nishaan@magazine

The first decade Known for posterity as the Saragarhi Battalion, the 36th Regiment of Sikhs was raised at Jullundur on 23 March 1887— then styled as the XXXVI (Sikh) Regiment of Bengal Infantry — by Lt.Colonel J.Cook, and within ten years, had carved out a place of immortal glory. Its composition was to be (Jat) Sikhs from Majha, Malwa and the Doaba, a core of 225 all ranks being received…

At the end of month of December every year, the global Sikh community honours the memory of the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh, affectionately called Chhote Sahibzade, who were martyred at a very young age. The younger, Fateh Singh, born on 25 February 1699, was not even seven when he was martyred on 12 December 1705 along with his elder brother Zorawar Singh, born on 17 November 1696,…

One more first for the community.  Manpreet Monica Singh has been sworn in as a Harris county judge, becoming the first female Sikh judge in the United States. She was sworn in as a judge of the Harris County Civil Court at Law No. 4 in Texas. Manpreet was born and raised in Houston and now lives in Bellaire with her husband and two children. Prior to this, she has…

When Guru Tegh Bahadur returned to Patna from Assam in 1670, his son Gobind Rai was three and half years old. In this painting, father and son meet for the first time, flanked by Mata Gujri, Gobind Singhji’s mother and maternal uncle Kirpal Chand, who experienced spiritual joy at this sweet re-union. The house at Patna in which Gobind Rai was born and where he spent his early childhood is…

Dr Jaswant Singh Neki was Editorial Director of the Nishaan journal for a decade from 2005. In this (above) photograph he is seen with Dr Manmohan Singh (later Prime Minister of India) and Dr Karan Singh of Kashmir. The Nishaan was formally launched at New Delhi on 22 April 1999 when Dr Neki gave the keynote address in which he hoped that “all communities will join us in this dedication…

Bhai Mardana (1459-1534), Guru Nanak’s longtime Muslim, who also accompanied him throughout those extensive Udassis (journeys) across the country and abroad, was born as the son of a Mirasi couple, Badra and Lakkho, of Talvandi Rai Bhoe, now Nankana Sahib in Sheikhupura district of  present Pakistan. The Mirasan were a caste of hereditary minstrels and genealogists. Guru Nanak and Mardana were both born and raised in the same village. The…

The clarion call of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind (raised by Guru Nanak) is verily the quintessence of the vedantic, biblical, koranic and bhakti (sufi) traditions. The successive alchemy of sacrifice for social equality and generation of self-confidence to oppose tyranny over the next two centuries made the Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh transform an oppressed people into fearless saint-warriors on the Baisakhi of 1699. Three hundred years after that…

This wonderful and historic Gurdwara in the high Himalayas is at Chungthang, in North Sikkim at the confluence of two rivers Lachen and Lachung Chu, both tributaries of the River Teesta. The thumb-shaped state of Sikkim borders Nepal in the west, the Chinese Tibet Autonomous Region to the north and east, Bhutan in the south-east and the state of West Bengal to its south. Chungthang is some 95 kilometres from Sikkim’s…

There is something unique and central in the faiths that the men-in-arms professed to have made it incumbent upon men of different religions Christian, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu to have lived and fought and died together”. Thus wrote Major General Mohindar Singh Chopra, founder of The Jullundur Brigade Association in 1989, at the 75th anniversary of the first battle of Neuve Chapelle. 25 years later, those emotive words were recalled…