HSD1

This is the part that stumped me. Films, books and tv? In order to do that you need money, connections and technical know-how. As for the pindus, it'll be hard for them to big themselves up to cover these achievements, especially if sikhs back then are portrayed as intelligent forward thinkers and sikhs nowadays as backwards pindus. But one way of looking at is like this: sikhs back then achieved things, today sikhs cant do anything, therefore implying there is an inherent difference in how we are a nation/community/individuals today compared to back then. The more thought you apply, the more stuff you can come up with to show that we are just shadows of what we were. The thing is our aim should be to become what we once were, not get bogged down in the gutter with the pindus and the southall coconuts etc. Kick them to one side and leave them behind.



As they say, horses for courses.



I'll apologise as soon as he stops going on female orgasm sites to find evidence to prove that his views on women are correct. HSD never apologises to bigots.

Well they cant all resist it. Rather than thinking of these people and the need to get them on board, think rather of getting this information out there, then seeing who accepts it and kicking the rest to the side and moving on. Leaving them in their own shit, where they would rather be.

What doesnt kill you only makes you stronger. It may hurt you, but think of all those achievements our ancestors achieved being lost to time and people thinking the British civilised us. Seeing as we love picking up bits of our past for today's world, this should give Sikhs an idea that being a pindu on a farm is not where real strength lies.



I was explaining things to him and giving him links but he kept doing that typical indian thing of 'I am right and I will only accept evidence that supports me'. What kind of attitude is that? Life is about searching and acquiring as much information as one can, processing the good stuff from the rubbish, then forming attitudes and traits from the best of it. Not just what is put in your head as your raised, to then be doggedly defended to the death.

I wasnt intentionally rude and none of it was personal.

True. I was once told on SS that I would die 'with a big axe stuck in my back' by one of the frequent posters on there. So if you want to kill me you'll have to get in line. Dalsingh's free though!!!

It's relatively hard to convey emotion in typed form on a forum, I think some of you have added a bit of spice in the way you read my posts.



Oh great, so I now have to find a few more lecture videos of a middle aged white guy explaining things to get you up to speed. When you say technological capabilities of the Sikh Empire what do you mean? This was the 1840s, if you expect Second World War-esque videos showing Punjabi women in factories building planes, tanks and hulls of aircraft carriers then I cant provide it. But plenty of British sources refer to the Khalsa as one of the most formiddable armies of the world. Where do you guys think that they got their guns and uniforms from? Waheguru threw them and they fell from the sky into all the Regimental Headquarters of the various Khalsa Regiments? Industry in the 19th century focussed on two things: consumer goods for the population or weapons of war. Now anyone with any sense knows you cant have a modern army without the mililtary industrial complex to support it. These same foundries that produced the metal for cannons also produced the mechanical equipment that was used in farming. The same farming equipment that the british confiscated at the end of the Anglosikh wars. Now Niddar Singh would have you believe that this was because all the sikh boys were using hoes and sheaths to practice shastar vidiya when they should have been farming, but the truth was they were trying to make farming more inefficient and labour intensive. This would reduce the number of young sikhs able to fight the British as they would be needed on farms instead (read into the Zulu Wars or what America wanted to do to Japan and Germany after WW2 for similar example - hell, even in afghanistan the locals dont fight during harvest/sowing season). It also reduced the chance of sikh engineers or smiths getting their hands on the metal and turning it into cannons or guns.

It seems that people are determined to see the AngloSikh Wars as just another colonial adventure of a European superpower against a bunch of backwards and stupid darkies. The truth is that across North America, South America, Africa, Australia and India the europeans faced little 'real' resistance. Sure the locals may have got pissed but there was not a lot they could have done with stick, spears and cowskin shields. In Bengal the British won because the Bengalis were too stupid to cover their gunpowder up when it rained. The British beat the Tipu Sultan because he stopped receiveing supplies from France due to Royal Navy victories against the French in the Indian Ocean. Being a muslim leader of a mainly backward hindu population with little chance of replicating the supplies that used to come from France, he had no other choice but fight it out until his eventual demise. The Marathas were a joke. Handfuls of Portuguese troops could keep entire Maratha armies at bay. It was no surprise that the British made mincemeat of them. The only race that could fight were the Gurkhas. Take a look at the biography of this Gurha general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balbhadra_Kunwar

