Articles

On November 10, 2015, a delegation of five representatives from various Sikh organisations in North America located in Stockton, California participated in the Sarbat Khalsa, held in Amritsar. Notably, the meeting in Amritsar was not called to discuss matters concerning the diasporic Sikh experience. The purpose was to consider issues of decision-making and leadership within the Sikh religious order in Punjab. The diaspora Sikh community thought necessary to participate in…

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,…

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…

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…

This subject has become the clarion call for Sikhism. Numerous scholars have written on it; dozens of articles are being written and published about this all over the world. I am not re-visiting this subject for the sake of it but want to share some ‘Case Histories’ which are important as they become the mirror of daily life. They either confirm the application of what the scholars deduce or highlight…

Speech by HRH the Prince of Wales I must say that I am enormously grateful to Harbinder Singh, for not only his marvelous works – I always enjoy listening to him because I learn a great deal from him about the great history of the Sikhs – but I am particularly grateful to him for having helped put together such a marvelous gathering of the Sikh community here today. Harbinder…