HSD1

Singhs had plenty of opportunities to try and enforce this during the 1700s but never did as far as I am aware.

Did punjabi muslim women wear burkahs back then though? Even in afghanistan they werent as strict as the taliban are now.

Go back and read my posts HSD, you seemed to have either misread or missed nearly all points.

Post 2 in this thread is a little bizarre, especially when taking into account what French troops were ordered by Napoleon to do in the Caribbean. Seeing as you like to accuse everyone of being Nazis, this might interest you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_of_Napoleon.

I didn't confuse the 2nd A/S War with the mutiny, far from it, read my post.

Nope, I still dont get what you were trying to say by bringing up Lucknow. Maybe a thorough explanation of what you are trying to say would help to stop me having to fill the gaps.

The examples of P*&^ Off from UK and yours of P*&$ from France are different, read what I said.

Well seeing as you were raised here, its no wonder you say that. The french are entitled to their own views.

After your 'big realisation' that "humanity is pretty much the same", I am surprised you still carry intolerant sterotypical attitudes towards specific groups.

I only ever use stereotyping for the purposes of humour and nothing more. It's not really a 'big realisation' either, it's just that many people like to draw lines and force people to stand on one side or the other. As for 'specific groups', I wouldnt class whites and muslims as specific as there are over 2 billion of them altogether.

Well done for yout volunteer work by the way, it takes courage and compassion to undertake such work, I just hope we will get to see some fruit from your experiences here. It takes even more courage to change ones public attitude on record.

The point I am trying to get is that what are you trying to achieve? You havent given a clear set of reasons for not wanting the french to have this fine, nor have you proposed any way of helping french muslims. Getting your back up everytime you hear a story like this doesnt do anyone any good. You need to look at the bigger picture sometimes. You dont like it when some sikhs said they dont really care, but you havent faced the fact that there isnt a whole lot we can do either. When our own lot couldnt sit there exams over there, what could you or I or anyone else do? Hardly anything. It's time we concentrated ourselves into being able to do things rather than just whispering into the wind with arguments like this.

Kalyug Jeeo, you are missing one important factor, the choice of the western religious Muslim bibiyan that decide to take that step as a show of commitment towards their faith (and God/Gods laws).

What would our Gurus say about such superficial actions as covering your face to show piety?

Also, as an interesting side note, have a look back at your parents/grandparents wedding photos, many of you will see that Sikh bibiyan observed a form of purda on their wedding days. Alongside have a read of Prem Sumarg to see how this behaviour was considered normal in the 1800s, at least in some Sikh circles.

A full faced burka? I would like to see these photos.

We have no right to comment on nor interfere in someone elses religious practice as long as it is not harming anyone - and has already been spoken about, the observation in the west is very different to the observation in the east. The same is true for Sikhs and dastaaran.

The dastaar does not change a man in the same way a burkah changes a woman; It doesnt make him less of a man. A burkah prevents women from doing what men do. It's like a yellow star. Being a bunch of brown guys, we can never fathom sexism, just like many whites cant contemplate racism. If I lived in a sikh state I would expect my government to give every one a chance to a free and fair life. Interacting with someone in one of these costumes would make me feel like i was seeing a suffering person and not being able to help them. I cant believe that we such have sexists to go along with the traitors and casteists in the sikh nation.

Murdering someone over a handbag. Criminals have sunk to a new low in this country. Heroes like Sukhwinder Singh are uncommon.

Lol, we'll try to avoid wrecking the forum whilst your gone (no promises though!).

As for the tonsils, everyone I know who has had it done said it was pretty straight forward on the NHS, but it did hurt bad for a few days after the operation. Dont know if they give pain meds in Canada.

You have issues son.

Living in a White mans country, taking full advantage of all the benefits they offer, and then still slagging them off is very different to somebody's fundemental human rights and practice of faith being taken away.

You obviously see the world in a very B&W sense i.e. Musi haters or Musi lovers, thats a flaw in your own education somewhere down the line.

Dont call me son. Firstly, you go on about good and bad people all the time, then accuse me of seeing the world in balck and white. Err no. It seems you have accepted your role as a 'musilover' by getting the idea that I am a 'musihater'. Unfortunately for you I am not and have done volunteer work in foreign countries which most of the musilovers wouldnt go even if they feel so strongly about the poor fools who live there. And do you know what i realised? That humanity is pretty much the same wherever you go. But certain misogynistic attitudes will hold an entire society back. Our Gurus taught us to treat women as equals. There is even a big drive nowadays for sikh women to wear dastaars. So why dont muslim men wear the veil? Oh I forgot. Sexism among others is to be accepted. I should have known, seeing as you are so willing to accept racism from others too.

