Mithar

Japji Sahib Katha in English. This is excellent. Wish more and more Kathakar can be trained in the west to impart Gurmat to the next generation. Damdami Taksal should set up their branches in western countries where western born Sikhs can train in Gurmat and become Kathakars and Gianis.

Those cartoon movies were pretty good. They are made for children. My brother's children love them.

Another issue that was touched needs to be addressed. Sikhs were instrumental in the downfall of the Mughal empire. Many give all the credit to the Marathas only. But as historian Hari Ram Gupta noted(and mentioned by HSD), the Sikhs were located in Punjab. The lifeline of the Mughal army was the Muslim soldiers from the North West beyond India's borders in Afghanistan and Central Asia. The tough Pathan and Turkic warriors from these areas was what made the Mughal army fearless of the Hindu warriors, which is why they were called the lifeline of not only the Mughal army but of the Mughal empire itself. Sikhs had blocked the access to India that these warriors would take to get into India which is Punjab. The Mughal army had to rely on indigenous(Indian) Muslims who were not tough enough to face the rugged Maratha warriors. The Indian Muslims were neither tough nor aggressive as the fearless Pathan and Turkic warriors. This is why the Indian Muslim kingdoms would literally beg the Afghans to invade India and replenish their ranks with fresh blood from central Asia. Another thing to note is, the only reason why the Afghans(durranis) could not hold their Indian possession is because of the Sikhs. The Sikhs had not only deprived them of Punjab their richest province, but also all the land up to Delhi which the Afghans had conquered. Sikhs began looting the looters(Afghans). Invasions of India were no longer profitable for Afghans. The misl period can rightly be said to be the most heroic period of the Sikhs after the Guru period. That is the period when Sikhs saw the worst genocidal persecution in it's history and the ultimate triumph over Muslims and eventually becoming masters of North India. It is that period of history which still inspired Sikhs to not give up on their dreams of freedom even though Sikh movement of independence was so brutally crushed during the early 90s.

In a Sikh discussion forum one should never insult another forum member or resort to name calling. People disagree with one another, we may not like that they disagree but we need to accept that and still act in a friendly, brotherly fashion because that is the Sikh thing to do. I do agree that the Sikh army was a highly advanced military. Most people give credit of this to the Europeans that Maharaja Ranjit Singh hired, but according to Khushwant Singh the Sikh army was already a professionally advanced army because from the first treaty with the British and the defeat of the large Maratha armies at the hands of the smaller British army, Ranjit Singh realized the importance of having a profession army drilled in modern warfare so he began hiring Hindustani sepoys to leave their job with the British and work for him instead and in doing so they would train the Sikh army in modern warfare. Before the first Europeans had arrived most of the territories of the Sikh kingdom had already been conquered. When the British gifted a cannon to Ranjit Singh, the Sikhs had successfully reproduced that cannon into the hundreds. In fact, they even managed to make modification and make it better than the British cannon. To make hundreds of cannons, you need indigenous industry. The world at the time may not have been highly industrialized, but the Sikh kingdom was certainly more advanced then any Asian country and just on it's way to matching the Europeans. If only Sikhs had conquered Sindh, then the Sikhs would have even had a navy and access to the sea.

I totally agree. Sikh men have become so liberal and outright fudus(sorry, but it's true). It is not uncommon to see Sikh men defending and supporting homosexuality as being an okay thing to do for Sikhs. I think the biggest threat to Sikhi today is western liberalism. It's like we are becoming liberal for all the wrong things such as loose moral(slutty) character of our girls, while the things that we should become liberal about such as caste we are not loosening up on that issue.

This is shocking. India has 4 million prostitutes, 40% are children!

It's not that the Punjabi villager no longer does work. He does do work. I have relatives who leave for the fields early in the morning when it is still dark and they return home in the evening. In general, the rural people are mentally tough, the Bhaya labour and machinery makes their work easier, but farming is still pretty tough/hard work. During the 80s and early 90s, Punjabi farmers had agricultural machinery, and Bhaya labour, yet thousands of young men rose to become Kharkoos. But ultimately it was the will of Vaheguru that the Sikh movement did not succeed this time. But the blood of Shaheeds cannot just go to waste like this.

One thing that cannot be denied is that Anglo countries do have very good armies. In fact, even other European countries like the French military and Russian military are pretty strong, their soldiers are as tough as hell. In Muslim countries, only Turkey can be considered to have a good military, better then most European militaries. Pakistan's military isn't too bad either. The rest of the Muslim countries have unprofessional armies. But Muslims are good in guerrilla warfare though, Chechens and Pathans being primary examples. When it comes to guerrilla warfare, the rural people are usually always the backbone of the guerrilla army or militia. It could be because rural folks are mentally tougher, they don't need some special military trainer to make them mentally read for warfare.

Always love reading your posts. Such deep thoughts.

you have made some excellent points in this post.

excellent post. In regards to what KDS is saying, he has also made a good point. If she wants to dress that way in her private life or at work then fine, but when talking about a subject related to Sikhism, she as a Sikh woman should at least have the sense to dress appropriately. Strangely even white women will not dress like that when talking about Sikhism. I have seen Nagar Kirtans and Gurdwaras through out Canada inviting women politicians from the white community to speak on special occasions and even they don't dress like that. What is wrong with apneean?

