between 1748 and 1767, Sikhs were relentlessly persecuted. Many fled, others lived in forests, and the maintenance of Gurdwaras was neglected. Into this void stepped groups like the Udasis and Nirmalas, men versed in Gurbani, who identified with Sikh teachings but avoided the Khalsa identity and thus escaped Mughal persecution. They tended the Gurdwaras, recitated Gurbani, and kept the flame alive. Those who settled at specific sites became known as mahants. Unlike the earlier system of community appointment, succession among mahants was hereditary.

When Sikh power returned, first through the Misls in 1765 and later under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Gurdwaras flourished once again. The Gurdwaras were rebuilt, richly endowed with land and resources. For seventy years, they thrived and expanded. But all of that changed with the British annexation of Punjab in 1849.

Annexation did not just redraw maps; it restructured Sikh society. The British treated Gurdwaras as property. Administration was handed to mahants under official sanction. What began as custodianship gradually turned into private ownership. Mahants, once trustees, became landlords. With the aid of colonial officials, Gurdwara lands were transferred into their names. They began to pass properties on to descendants as though they were family estates.

With wealth came corruption: some mahants delegated religious duties to subordinates who demanded fees from devotees. Others introduced rituals designed to attract income from the local Hindu majority, including idol worship, astrology and Brahmanical rites (all explicitly forbidden by the Gurus). Many lived in luxury, maintaining mistresses and indulging in practices that shocked the sangat. In some places, Gurdwaras became unsafe to enter for the sangat.

All this unfolded against a wider backdrop. The British established colonies, schools, presses, and Christian missionary networks. Converts multiplied, from under 4,000 in 1881 to over 160,000 by 1911. A new wave of political consciousness swept India in response. In Punjab, it sparked a religious and national awakening among Sikhs.

Baba Dayal (1783–1855) was among the first to respond, condemning idolatry and Brahmanical practices, and urging worship of the formless God, Nirankar. His Nirankari followers observed Sikh ceremonies faithfully, though the movement remained limited in scope. The Namdhari or Kuka movement followed under Baba Ram Singh (1816–1885). He stressed Naam, simple living, and opposition to social evils. The Kukas also resisted British authority, and their defiance planted seeds of resistance.

The Singh Sabha movement was the most transformative. Beginning in 1873, it reinvigorated Sikh identity, promoted education, and used the printing press to reach the masses. Prominent leaders such as Bhai Vir Singh, Bhai Ditt Singh and Professor Gurmukh Singh spread a vision of reform rooted in Sikh heritage. Institutions like Khalsa College in Amritsar were founded, creating a new generation of educated Sikhs.

By 1880, Singh Sabha leaders were openly calling for reform in Gurdwaras and for the removal of illiteracy. Newspapers such as the Khalsa Advocate, Khalsa Samachar, Khalsa Sewak, and The Punjab were running articles condemning the state of Gurdwaras and reminding mahants that they were servants of the Panth.

The Chief Khalsa Dewan took up the cause, passing resolutions and pressing the government to allow the sangat to manage Darbar Sahib directly. When resolutions proved futile, reformers turned to boycotts and later to litigation. But permission to sue depended on British officials, who almost always sided with the mahants. Cases that were filed were often abandoned due to exorbitant fees and lack of funds.

Meanwhile, the British proclaimed “neutrality” while actively encouraging mahants to resist reformers. In some cases, when Sikhs managed to oust corrupt mahants, colonial courts simply reinstated them.

The frustration of these failures intersected with broader revolutionary currents. The Ghadar movement, launched by Punjabi emigrants in North America, sought to overthrow British rule. Their literature, full of defiance, circulated in Punjab during the First World War. The Ghadar Party attempted to contact the Sikh regiments to join the cause, but their efforts failed owing to organizational weaknesses, limited popular support, opposition from pro-British landed Sikh leaders in Punjab, and disapproval from Mahatma Gandhi and other nationalist leaders. Although the movement faltered, it stirred a spirit of resistance which was later continued by the Babbar Akali jathas during the Akali struggle for Gurdwara reform (1920–1925). The loyalist mahants, however, denounced the Ghadar movement and its followers as renegades from the Akal Takht itself.

The final breaking point came in 1919 with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. General Dyer, the officer who ordered the massacre, was honoured at Darbar Sahib by Arur Singh, the government-appointed mahant. In an act seen as nothing short of sacrilege, Dyer was declared a Sikh and presented with the five kakaars. To the Sikh community, this was intolerable. It confirmed that their most sacred institutions had been compromised by political interference.

The shockwaves of that event lit the fuse of the Gurdwara Reform Movement. By 1920, the Central Sikh League had been founded, and a new newspaper, The Akali, was rousing the countryside. Village meetings, fundraising, and mass mobilization began. The stage was set for the Akali movement and for the struggle that would culminate in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925.

The Gurdwara Reform Movement was now underway. The next post will continue with what followed.