What happened after the 2nd A-S War in Lucknow, who sided with who, your examples are beyond crap.

Lucknow? What are you on about? Have you confused the Second War with the Mutiny?! Oh dear. I was on about how the muslim popoulation of the punjab sided with the british in the second war. This denied the army a lot of resources and forced them into facing Gough at Gujrat, where a few thousand sikhs got massacred. But who cares, right? As long as the muslims are happy, Shaheediyan can sleep well at night.

Re your other comments, you don't know anything about me, so no point speculating.

What did I speculate about?

And nobody said yo uhave to give shaheedi for the burqa, same way you don't have to jump on the Nazi bandwagon just because they are targeting your so called enemies today, any numbskull knows that you are in line tomorrow, so its in any minorities favour to dispell this hate where and how ever they can.

Neither did I. All I said is if you feel so strongly, why dont you pay the fines for them? No need to get so upset. Also, one minute you accuse me of being ungrateful to the whites and actually hating them, then you accuse me of jumping on the white nazi bandwagon to hate on musis. Wow, I never knew I had all that hate in me, but if you say it's true then it must be. Not. Anyway, we can see you've contradicted yourself so I'll leave that point there.

I was responding to your friends comment "France is a french country. If you dont like it, f*** off somewhere else.

Funny thing is that you have told many of us to go somewhere else if we dont like certain parts of living in the UK. It doesnt matter if a fellow sikh or a racist idiot says it, it still sounds the same to my ears.

"And dont start all this gibberish about what our Gurus would have done today".

I find that comment offensive and insulting to my 9th Guru, our Gurus shaheediyan were given for deep rooted and timeless lessons, if you can't see them for what they were, then kindly don't bother downplaying them either. Just stay quiet.

Well I find it deeply offensive when people take what they did out of context. If the fine was for being brown or going to a mosque, I would understand and empathize. But what about women who are genuinely persectued? You havent given a viable solution for them. Anyway, there is nothing stopping these musis in france going somewhere else. The kashmiri hindus had no where to go. It was a case of islam or death. Today in france its a case of pay a fine or move abroad. Not entirely the same is it?

I'd love to see the musi-lovers on here wear one of these for a week and see how they feel.

France is a french country. If you dont like it, f*** off somewhere else. That's what certain people say on this forum about the uk everytime the BNP or anglo-racism is brought up. But now that muslims are victims in someone else's country we have to get involved? Have they asked for our help? No. And dont start all this gibberish about what our Gurus would have done today, as we all know those who bring this point just like to act PC and whine all day to make others feel bad, but dont actually bother acting on their opinions. If you feel so strongly about this, why not pay the fines the more hardcore islamo-bints are going to incur?

Of course it's all the whites fault for not letting people shit all over them. Like when we had a sikh empire, we let the musis do whatever they liked. And they loved us for it. Yeah they loved us so much they sided with the brits during the second anglo-sikh war.

Come on, they didnt have a better status then. Most of them ended up being abused by their posh officers, a lot even had their wives forced into prostitution by officers whilst they were posted abroad. Wars were fought out of a belief that not everyone was equal. Foreigners were worth killing for security and resources. There was a clear link between regent, govt and military. All were supported in equal measure by a public who got prestige, a sense of superiority and multiple trophies/resources from the defeated. No one cared if the soldiers were under equipped or led by idiots. No one cared how many soldiers died as long as they didnt lose anything important. No one cared about Gough's tactics against sikhs, until after Chillianwallah, where it looked like we were one victory from dislodging the whites from punjab and moving on to india.

