tonyhp32

Singh2, Please do not make ridiculous statements like British were more afraid of few thousand Nihangs than a million odd Sikhs. What you have c&p just show the contribution of the Nihangs to SIKH history. I have never said that Nihangs did not make a contribution but during the last 100 years there have been times when they have allowed themselves to be used by anti-Sikh forces against the Panth. The Nihangs allowed themselves to be used by the priests of Akal Takht and came close to attacking the Akalis there. The Nihangs allowed themselves to be used by Indira Gandhi in one is the most shameless episode in their history. You may wish to whitewash this episode of course. Shaheediyan, You stated that it should be easy to prove that Nihangs were in charge at the Akal Takht before the Akalis took over. Given that there is no dearth of literature in the form of books, biographies and newspapers from that period, can you provide some proof that a Nihang was Akal Takht Jathedar prior to 1920?

Singh2. You are presenting Sikh history as Nihang history. I think it was the other way around. The majority of Nihangs indulged in mischief and anti-Sikh activity whilst the few you mentioned remained true to the Khalsa. If their Jathedar was a toady of Indira Gandhi then why would Nihangs fight for the Khalsa? I though the sanatan viewpoint was that there were 4 sampardas, Nihangs, Nirmalas, Udasis and Sewapanthis.. eh normal Sikh kithon aye?

Gurdwara reform movement and Sikh awakening by Teja Singh published in 1922 pages 150-155

So pray tell when did the Misls stop being Nihangs and who were the 1.1 million Sikhs enumerated by the British census authorities in 1868? That's a hell of a lot of Nihangs especially after the British according to some myth makers were hell bent on killing any Nihang on sight! Whether Lachhman Singh Dharowali (the martyr who was burnt alive tied to a ber tree at Nankana Sahib) can legitimately claim the title Akalis is not an issue he lived and died as an Akali whilst the ones calling themselves Nihangs and armed to the teeth were willing tools of anti-Sikh forces. In 1920s and 1980s.

I am not changing my beliefs just pointing out how ridiculous and unconsistent sanatan stories are. From what I have read especially from a book by a contemporary just after the episode of the low castes being refused their offerings by the priests of Durbar Sahib and the hukam being taken from Guru Granth Sahib, the low castes and their supporters then took their offering to Akla Takht. The priests at Akal Takht also ran off. The Akalis then took over Akal Takht and did not interfare with the running of the Takht. Twenty five Akalis were nominated to look after the Akal Takht. The British district commissioner summoned the Sarbrah, the priests and the Akali leaders to his residence which the priests failed the attend. The priests then instigated the Nihangs from the nearby choani and tried to use them against the Akalis. As always the Nihangs were always willing to be used by anti-Sikhs forces against the Panth. The Nihangs came to Amritsar and were going to attack the Akalis. Baba Kehar Singh of Patti was able to convince the Nihangs to allow the Akalis to remain in possession until a congregation of the Panth could take place and also to condemn the priests for leaving the Takht. Some weeks later at Diwali a few Nihangs tried to attack the Takht and dislodge the Akalis and again Baba Kehar Singh tried to dissuage them but this time they would not relent. It was then that the leader of the Akali Jatha ( I assume Kartar Singh Jhabbar) challenged the Nihangs who then withdrew. Another attack was made of the Takht in December of the same year, just after the British government had arrested the main Akali leaders, when unknown persons dressed as sadhus attacked pilgrims at the Akal Takht and tried to dislodge the few Akalis there.. These Sadhus were beaten back by the few Akalis and pilgrims and handed over to the Police outside the complex. One of the Sadhus died a few days later from his wounds. From the above it can be seen that Nihangs had no role in the running of the Akal Takht and its running during the rule of the British was entrusted to priests under the control of the Sarbrah. So Neo's story is like most made up sanatan stories is false.

