HSD1

Firstly, it is so worth checking out the pictures. They are amazing. It puts East Punjabis and NRIs who build houses in East Punjab to shame. Why build houses like Florida mansions or English manors when you have such a rich architectural heritage to draw from? I think the idea of converting people just to use them to look after our own history is not going to go down well in the long run. Sindhis especially would want to stay Sindhi, and their children/grandchildren might not like the idea of having been converted to just make up the numbers. Taking Sikhs from Afghanistan and NWFP is a good idea, even if it is just a case of 'out of the fire, into the frying pan'. But that leaves their own heritage behind. I posted a thread about an Afghan Sikh who is facing these difficulties in Afghanistan, it's worth checking out. We dont even know the relative importance of certain Gurudwaras, in East Punjab there are some Pindh Gurudwaras that were important historically but arent broadcast to avoid randoms turning up in the village. With so many abandoned Gurudwaras we dont even know which ones are more important than others. Do we even have a database of all Gurudwaras/shrines/places of importance abandoned? Then there are other things to consider. The first is research. Where are these places? As I began to improve my Punjabi I began to notice how a lot of UK SIkhs speak with heavy local accents. I wanted to hear more authentic accents. It then dawned on me that with my grandparents now dead and no other relatives who grew up in pre-Partition West Punjab, that their way of speaking/dialect would be lost to me forever. As well as that, what they knew of where they grew up was gone forever. Getting Sikhs from West Punjabi backgrounds to record their elders whilst they are still alive to describe their lives, Gurudwaras, places of importance where they grew up would be a good idea. Any pictures that survive would be a God send too. We have to consider security. We didnt exactly leave on the best of terms. Plenty of photographs show islamic graffiti, green flags, smashed faces etc all the things you would expect fanatics to do to a Gurudwara. They arent going to be too happy with some Sikhs just turning up again to look after the building and land. The Badal government need to put excessive pressure on the Pakistan government to expel all squatters and guarantee the rights of all Sikhs who go to these places. They could offer similar terms for mosques in East Punjab. We cant just give money to random people over the border, we have no idea who they are. Another thing is that the Nihangs are traditional custodians of the Gurudwaras. The SGPC could create a taskforce/jatha to plan out where these Gurudwaras are and alocate Sikhs and Nihangs to go to them and restore normal day to day things like Langar, picture the state of the Gurudwaras and find out what happened to SGGS ji and other texts. Then there is maintenance. If we want to restore them we need to do it properly. None of this 'lets plaster everything' or 'marble everything it till your eyes hurt'. We lost so many people who knew how to look after them due to Anglo-Sikh wars/partition/emigration to the west, it's no surprise no one knows how to look after them anymore. Having said that there is scientific/archaelogical equipment we could use. Paint seeps into whatever it is painted into. using certain equipment it is possible to tell what colours certain things were or to make out images that were painted on walls. There are also ground radars/xray machines which reveal foundations or room structures for collapsed parts of buildings. All this stuff will cost a lot of money and there is no guarantee it wont be stolen or allowed into Pakistan - hence why we would need Nihangs and volunteers on site. The equipment could be sourced by universities/companies in East Punjab using their own funds and donations for this project. Then you would need to people to use the equipment and analyze what they find to create a plan to rebuild. Things like sourcing bricks similar to ones used in the original construction will have to be asked. That's what I can think of off the top of my head, but there are so many other things that need to be considered if we want to avoid doing a slapdash job. Then there is other things to consider. Foreigners love antiques and relics. If we do a project like this, we have to prevent some idiots thinking they can make a quick buck by cutting bits off the walls and selling them to collectors/Sikhs in the west. I'm not joking, this happens regularly in other parts of the world. People who sell their heritage are the worst traitors. How would we prevent this? EDIT: Sorry for the photo avalanche, but I know some of you dont have Facebook and would probably want to still see the pics so I put them all below. Mods can move them to another thread if they feel it is inappropriate.

The problem with figuring out these countries is that we have to get into the mindset of Indians and see why they would use certain words to describe places. There must be other texts written at the same time that have similar words to describe these places. If not, other things like events in the Sakhis or similarities with other descriptions from travellers from non-Indian backgrounds could be used to cross check. It will be a mammoth task, far more than for any one individual. Mr Kasoor should have got a team together before hand to do this 'backroom' type information crunching before he set out. He also needs a better camera or photographer, some of his pictures are very difficult to make out. I'm not slagging him off, his adventurous streak puts everyone younger than him to shame, but he could have had a smoking gun right there and then. 1. But if it was written in the 1880s then where did the information come from? If from oral Nihang stroy telling, could we find more information that may not have been transcribed? 2. His pictures show a fortress type place, possibly on high ground, akin to where Sikh soldiers may have been staying during the various wars during the time. But this probably wasnt the only place the British garrisoned troops. With the name of the Punjabi regiment, using British military records we could figure out where they were billeted and what routes they would have taken from disembarking off ships to the fort/barracks. With that information on a map if would be easy for Kasoor or anyone else to verify whether it is the same one that our lot found back then. 3. The researchers had a similar problem in Turkey where they didnt account for damage or regional differences in the use of words. Kasoor talks about a 'Nanacus' that he has found in Rome, but Nanacus is a word to describe a bearded man in parts of Europe or a play on the word 'Noah' in others. The same may be true of the Cairo shrine. 4. But was this the same one that Kasoor or the Sikhs from WW1/WW2 found? But how do we know that they are the same? I couldnt find my grandparents ancestral village in West Punjab, even though its only been 60 years. The book was written about 60 years after it was first found and roughly 30 years after it was refound in WW1. How can we say, beyond reasonable doubt, that they are the same? Also which Sultan did Guru Nanak Dev Ji meet? If it was a Mamluk Sultan, they didnt last long so who put up the monument? We're getting more questions than answers now. I have only heard of Guru Nanak being imprisoned by Babur, who else tortured him? Was it ethiopian christians or portuguese pirates? Both were known to be trouble makers in the region.