Society at the time was geared towards military spectacle and propaganda even worse than today. Some of us older lot actually lived through the last dying throws of this period when a large percentage of the toys available for boys had distinct militaristic flavours like model fighter aircraft and other transports, toy soldiers, realistic looking toy guns. These were best sellers back then as well as accounts of military 'adventures'. If you think about it, most of those contemporary accounts of the Wasp-Singh wars we read now to try and shine some light on our itihaas actually had a good market in their own times. Even seemingly innocent childhood activities such as the Cub Scouts and Boys Brigade had distinct military connotations and were essentially preparation for later service. They grew up on tales of a wasp soldier bravely clearing foxholes knife in mouth and all that........lol

Its all about the videogames nowadays. Like killing ruskies in Washington (Modern Warfare 2) or killing religous fanatics in space like Halo. Hell, it's not a bad thing, we need our own videogames and comics about sikhs killing scum for the sake of our youth too.

This public deference for the soldiers is something that survives from the colonial period, where the popularity of the forces was kept up through propaganda and fueling of the national patriotic ego by the ruling classes. As they achieved military success after success (or so the public were told back home) the soldiers were marketed as the brave heroes of their time.

The officers were. Like Nicholson, that little shit who probably hid in a hole during battles and came out with his Flashman-esque stories after the smoke had settled. The average soldier never achieved that kind of status.

You seen this before?

No, but at a guess, is it a survivor of the first Anglo-Afghan War coming back to Jamrud?

I seriously doubt it will be a Sikh story. More like a hindustani/coconut mish-mash of idiots saying all those who dont like hindustan are terrorists. I might as well start drafting my complaint letter now.

How I interpret the piece is the author realising that the whole web of lies and propaganda around their wars is unravelling. He recognises the danger this may have in terms of dissonace and demoralisation of the general wasp public and is trying to suggest that they take their deference of their soldiers down a peg to make accepting the inevitable deaths over essentially political goals (so called national interests) more palatable. This would entail a significant shift away from the conspicuous moralistic justifications that formed the original propaganda for their actions (taliban dem be bad man, dey no let women wear bikini and go school, bad taliban! we will crush you!). Soak it in - it's the nearest you'll get to a wasp being honest.

Exactly, he wants the public to view the army with the same indifference which was common before the World Wars, back when the masses knew their place.

The taliban strategy is to kill as many soldiers as they can. This will cause problems for the british public who are too jingoistic about the soldiers. If they werent, and no one cared too much for the dead, the taliban would lose their war as they could never outfight NATO. There only chance then would be to make the war too expensive for the West to fight.

He suggests this because I think he knows keeping up the fake pretence will become more and more difficult if the war goes on, especially in the light of the real possibility of them losing militarily. They want out but are trapped because of their desire to be seen as being bum-chums par excellence of the Americans, whilst also not wanting to look like losers back home. As the song goes "we're caught in a trap, I can't walk out".

He doesnt even talk about the false pretences - which was 9/11 and Bin Laden. Helmand is a problem because the Yanks pissed away their popularity their. After the invasion, the talibs were broken. But when american troops were transferred to fight in iraq, the british said they could do the easier afghan peacekeeping. Unfortunately this handed the taliban a propaganda victory as they could now argue that the americans were just like the brits, and were a modern day incarnation of the British Empire. The british army found itself facing popular unrest and it all kicked off. To maintain the war, the west say they are spreading democracy or preventing the spread of terrorism. Which they are, but not with the vigour you would expect them to if they really believed in their own reasons.

I don't know, these common people (in the UK) have been conditioned to keep their heads down for centuries. The only realistic movement against the ruling classes right now with any conspicuous support is the BNP one. Explain how you think these 'finer points of democracy' are spreading here?

Civil unrest, the media chasing readers by using controversy and the ability to get rid of those who are unpopular are all 'finer points of democracy' (a phrase i used sarcastically as these are quite crude). In the good old days people wouldnt go beyond grumbling in their own homes. The public seems to be getting above themselves in the way they act and think. More open whinging and whining, along with showing what they are thinking without even considering the implications. The mob power is growing in this country, and will reach a point of no return if public opinion starts influencing anything and everything. Just like in the USA.

I can't see these lot do a post-Ranjit Khalsa special (i.e.. becoming de facto arbiters) myself, but nothings impossible.

You know they would love that role. There's just too many institutions and government interference in society to let them get what they want. But if those institutions and govt feel beholden to the whims of the masses for whatever reasons, then they will achieve the kind of anglo-soviet-communal command they want.

Since when has hypocrisy ever mattered to certain people.

Well it matters if the enemy exploit it. Like the taliban are doing with the high level of affection the public have with the army.

Not at all HSD. What will cause a military defeat is the actions and tactics of those fighting in Pak and Afghanistan, nowt else.

