nishaan@magazine

Guru Gobind Singh had prepared his people well for the 90 years of strife with the Mughals and their satraps, the Afghans, the Persians and other marauders from the north, who regularly invaded India, between his death in 1708 and the founding of the Sikh kingdom by Ranjit Singh in 1801. The fellowship of the Khalsa, the principle of meeri-peeri (the temporal and spiritual underpinnings of the faith), and the…

I get asked a number of times – “You are a man of science – how can you believe in the concept of God ?” . I think it is just the reverse – a true scientist knows that nothing is random – the complexity of the Universe shows that there has to be someone who planned it down to the minutest details – like a master web designer !.…

Many readers of Gurbani, particular those who proudly see themselves as superbly dedicated, when it comes to reading or writing Gurbani, become aggressively nit picking about the bases of the vocabulary of Gurbani – its pronunciation, precise unchanging interpretation, even possible translation, meaning, and applications. Their care is genuine, deserving admiration. Yet, I wonder! Should we be so unchangingly bound to a rich and hoary past, even in grammar and…

According to Police sources, Sardar Satnam Singh, a well-known Sikh ‘hakeem’ was shot dead by unidentified gunmen inside his clinic in Peshawar, Pakistan.Satnam Singh, was at his clinic when attackers barged into his cabin and opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. A police team rushed to the site, however, the killers managed to escape. The reason behind the murder was not ascertained yet, but in all probability,…

The National Commission for Minorities stated that it has come to its notice that Sikh students are asked to report at centres for examinations like NEET and JEE hours in advance for scanning of ‘Karas’ and ‘Kirpans’, and urged the National Testing Agency to ensure there is no discrimination against Sikh candidates on the basis of their articles of faith. In an official release, the commission said that in light…

Since I sat down with this editorial in mind, competing alternate titles have flashed their presence and pushed their appeal, even though I am not yet clear about the contents and the direction that I prefer. For instance, The Last Frontier sounded just right as the title. Or perhaps of  Life is Full of Rude Awakenings. Life offers many a closed box to honestly parse some ideas imaginatively and honestly. …

Borrowing from scholars of Sociology, I have often argued that religious traditions and practices are the glue that unite a people and creates a community. People, then, need to elaborate a statement like the Articles of Confederation as the defining document of a community’s basic connecting glue. For a religious people, the prayer–Ardaas–is that. The many faiths of humanity agree on that One fundamental, although they continue to quibble over…