But when the Europeans came to Punjab, did they find a bunch of backwards whose ideas on war consisted of screaming at the heavens and then charging in and dying like numerous Africans, Native Americans and others? No. We matched them cannon for cannon, gun for gun, regiment of the line for regiment of the line, cavalry squadron for cavalry squadron. It was a Clash of the Titans, the outcome of which would have affected the whole of South Asia for centuries. Why sikhs still want to portray it as some struggle between a backwards feudal people and an aggressive industrialised empire reflects more on them than it does on history. Just because sikhs may be backwards or useless today (well in certain places they are) does not mean that they were always this way. If the Khalsa Raj had any issues they were entirely in the political domain. Another thing the Khalsa Raj didnt have going for it was population. We could produce the guns and cannons, we just couldnt find enough Sikhs to use them and be able to pay them at a regular rate. This was mainly due to us being landlocked and not having the ability to trade over the seas.



That's a given. Watch the video again, he shows how Punjabis were spying on the East India Companies manufacturing depots. If we had a navy it would have been a lot easier to nick secrets.

It's good to see you know you've been proved wrong.

Unfortunately most of it was lost on KDS. KDS watch the video again. Look at how the guy shows how Sikh cannons with small calibres were capable of firing at ranges longer than British cannons two or three times their size. The metal and casting was also so good that the sikhs could load double shot. This is were you put two cannonballs or canisters in the cannon to fire. European cannons couldnt do this because the more ammunition you put into their cannons, the shorter the distance it could be fired as the same amount of gunpowder had to force two rounds out of the barrel instead of one(therefore it was only good at close ranges). If you wanted the extra ammunition to fly further you had to put in more gunpowder. But when european tried this, the extra gunpowder blew up the gun barrels. So european artillery troops only fired one round at target at long distances. Sikh engineers figured a way around this problem, allowing them to fire more rounds over longer distances giving the British the impression we were using large siege cannons when in fact it was small field pieces giving this effect. By the end of the Anglo Sikh wars the British had to bring in 18/24/32 pounders to counter our 6 and 12 pounders. If that isnt a sign of technological superiority on our part I dont know what is.

Didnt you watch the video? It is clear your grasp of history is basic. Do you know alot about industrialisation in early 19th century Europe? Obviously not. Do you know anything about 19th century warfare? Obviously not. There are hundreds of sources from the Anglo Sikh wars from British officers talking about the how well drilled the Sikh army was and how effective its artillery was. Then there was the trick the Aien Regiment pulled at the Battle of Aliwal to escape an attack by thousands of British cavalrymen. You dont know what your on about so it's wonder why you bother posting. The onus is on you to educate yourself, not expect me to carry around everything I've read in the last 2 decades to help overcome other's ignorance.



Where do you think the mughals got all their clerics and mercenaries from? The muslim world. And in order to get to Delhi where did they have to go through? Sikh Punjab. Figure the rest out for yourself.

If you're on about our wars with the afghans, then they knew it was unsustainable, just like american intervention in today's afghanistan is unsustainable.



More ignorance on your part. Over a million russians wanted to join Hitler to fight Stalin but Hitler refused. Many real historians credit a large part of Hitler's quick demise to the way in which he ruled the territories he conquered.

Well no movement has ever worked when the majority of its members were thickos. The only time a decent movement will rise amongst sikhs is when they are on the same page and see things in a way that makes up for our lack of numbers.

Professor of Economics now too!? My my.



Ahead of what?



Maybe you should go back to that Ravidassi thread were I had to hammer this into you.

Have a look at this video:



I'll explain it again. Sikhs had the most modern and illustrious armed forces of the first half of the 19th century. We were considered the 'Prussians of India'. Now a modern army doesnt fall out of the sky. It needs an industry to support it. To make cannons, to make dyes for uniforms, to make guns, to make gunpowder explosives and then all the other military paraphernalia they need. Europe at the same time wasnt any more advanced. It wasnt until after the 1850s that railways became the norm in industrialised nations, and steam engines became common in ships. If the sikh state had survived into the late 19th century there is no reason to believe that they wouldnt have built their own railways.



We broke the Mughal supply lines to the rest of the muslim world. Simple as that. As for Vietnam, all that Chinese and Warsaw Pact equipment came in handy. As for Afghanistan, all the weaponry that the CIA gave to them came from Israel, who in turn had captured it off the arabs, who in turn had bought them off the soviets. Attitude is bollocks. Hitler and his cronies still thought they could win the Second World War even when Russian troops were entering Berlin. The native americans also said 'never say die'. You know what happened? They died.