If the average soldier is infected with the same attitude that the public have, the defeat will be entirely military. Look at vietnam, where soldiers began to feel the same way as the public. If Private Peter gets upset at what he hears at home, then goes to Sangingrad to feel the heat, bullets and his overbearing Sergeant, it may be enough for him to say 'F this, i dont want to do this anymore'. If this keeps on happening, new people will have to be trained but will still be susceptible to the public and veteran's views. If the commanders and politicians start feeling that they cant win with soldiers who arent giving it 110%, it puts them in a difficult position.

I'm with the working class quite heavily, they don't seem anywhere near breaking ranks with their master class anytime soon from what I see? The only thing that is pi55ing lumpen sections off is, you've guessed it!, immigration. lol

From a brown sikh's view they may be all the same, with the same ambitions, goals etc but it's obvious that the bottom feels that in a democracy they should have their whims catered to. The top doesnt really oblige fully but it gives them what they feel is enough to keep them stable. Under New Labour this reached ridiculous levels, and guess what, it just created a cycle of greed among the lower classes. The next goverment will have to do something as it has reached unsustainable levels already. Hopefully the Conservatives will lie their way to power and then pull the carpet from under the bottom feeders. But whatever happens, these are definitely interesting times.

sikhsangat i thinking do the names change fightsangats forum.

Your pearls of wisdom should be law.

All this guy is saying is that they should return to how the army was treated back in the day, i.e. the upper class view of the army. That is that they are a bunch of anglo saxons who should be honoured to have the chance to shed their blood for the those at the top - who want to pursue whatever whim they want whilst sipping tea in Buckingham Palace/Downing Street/HoP/Whitehall. But of course he cant say that as it would be a stinging slap in the face of the average briton.

It's quite funny really. The British left us sikhs to deal with the hindu-horde democracy and gave the muslim punjabis the chance to build their own future at the expense of ours. But thanks to America's supremacy, the finer points of democracy are spreading throughout their cultural/economic colonies too(like the Uk, whether the upper class like it or not). That means the wishes and sentiments of the mob have a heavier weight than is reasonable. If they get too much weight, it could cause problems. Like the hypocritical and bizarre support for an army but not the war they are fighting. The article writer knows this will lead to problems and maybe even a military defeat. The question is, how will the top of the british power structure reassert it's dominance over the bottom masses? Writing articles wont do it, so lets see what happens.

Some sikh women are bat shit crazy, but Harjas really takes the biscuit. It's already been pointed how insignificant those battle standards are. According to her logic then, the british are all a bunch of roman/greek pagans as they have used their gods/goddesses/mythical creatures in their military. *YAWN* Go away Harjas, your full of crap. You even managed to break the quotes, your posts are that terrible.

We need to clone Gogi. This guy is frickin hilarious.

If they allowed weapons on board - them at least there would be a chance to fight off or kill attackers before they tried anything stupid.

I sure as hell wouldnt like to be a brown person on a plane full of tooled up yanks. All I would have to do is scratch my leg and one of them would chase me with an M60.

And what if they dont go to afghanistan or pakistan, but instead follow the footsteps of Muhammad Khan sadique and plan an attack on uk soil? Besides, there are'nt really any barriers hindering young western muslims to participate in Jihad in afghanistan. Omar Khan sharif from the article above participated in jihad in bosnia and had some military training in afghanistan and then he came back to the UK for a while before blowing himself up in israel

Well duh, thats why I said they should be encouraged to take it elsewhere. Once they're out of the country, dont let them back in.

HSD, these fundos are no clowns, many woould give thick poor white trash soldiers a good run for their money. They are well organised and generally centralised in their belief. What we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg.

Exactly, all the more reason to let them have it out with each other. Mind you what i hear from some of those who've been in afghanistan is that it's a duckshoot most of the time. I guess it's just harder to get the really sly musis to go and fight. We still have those old idiots in gurudwara committees telling kids to fight the indian govt. Fortunately most people realise that they have been saying the same thing for over 25 years whilst sitting on their asses.

I remember a few years ago I was in an Irish pub (yeah I said it!!) and The Sun had just put some big article about "Sikh terrorists" going to Al Qaeda in Pakland for training all over their paper. The landlord was loudly moaning about "they are all at it" in my direction. When I told him he should know better being a thick paddy and that his people had been the ones engaging in terrorism here for years and no Sikh was whinging, he shut up.