Just because the story is current amongst Nihangs does not make it true. As Matheen said, how is it that Nihangs are virtually killed off by British shoot on sight orders and then a few decades later there is a Nihang in charge of the Akal Takht. Sanatan history never adds up! Shaheediyan, You stated that the Akalis committed a secrilegious act but that depends on who you think should be in charge of Akal Takht. My view is that the Misls allowed the Nihangs to control the Akal Takht but in the changed times of the Sikhs being under British rule, the Khalsa Panth had every right to rethink the question of who should be in charge of Akal Takht. Do not judge the SGPC and Akalis pre-Badal to the ones who run the SGPC now. It is ridiculous to think that Akalis who braved the bullets of mahant Narain or who were willing to lie on the railway tracks at Panja sahib to stop a train would not have the courage to evict the Nihangs from Akal Takht.

Neo When will you let up on the sanatan propaganda about when the Budha Dal was kicked out of Akal Takht. So those dastardly conniving and effeminate Akalis used women to beat up Budha Dal Jathedar knowing that he wouldn't attack women! I am sure there were soormay enough within the Akali Jathas who could have taken care of the Budha Dal Jathedar without the need to have women do the job. According to research, a third of the Akalis were former soldiers who had just fought in the battlefields of the First World War, so there would have no problem with finding volunteers to throw the Budha Dal Jathedar out. Read the life stories of Akalis like Kartar Singh Jhabbar and you might get a better feel for what the Akalis were like. I challenged you on this story many years ago and then your only evidence for this story was that some Nihang had told you. I think your fairy story is an insult to the thousands of Akalis who lost their lives, were injured and who lost their livelihoods and pensions to liberate the Gurdwaras from the Mahants. I think your fairy story is probably made up as an excuse to why the Nihangs stood by while their Jathedar was so unceremoniously kicked out of the Akal Takht. If you are interested to know what the Akalis were like during the Gurdwara movement read this interesting article by T. Sher Singh. http://www.sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?id=115&cat=18

Why does the BBC even have a so-called Asian network. What a waste of money. We have Sikh, Hindu and Muslim radio stations already so why does the BBC want to reinvent the wheel by throwing millions in the asian network of which I have yet to meet someone who listens to it! The asian network is a way for the BBC to reward sell out 'asians' with plum jobs in the network who then go on to denegrate their religion or other religions. Rather than protest at Adil Ray people should be writing to the BBC asking them to stop wasting money on this network!

That's fine. No one is saying that one shouldn't do SV but just that one should be wary of the attendant fairy stories!

I would much rather place reliance on the writings of Bhai Vir Singh than on Santa Singh and his views. The Devi worship episode is discussed in this paper and Bhai Vir Singh's analysis of how the story came about. http://www.globalsikhstudies.net/pdf/Funda...SikhStudies.pdf scroll down to page 170 Singh2 please no rants about this being from a anti-dasam granth site. Either read the paper or not.

Shaheediyan, What big claims have I made. It is the Shastar Vidya promoters that make tall claims and unsubstantiated statements. Giani Gian Singh's quote doesn't provide support for Shastarvidya myths. I did not say that Giani Gian Singh should have written a manual of SV, just that as a writer and one if the quote is to be taken as per the SV promoters, who was worried about the loss of this Khalsa martial art amongst his generation one would expect a lot more details than the lament that is being quoted. The lament is general, it is about the loss of knowledge of weapons, the softening of the youth, the pace of rapid change, even the fact that Muslims have started to marry their cousin sisters! Hardly a definitive quote which could be used to show how according to the SV myth, the British actively conspired to actively destroy SV. One wonders whether after using Chatka Gatka as the name of his 'lost' Khalsa martial art did the promoter of SV see this quote and suddenly he has an epiphany and changed the name of his 'ancient' art!

If you read the whole section it is basically a lament about the fact that people of his era have forgotten the use of weapons. It is Shastarvidya the knowledge of the use of various weapons and not Shastar Vidya the so-called Khalsa Martial Art. Giani Gian Singh states that he had knowledge of the use of weapons but yet although lamenting the fact that people no longer learn these arts he doesn't go on to write in any great deal about these arts. If it was the Khalsa martial Art one would have thought that just as he was writing the history to enlighten people he would have written a lot more on this art. It is interesting that Giani Gian Singh mentions pistols as part of Shastarvidya or at least the laments the loss of these weapons from the homes of Sirdars. Is the use of a pistol also a part of Shastar Vidya? Another interesting aspect of the quote is that he does not blame any British genocide of Nihangs or British ban on weapons for the loss of Shastarvidya. If you read the rest of the quote he goes on to criticise the general softening of the youth of Punjab.