The problem with what you have said is the word I've put in bold and italics. You're looking at it in the wrong direction. We will never have the 'reins of destiny' back in our hands as long as we are unsophisticated or lack the imagination to inject some grandeur into what we want to achieve.

So in answer to your question, if we were given self determination because of, say the rest of the world fell off a cliff, then yes it wouldnt be long until we ruled ourselves like a gurudwara. Of course some sikhs would build a better system, but not everyone would buy into it.

Finally, you say 'I can't see a drop of progressive, forward thinking, intelligent thought for the 21st century amongst any of us' - speak for yourself. I'm offended.

Another clueless comment. Backwards is a mud hut. Forwards is a skyscraper. Backwards is a horse and cart. Forwards is a space shuttle or a bullet train. These arent western or european definitions. Japan invented bullet trains and has a space programme. Are they european? Look, the world isnt going to stop so that you can sit there and say india is the best for equality for women and the other nonsense. You've convinced yourself that your values are 'eastern'. Yet you were raised in a country that's culture and law was shaped by Britain for almost 2 centuries. In fact many of your attitudes dont even correspond with how sikhs were before the annexation. So in fact its you who doesnt understand that modernity does not equal shaved and turbanless sikhs. Hindustanis shave and dont wear turbans, yet they are east of punjab?!?! Plenty of sikhs with beards and turbans are borderline pervs too, wearing the 5 Ks doesnt seem to help them.



I never heard of any indian born kharkoos winning that war, so what's your point? And since when were you a military theorist? We would never have beaten the indians without a modern army. In a modern army the kharkoos would have been privates or corporals at best. As the kharkoos were unwilling to be unified and led by able military commanders, they had to form small isolated groups that were overrun one by one. So much for the superiority of the rural sikh fighting man. The british left india 65 years ago but you still spout the martial race theory junk. What matters is training, tactics, intelligence and information, leadership, organisation, technology and supplies/logistics. You honestly think a bunch of rural idiots can make up for that? Factory workers can fight, teachers, engineers etc can too. To say that we lost the war of the 80s because we didnt have enough kharkoos is rubbish. India has a billion people. We have 20 million. A war of attrition between the kharkoos and their armed forces was only ever going to end one way, it was just a matter of time.

When I first saw the advert I thought this was some kind of live action sikh version of family guy. Unfortunately, i was wrong and this looks to be a very bizarre programme. It will upset many fundamentalists who have certain views on how great modern sikhs are. Luckily this programme will be shown after their bedtimes so we wont have too many tantrums lol. Hopefully they wont know that all of the episode will be put on 4oD (channel 4's on demand online service).

We will only turn the corner on the grooming issue when the Sikh community and parents put the needs of their children above the wants of the wider world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3072285/Shopkeeper-visited-widow-offer-condolences-days-helped-gang-kill-husband-faces-jail-guilty-manslaughter.html

Why doesnt the robot have a turban?

So POST-marital relations are ok?

Why doesnt the robot have a turban?

Come on Pali, dont be like that. Prophecies always come true - Maharajah Duleep's zombie is going to go to Russia one day and convince the Tsar to invade India and liberate Punjab just like the Sants said in the 80s. The 1880s.

Damn, this is some Indiana Jones level stuff.

Interesting, very very interesting. Funny how no one has actually begun the grown up discussion you refer to though. Did you post this on SikhSangat?

I have to say I have very limitted exposure to the Prof's writings. Even less to the source material he refers to in his analysis above. But there is something I would like to share, bare with me through my points.

If I asked a British Sikh were Birmingham was or asked an Indian Sikh were Ludhiana was, most of them would know and most would know how to get there. If we went to Pakistan and tried to find Lahore, the number of British/Indian Sikhs able to do that wouldnt be so high. 200 years ago it would have been the other way around. My point is that we are conditioned in various ways by where and when we are brought up. Sikh writers have no idea what the future holds and writing a future-proof history is pretty much impossible. Other culture pretend that they know their history but when you dig beneath the surface you find that what most of them believe is propaganda and not credible. Hence, what may seem 'poetic' and 'not informative' may be true for us reading it today, but at the time the people reading it would not have been looking for the same information that we are as they may already know it.

