Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fatih!
Forty-two years have passed since 1984. Yet, the wounds of injustice remain fresh—in Panjab, in Palestine, in Sudan, in Congo, in Iran, and in countless other corners of this earth

How can we begin to process the scale of pain?
How do we live—awake, tender, and true—as history keeps repeating its horrors?
Every day, we witness the unraveling of humanity:
Bombs falling on homes, drone strikes on schools and hospitals, children buried under rubble.
A wanton disregard for human life in pursuit of land, resources, and power.
Devastation after devastation.
We must not look away.

In 1521, Mughal emperor Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babar invaded South Asia from Central Asia, and a confrontation between the conquerors and the ruling Lodhi dynasty led to an immense battle for power. At this time, Guru Nanak Sahib was embarking on his fourth Udasi (epical journey “to meet Perfection-oriented” ones), going from Makka to Madina to Kabul to Saidpur, and Babar’s army was devastating the Panjab. In a time of great crisis, Guru Nanak Sahib does not simply lament. He offers Sabad—Divine Utterance. Guru Nanak uttered four compositions, popularly called Babarvani (Utterances on Babar) describing his own eye-witness accounts of the genocidal campaign of Babar and his men in Saidpur (now Eminabad, Panjab, Pakistan).

In the first composition of Babarvani, Guru Nanak Sahib does not shy away from the scale of the violence and pain. The Guru records the terror of Babar’s invasion. He puts words to the grief and desperation that we feel as witnesses to such horror:

O Creator! You are the caretaker of all! If the powerful strikes the powerful, then no anger is felt in the mind.
But if a powerful lion kills a herd of cows, having pounced on them, that attack’s inquiry is made to the owner.  

In moments of violence, oppression, and grief, we call out directly to the Creator, to the Owner—the One meant to protect and care for us. We might initially ask in our grief and in our desperation, how have You let this happen? We may ask in our continued faith despite that grief and desperation, how can I understand what has happened? How can I understand what is happening?

Guru Nanak Sahib continues:

Witness, O Creator! Having ruined the jewel-like beings, the dogs have destroyed them; no care was shown to the dead.
You Yourself, having united them, have Yourself separated them too; Witness, O Creator! just as Your greatness is known.

Even those ruthless military and political leaders who order horrific acts of violence, who fund and profit off of horrific violence, and all those arms of the state who perpetrate that violence are themselves subject to the Command of the One. Nothing exists outside that Command, even if we cannot understand why a thing is happening.

We may find this hard to internalize.
We may find this frustrating.

This perspective can be challenging: that the destruction, suffering, and violence the Guru is witnessing all express the One’s greatness. That there is awe somewhere in this horrific series of events, at the One who unites and separates, at the One who creates and destroys.

The Guru frames even the violence within the expansive mystery of the One.

The Guru does not explain away the horror—the Guru names it, feels it, records it—and still, bows in awe of the Creator’s play.

To write these truths is political. To bear witness is a revolutionary act. We know this because Guru Nanak Sahib was imprisoned for this act of courageous truth-telling.

The wisdom of Guru Nanak Sahib as he speaks about Babar’s invasion is wisdom we may internalize as we witness every unfolding catastrophe, as we try to understand, unpack, and reflect on our own roles, as we wade through a world of unending crises and untold harm.

The Guru bears witness.
The Guru speaks the truth.
The Guru does not waver.

Can we, too, find clarity without hatred?
Can we, too, name injustice and still feel awe?
Can we, too, root ourselves in Nam, in the Eternal Identification, and remain anchored as the world shifts?

May we refuse to look away.
May we be transformed by what we see.
May we walk this earth as witnesses and servants of truth.

May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!