I'm not arguing, it's a discussion. You say we cant tell where these countries are but that old sources provide place names. I cant remember the Older Panth Prakash mentioning Rome. As for Cairo, it should be investigated further. But be sceptical of urdu reading soldiers being able to translate old arabic. Or the historical perspectives that we may not be able to see too clearly today either.

The book by Kohli contradicts itself. It cant make up whether Sikhs knew about the shrine during the Great War or the war in the Sudan. Why no pictures? If some smart people from a research team can make a mistake in Istanbul, whats to say that whoever went to Cairo didnt make similar mistakes? At least the Canadian research team were big enough to admit it. Still no smoking gun. Mentioning Sufis doesnt help either, their main centre was in Baghdad, not Cairo.

The earliest reference to this from academics says the Cairo monument was found by Sikhs during the Second World War during the struggle in North Africa. If you have pictures, post them. He has pictures of a monument in Turkey. If you have the link, please share, I cant find it. So is this in Suraj Prakash? But where did he get his information from? I can and I will. At least quote me a page number, I'm not going to reread them, you're really not helping here. No pictures of this monument either isnt helping.

I think if anyone doesnt know what they are on about it's those who are desperate for evidence of a trip to Rome. Anyway, Sudan and Egypt have had a fluid history and at times were the same country, other times they were seperate. At the time of British intervention, there was thought that Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists might unite to kick the Brits out to form an united country. If you cant provide a location for this place apart from somewhere in Africa then we dont know where this monument lies according to modern international boundaries. Using a supposed monument would have had a massive boost to the spirit of Sikh troops in Africa, the Brits arent above such tactics. The threat of muslims desecrating such a shrine would have made Sikhs fight with a lot more vigour. I'm not saying they did, I would love nothing more than for this to be true, but we've had so much spin over the years that I'm going to be cautious and questionning this time. Does this researcher have pictures of the monument in question? Please share, it would be good to have some tangible evidence. It is if people are continuing to twist things to suit their current social climate. A bit like prophecies that Maharaja Duleep Singh would kick the British out, that the British would leave the Punjab in Sikh hands if we helped them defeat the 'evil' Axis, the prophecies that Sikhs would get Khalistan, the prophecies that a Sikh would sit on the throne of Delhi and sit at the head of the Indian army and would lead the Khalsa to world domination (which was talked about a few years ago when Manmohan Singh was 'elected' and the head of the Indian Military was Sikh, until he got kicked out) or the modern prophecies about WW3 blah blah etc. We cant say it's not relevant if it is reflecting a manifestation of behaviour that is seeping into Sikh minds from external sources and is reinforced by our feelings towards them. Could you quote the part of Prachin Panth Prakash that has the quote or give me a page reference so I can go look myself? Naveen Panth Prakash is not something I have a copy of. Could you post the text? But where did he get his evidence from?

Woah woah, no need to be so touchy. My OP specifically asked about Rome and the 'ending' of slavery (when it hadnt even begun). Just because there might be evidence of trips to 'Africa' doesnt equal trips to Europe. The evidence in the link is patchy at best and not well documented. If you have the specifics, please post, we're interested in getting to the bottom of this. None of the points to counter the evidence have been refuted. His 'facts' arent farfetched either - they're just plain wrong. His dates are fluffed massively and his interpretation of translations and speeches is just odd. The British stole a lot of Granths, twisted and made up prophecies and paid 'religous' people to make their rule over Sikhs easier. It wouldnt be too farfetched to use evidence of Sikhs being in Africa to justify the presence of Sikh troops there. A lot of Hindus in the British Indian Army refused to serve abroad and leave India for religous reasons. It took the British a while to overcome these attitudes in various ways. I cant remember the part of Panth Prakash that lists the trip to Africa, could you please post it.

Well it's in the interests of the diaspora to think and project things like this so it shouldnt come as a surprise. We all thought you had been turned into Findus Pancakes :S I think we need to assess the sources for a lot of this. It's becoming apparent that a lot of Sikh researchers missed stuff or just projected their own views, especially after the Anglo-Sikh wars. A more honest appraisal would give a solid foundation for further understanding, and prevent a political outlook being projected as it has been in the past. Africa is a big place. Rome isnt in Africa. Slavery in the 1500s targetted western Africa, not the centre or eastern part. It wouldnt be too farfetched to imagine Guru Nanak Dev ji having some interest in the established trans-Saharan trade routes that existed back then. Do you have pics of this monument in Sudan/Egypt? I hope it wasnt a ruse by the Brits to justify to the Sikhs their killing of Sudanese nationalists and freedom fighters.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/putting-a-price-on-foreigners-strict-immigration-laws-save-denmark-billions-a-759716.html

http://youtu.be/jZcxefLyZ4M Looks like one to watch.