The quote might exist but I couldn't locate it at the page that it states it is on in the quote. I am always weary of taking quotes on face value from the Shastarvidya site considering I had found that most of the quotes used by the creator of that site five years ago were lifted wholesale from an RSS website. It does sound odd that a Nihang needs Banias to translate Gurbani for him! Volume one of Twarikh Guru Khalsa deals with Sikh history during the Guru period. That quote would certainly look out of place in that volume. The 1857 reference does seem strange considering the disarmament of the Punjab would have been right after 1849 and 1857 would have a time when the British would have re-armed certain classes of Sikhs in the hope that they would back the British which they of course did.

Are you just good at cutting and pasting off the Shastarvidya site or have the seen the quote itself? I'm not saying the quote doesn't exist but I haven't seen it on the pages specified on the site that hosts Twarikh Guru Khalsa http://www.ik13.com/twarikh_guru_khalsa.htm I suppose you saw the original quote, I would be grateful if you could point me to the correct page on that site, it would be good to compare the original and the translation.

Let's accept that the Lahore army during it's modernisation lost all knowledge of SV. What you haven't been able to refute is why SV the so-called Khalsa Martial Art suddenly disappeared from other Sikh armies which did not modernise like the Lahore Army. History is a lot more complicated than SV fairies stories and daft theories like 'the british banned it and it almost disappeared'

Shaheediyan, What are grehisti Singhs? Are they now another sampardha seperate from the Nihangs, Sewapanthi, Udasis and Nirmalas? So I suppose that you accept that apart from the Nihangs there were a more numerous class of Khalsa Sikhs who did not live the sedimentary life of the Nihangs and yet were Amritdhari? I accept your point that apart from the Gurdevs, ordinary Sikhs would have had a basic knowledge of Kirtan but this cannot then be equated that apart from Nihangs, Sikhs would have had basic knowledge of SV. The point that I have been making which you seem to ignore is that SV is presented as the Khalsa Martial Art with an illustrious history taking it all the way to Guru Nanak. If we accept this then SV would have been a central part of the training of a Sikh at least during the Guru Hargobind period and with the creation of the Khalsa it would have become more ingrained. I am sure you would agree that Khalsa would have been a majority of Sikhs throughout the period 1699-1849. During the period of the Mughal and Afghan oppression SV would have been central to the life of a Khalsa Sikh. According to the contemporary travellers during the 18th century when they enquired of the numbers that Sikhs can bring to the field, the response from Sikhs was always in the lakhs as they counted all able bodied men as soldiers. This is in marked contrast to other peoples also struggling for sovereignity at that time, ie the Hindu Jats, Mahratas and Rajputs. Pray elighten us about the battlefield tactics. During the times of the Misls the soldiers would have had to all have reached a good level of knowledge of SV. The SV story like the story of Nihangs being the original Khalsa is very much a myth. As for your contention about the Sikhs of Nanded being to poor to retain SV, you might wish to refer to books other than the fairy stories of Niddar in order to get authentic information. Dakhani Sikhs in the Hyderabad state would have had ample opportunity as well as the motivation due to their employ in the army of Nawab to retain SV should that art have been with them when they moved from Punjab to Hyderabad. Dakhani Sikhs have been strict in their adherence to Khalsa Rehat more so than the Sikhs of Punjab after 1849. As far as I am aware not many of the Dakhani Sikhs dress as Nihangs nor do they go around in Jathas. Apart from their strict adherence to Rehat not much distinguishes them from the Amritdhari Sikhs of Punjab. This point is all the more relevant as these Dakhani Sikhs owe their origin in Hyderbad to their relocation from Punjab during the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Your point about the need for a living getting in the way of retaining SV may be relevant to other Sikhs outside Punjab such as the Assamese Sikhs who also have a tradition of a military relocation from Punjab to their present location. The Assamese Sikhs took to farming and service unlike the Dakhani Sikhs who remained in the local military until at least the annexation of Hyderabad by India in 1948.