An example of this is Homer's Iliad or Virgil's Aeneid. These were considered to just be poetry and symbolism of classical flights of fancy and almost mythic by the barbarians who themselves destroyed classical Europe. It was only until the 19th century that the neo-Europeans finally figured out the clues in the text and found the original Troy as well other sites in Roman/Greek classical epics. Now one reason it took so long to find out the secrets is that the Europeans we know now came from outside Europe and had no connection to Classical Civilizations. Why would they care where Troy was if they just wanted to slaughter and rape their way through the Roman Provinces? This information was lost when those civilizations fell. When Sikhs wrote their epics, they had no idea of the Anglo-Sikh Wars or Partition or the migration of Sikhs. What they took for granted on so many levels would feel alien to many Sikhs today. So what I'm saying is dont write off old Sikh sources just because we dont get them - that's our fault not the authors.

Secondly, the Prof relates to the evacuation of Anandpur Sahib, which seems to have been one of the Sikh's main military/political/ religous centres at the time. If this is the case, we cant expect to find much historical texts that were kept there, especially if the Sikh soldier's did their jobs properly. When the enemy is at the gates you have you destroy or hide your sensitive information. I have no doubt that this is what was done and quite rightly so (from the perspective at the time).

Again, thanks Dal for bringing this up. Quite a lot there to mull over!

What does his religion have to do with it?


I'm surprised he was paid so little by the British. Considering how other sources talk about how Maharaja Ranjit Singh liked to throw his money around his court it seems this guy was a politically motivated spy rather than an economic one. The fact that he got so close to the centre and there were no reprisals after the wars show how rubbish Sikh counter-intellgence/spying was back then.

A king decides who is around him, if he saw idiots it was of his own doing. People say he was like Napoleon but I see him as being more akin to Attila the Hun in the way he saw his people as a bargaining chip (a violent army that could lay waste to empires) but thought that foreigners were incredibly intelligent (Attila and Ranjit both appointed mediocre foreigners to high positions around them). It was a different time back then though, losing his father at a young age and what supposedly happened to his mother must have had an effect on his outlook on life.

Come on Pali, dont be like that. Prophecies always come true - Maharajah Duleep's zombie is going to go to Russia one day and convince the Tsar to invade India and liberate Punjab just like the Sants said in the 80s. The 1880s.

Obviously there is only so much I can put on here. I cant cover every angle nor do people enjoy walls of texts. There is an element of free choice. But when you have mothers and older women who go on about how fair skin is always naturally more beautiful or fathers and male elders who talk of Britain as a land with streets paved with gold and British culture being intelligent, open and tolerant when they have never lived anywhere else and live in heavily desified areas, you have to ask how much is inadvertent brainwashing or deliberate attempts at getting their kids to buy into finding a way up the British social ladder no matter what. As for what happens to you in supermarkets, they're probably afraid you're going to say something and pop that bubble they've built. Better off just pretending you dont exist. I find it quite funny how girls like that do have a reaction when they see a smart apnah with a good looking gori though. Eyes like daggers! lol.

A lot of what I said above also applies to boys as well. Girls sometimes get the feeling that they are hard done by where as boys get it easy. If you coddle your lad and turn him into a brat, no girl will want him. Being leary and a git wont make you a hit with the kind of women you want. My friend showed me her facebook message inbox and for all the stupid ones from sulleh and goreh/kaleh there were a few from freshies from East Punjab including teenage boys who were saying things like 'I smoke dope all day every day, how bout you give me your number and be my girl?' It doesnt help that our lot can be pigs just as much as any other set of guys out there. I am not saying go to the other extreme and become shy and reclusive, but develop a sense of manhood that wont make you act like a dog in public. The fact that some Sikh guys arent even taught that shows that the Sikh model for raising kids isnt always working.

If we do let Sikhs kids just get on with it, we have to know why it doesnt happen in a widespread sense already. The older generation have to face the fact that its not the 19th century any more and arranged marriages that used to be for people who used to spend all their lives in the same village dont cut it in the real world. It's gone from something set up by mature, wise and intelligent elders for helping young people find someone not from the same village to a sometimes dangerous game of russian roulette.
Now if we do just let kids get on with it we have to face some other things. I've been to get togethers where women had fights because one of them used to know a bloke and the guy's new wife isnt keen on her being around. I'm sure guys are like that too. A while back a Sikh girl and her new boyfriend killed her ex boyfriend who happened to own the Sikh channel. This is something we need to get over or bypass if you want people to find their own spouses. Otherwise the violence will escalate and end up being another thing we get stereotyped for as well as fracturing communal cohesion.
Getting over caste or family differences is another thing. If they are Sikhs it shouldnt matter what caste they are or whether your families may have had it in for each other in the past. Just let them get married. Old folks are going to be long dead whilst the kids are the ones who'll have to live with the choices.