London Dha Jatt Jee, were you a Jatt in all your previous lifetimes? can you say for certain that you were even a Punjabi in your previous lifetimes? for all you know, you (like me) could have been a Chura or Chamar or Chandaal or Brahmin or even a Chinese man or woman? This body is very temporary which we(Soul) wear and discards like cloths. The body and the caste associated with the body will eventually become ash. Then your soul (based on it`s karmas) will get another body which for all we know might not even be a body belonging to the Jatt caste. So what use it is being proud of being Jatt? If you need to be proud, then feel proud of our Gurus, Bhagats and Shaheeds and try to emulate their extraordinary Jeevans. With the exception of Bhagat Dhana Jee, none of the Bhagats were Jats. As a humble Sikh would you not sacrifice yourself just to get a chance to bow to the charan dhoor of Bhagat Kabir Jee (a Julaha) or Bhagat Ravidas Jee (a Chamar) or would your proud Jattness prevent you from doing that?

Some young Sikhs from Canada did go to India and even became Shaheeds.

Orientalism is a subject many eastern people need to be aware of because we automatically assume western orientalist depiction of eastern peoples (which are usually overly exotic) in nature to be true and accurate. Please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw

There are exceptions in my view where it would be a good idea for someone not to keep their village name. Take a look at this news report of villagers whose village name is like a curse itself: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110126/punjab.htm#5

Khatris are not Baniyas. These are two distinct castes. Khatris of Punjab were the ancient Kshatriyas of India that we read about in the ancient epics of India. This warrior community over time left their historical (warrior) profession and become merchants and shop keepers. It was to such Khatris that Guru Nanak Dev Jee writes: Khatrian ta dharam chodiya, malech bhakhia gahi (SGGSJ-Ang663). Our Gurus (who were also Khatris) created a community where anyone whether they be farmers, barbers, wood workers, shop keepers, priests can all abandon their birth caste based distinctions and become warriors the likes of which India has never seen, which is known as the Khalsa. Associating our selves with our caste we are associating with something impermanent. Our caste is only here till this lifetime. Our previous lifetimes and future lifetimes who knows what our caste or race or even species was. But Khalsa is eternal. If you are a faithful hukmi Khalsa, then you will be a Khalsa in all future lifetimes regardless of what caste or race you were born in. So it is ones choice whether they want to associate with the caste or race of the body which is impermanent, temporary and only bound to the current lifetime, or to the Khalsa which is everlasting. The Atma has no caste or race only the body does. A Sikhs is suppose to realize this fact and not associate with the impermanent body to which the caste or race belongs to. We need to uplift our Atmik Jeevan rather then associating with associating with somethings so materialistic as one`s caste or race.

That is classical orientalist art. Look for them online, they always make eastern peoples look the same.

not all the inhabitants of a Pind belong to a particular caste. India`s villages are multi caste villages. Some pinds, the jats may be a majority, doesn't mean everyone from that pind is a Jat. There`s a famous pind in Jalander where Chamars are 90% of the inhabitants, and only a few Jat families. I know one guy from that Pind who is a Jat by caste, but he isn`t a Chamar just because he comes from a Pind which is 90% Chamar and no one mistakens him for being a Chamar either. Another example is Badal. Badal is the pind of Prakash Singh Badal who is a Jat. But his former agriculture minister Gurdev Singh Badal who also uses `Badal` next to his name is not a Jat, yet no one says Gurdev Singh is from Badal village so he must also be a Jat. Historically, Sikhs (of all castes) have always used the name of their Pinds as an alternative last name since using the Pinds name is neutral and does not denote one`s caste affiliation.

Pinds are not named after castes. There are exceptions though, like some pends have the same name as the inhabitants of the Pind. For example, I have seen some Pinds called Gillan where many Gills and most of the inhabitants are Gills. Another example is a Pind in Gurdaspur named Virk, even though nearly all the people living in the Pind are Kahlons. So if those Kahlons were to use their Pinds name, then they would become Virks LOL But 99% of the Pinds of Punjab are not named after last names or caste. During the olden times, Sikhs of all castes would use their Pind's name. Even during the militant movement of the 80s and 90s, all the Sikh militants would use the name of their Pinds, the only exception being the Babbars who would add "Babbar" to their name. Just look at the example of the Damdami Taksal Sants. Even though it was Sant Sundar Singh Jee who was from Bhinderkalan, but to this day all the Sants of Damdami Taksal add "Bhindranwala" to their name even though they are not even from Bhinderkalan.

For a Sikh, his caste has no place. In western countries one cannot discard their last names because then there would be thousands of people with the same name as you. The preferable alternative would be for Sikhs of all castes to rather use the names of their Pinds/village/ilaaka which is actually the historical norm amongst the Sikhs rather then their gotra/caste based last name.

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How are the headscarves of the ladies going to get in the way of them playing football? This is another bull$hit rule that dumb goray have managed to make. This is the kind of rule which will make Muslims militant because they will feel they are against the wall and have no other choice but to become more defensive.

How is the bindi-nasal sound school lazy? you need to put a lot of effort to know where to pronounce the visheshdhunis(bindi) and nasal sounds where as the Sampradai school pronounce it as it is written with the lagamatra, effort is not needed since you simply do ucharan of all the lagmatra and pronounce none of the visheshdhunis. Also I don't think that the school of ucharan which pronounce visheshdunis and nasal sounds are all SMC. A lot of non SMC Sikhs also use the same school of ucharan and do not agree with the SMC. regardless of which school of ucharan one follows, they are all beautiful in their own way. Both have very convincing reasons for their schools.

Couldn't agree more.

True. Almost every Punjabi family has at least one member who has diabetes(which they call "shoogar" in Punjabi).