Your comparison between Raag Kirtan and SV is incorrect. Whereas it was not a case that all Sikhs would have known Kirtan, all Sikhs by virtue of being Amritdhari Khalsa would have had to learn some martial skills and that could only have been SV. Maharaja Ranjit Singh may very well have disregarded SV for his modernised army, but that does not mean that with a few decades none of the soldiers in the Lahore army would have had no knowledge of SV. What the promoters of SV are claiming is that SV was the KHALSA MARTIAL ART. It cannot be that if throughout its history only a few Nihangs were privy to SV. Let's accept that Maharaja Ranjit Singh totally erased SV out of the Lahore army something which is well nigh impossible but for the sake of argument let's accept that happended. In fact the modernised was never wholesale, the Jagirdari fauj which were mostly Khalsas were not modernised so thay should have still be aware of the SV. An interesting point is that the commander of the Sikh army in 1845 is shown in an old drawing is shown wearing near full body armour! The Phulkian Rajas did not modernise their armies so what happened to SV there? In fact all assume that all the Sikhs states just overnight forgot about SV. What of the groups of Sikhs outside Punjab? Was SV ever known in Patna? What of the Sikhs in Kashmir or even the Bandai Sikhs in Jammu? SV myths make for a good story but are no more real that Narnia or lord of the rings.

Its funny how some 'sikhs' will jump up and down for the rights of others to have their own religious identity and yet get their knickers in a twist when a Sikh defends the Khalsa identity. Same goes for the liberal left wing nut case Sikhs who will march for the freedom of terrorist Palestinians but froth at the mouth if a Sikh mentions Khalistan!

Now this is something we can agree on. But then you also have to accept that the absence of any mention to SV in the Janamsakhis makes it highly unlikely that the Nihang tradition is correct. I have already given my view about Nihangs and their history, such stories which are without any basis just makes me more convinced that Nihang tradition may have some truth to it but nothing on the scale of the fantasy stories espoused by Niddar or the Sarbloh website. You seem to have a problem with a Sikh not buying into the Nihang myths wholesale. This is where the SV myth is at odds with reality. For arguments sake let us accept that SV was introduced by Guru Nanak and later through Baba Budha became a Sikh martial art and one which the Khalsa used so successfully to liberate the Punjab from both the Mughals and the Afghans. So after the Khalsa had so successfully used this MA, what happened then. Surely SV would have been the training art of the Dals of the Misls as well as those of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. What of the Phulkian Rajas? Surely their armies would also have been trained in SV. So then we come to 1849 and suddenly SV becomes an art known only to a few Nihangs who keep the art alive so that as the news articles say, they can pass it on to a brummie factory worker! So what happened to SV in the Khalsa armies of the Phulkian Rajas. Wouldn't SV also have been known to all the disbanded Khalsa soldiers of the Lahore Durbar army? There would have been literally tens of thousands of them as well as tens of thousands of retired soldiers who after service with the Durbar would have returned to their villages before the Anglo-Sikh wars. Did these retirees just twiddle their thumbs or would they have tried to pass on SV to the youths of their villages? Soldiers being what they are a few decades later the retired Sikh soldiers of the British Indian army were instrumental in the spread of Singh Sabha revivalism in the villages of Punjab. So did their predecessors from the Lahore Durbar not pass SV on in their villages. The reason that none of the above occurred is that SV is a myth developed by Niddar. In order to make the art seem lost awaiting his contribution he has to make up stories such as nearly all the Nihangs were killed by the British and that the British had shoot on sight orders on Nihangs! The only way the SV myth would make sense is if the British systematically massacred the Sikh males from the generation immediately after the 1849 annexation. They would also have had to do the same to the veterans of the armies of the Phulkian Rajas. Now if the Khalsa could survive a genocidal campaign for 70 years and still hold on to SV then why did they suddenly lose all knowledge of it after annexation of Punjab? No one is saying he invented SV. It might have been developed over a few generations in an Akhara and then passed on the Niddar. That much may be likely but the trying to pass it off as a Khalsa MA from the times of Guru Nanak is very much a myth.

I just commented on what I saw on the video. I was not there so have no idea of what happened, although knowing what paks are like then it is very likely they were at the bottom of the trouble. Muslims are creating problems all over Europe so it should come as no surprise that fascists of these countries are getting more and more stronger electorally. So is that the fault of the fascists or the Muslims?

Amardeep, Why leave aside the 200,000 years of history of Homo Sapiens and claim that there should have been guidance between 5000 BC and 1469 AD. Taking the semitic argument then either the guidance should have been there at the very beginning or you have to accept that guidance could have come at any time between then and 1469AD. You can accept that God can wait out the million odd years that man was evolving and then wait another 195,000 years of the Homo Sapien period yet find it impossible that God could wait another 7,000 off years until 1469AD. You keep on regurgitating an Islamic argument and yet claim that it is logical, it might be logical when religions believe in only one existence but when existence can take 8.4 million lifeforms then a human lifetime is just the twinking of an eye in this equation.

It's is amusing how Muslim propagandists and apologists in the west downplay the role the Quran has in motivating Islamic terrorism but there are some Sikhs here who try and create a motivation from gurbani where no exists for Sikhs who may have taken part in terrorist acts!

Did the Gurus wage a war to enlarge their worldly wealth and territory? Did they take their pick of captured non-Sikh women? Did they keep a lion's share from the booty captured from caravans of non-Sikhs. They did attack caravans at all? Did they claim that Gurbani gave them greater rights and privilages than common Sikhs? Did they display any character flaws which could be put down to the their suffering from the effects of ego? Read the Quran and the hadiths and you will realise that the person referred to by Muslims as the 'mercy to mankind' suffered from the effects of kaam, krodh, lobh, moh and ahankar more than possibly any other human in history.

Two points here. Neo, Neo have indirectly insulted our Gurus by making the ridiculous comparison between their marriages at a young age and the paedophile 'marriage' between Mohammed and Aisha. Kalyug has already shown you where your comparison was nonsense. Amardeep Yours is a classic Muslim argument, since Mohammed predated Guru Nanak by only 900 years then Muslims when faced with the fact that modern humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years then why was it that God did not send his guidance before 610AD? They get around this because Mohammed claimed that there were 124,000 odd prophets before him and by taking over wholesale the Prophets of the Jews as well as Jesus. Your argument about non-guidance from God makes sense in a semitic view of human life and salvation. As man only has one life then if Guru Nanak was the first to receive guidance then all the humans who live befored 1469 when without guidance. There are two ways to explain. One is that Gurbani states that people like Ganka, Ajaimal who predated the human Gurus etc did get mukti, so there were people around before Guru Nanak who through various means could gain mukti. The other way to explain this is that since we all got through reincarnation then the semitic argument holds no water as they need guidance in their belief of only one life but in Sikhi one can go through countless lives striving for mukti. Kalyug made a good point in that what kind of guidance would have been available and how would it have been received by humans living in a primative and violent culture? We all know that humans evolved through millions of years to become homo sapiens around 200,000 years ago. The question would arise that when exactly did humans become sophisticated enough to understand the higher truths such as the golden rule, a loving God, a just society based on what is right and not who has the might etc. One point which arises here which is, could someone now or in the future be able to bring forth guidance? This can be answered by the fact that-; 1. The Gurus left us our final Guru, Guru Granth Sahib 2. Can someone bring forth a guidance and a moral ethical system greater than that contained in Gurbani? for someone to bring forth guidance then he/she would have to show how their spiritual message is greater than that of the Gurus. In regards to the 'guidance' claimed by Mohammed their is no comparision between the message that contains such injunctions as discriminate against non-Muslims, rape captured women and enslave or kill their menfolk and Gurbani!

All it shows is one football hooligan type facing down a combination of Muslims and Left wing idiots. The rest is of a bunch of lightweight pakis hanging around with some burly kalay acting hard knowing they outnumber the hooligans 10-1 and displaying their usual pack mentality. Some of the people who were attacked by Pakis were innocent bystanders. All the pakis did were to show what a liability they are to this country and probably swelled the ranks of BNP supporters.