LMAO! Oh the irish. Poor buggers. When the BNP get in power and balls up the army, what ever armed forces left will probably be used on Paddy (unless the Scots are independent).

LOL! I dont think he's northern. Probably just a bit dumb like all the other sikhs who support Leeds Utd (my dad included lol!).

Violence has always been a basic part of the sikh diaspora. For some reason around the millenium it dropped off a bit as the sikh community was trapped between the british govt clamping down on khalistanis and the growing vehemence of the muslim community. Luckily, the govt now has bigger fish to fry and the recession has really bitten the muslims on the ass. Hopefully a conservative govt will deal a death blow to the muslim ghettoes.

Do you want to know the best way to get rid of muslim extremists? Remove the barriers that hinder them going to places like pakistan/afghanistan. Encourage them to join muji groups and then let the army deal with them. If they chicken out, dont let them back in to the uk. They wont be able to encourage others, they wont have children to raise in the same way and it will eventually make them realise that violence doesnt solve anything unless you have the biggest club.

They often attribute the desire for the wilfull destruction of the nihungs by Ranjit Singh by placing them in so-called 'suicidal missions'. Whether this is true or a manifestation of the wishful thinking and hatred of the whites is another matter.

I'll admit that it is hard to verify what the whites say about M. Ranjit Singh's views. But when Britain gets involved in a war, who goes first? The SAS/other special forces, followed by the marines and paras if more troops are needed. Is it because the queen and parliament want them dead? No, it's because they are the best. When it came to dealing with the afghans, we would always use the akalis, the french tricolore regiment or other well trained Sikh regiment and the gurkhas first as they were up to the task. The british can say what they want, but its not unknown for them to get the wrong end of the stick.

One thing that has always baffled me is why the Sikhs never continued the campaign against the goray with the type of guerilla campaign they undertook against the Mughals, Persians and Afghans, after the first Anglo-Sikh war?

It was an incident of resistance which the british used to start the second war.

The british demilitarized the Punjab after the second war in the same way the allies did to the germans/japs after WW2. Even if sikhs wanted to fight a guerilla war, it was hard to get the right equipment. The sikh regiments in the british army were probably fed so much anglo-propaganda that they didnt know what to think.

Also, the Mughals, Persians and Afghans were all pretty violent. They wanted to wipe us from the face of the earth. The british didnt care what we were as long as we werent a threat. To many sikhs, who expected a holocaust or being forced to become christians, this probably felt quite fair and the way we would have treated the whites if we had turned up in england. You cant expect our ancestors to have understood how well Whitehall could use 'soft powers'.

Another thing we should remember is that we lost the biggest bulk of our sipahis not through the battles but when they tried to retreat across the floating 'boat bridge' that seems to have collapsed in mid retreat. Whether this was accidental or the result of intention is unknowable. We can however guess which Sikh 'leaders' were in the white man's pocket with the subsequent treatment metted out to them after the end of the 2nd conflict.

Are you on about the Battle of Sobraon? That was nothing short of a war crime. 5-8 thousand sikhs drowned or shot like fish in a barrel. If it was the other way round, the british would never stop going on about it. But because they did it, they consider it was still gentlemanly.

HSD, when you are faced with multiple drunk Skinheads or knife carrying fanatical Wahabis in the street, we'll see how far your theories and opinions on the Anglo-Sikh Wars get you.

I know, you're so right arent you? After debunking your logic in this thread it must be obvious that my 'theories and opinions' are all i have. When someone asks me the time, i tell them the date the battle of Mudki took place. When my manager asks me how to recover a file that she was stupid enough to delete, i give her a thorough breakdown in the difference in tactics used by the regular Khalsa infantry and Akali regiments. <sarcasm>

This is another annoying thing about us sikhs. We think that one size fits all solutions are best. Like, seriously, how does the Anglo-Sikh wars affect street fights? You honestly think i would apply 19th century formation/equipment 'theories' to smashing some idiot's face in? No, i know what to do in a street fight. I also know what to do in a number of other situations. I dont apply some daydream fancy pancy martial arts to all problems, unlike some.

We need to learn to walk before we can run. The 1st point of this section of the forum is Savya Raksha - be able to defend yourself and yours, and how to acquire the mentality to do it.

The point of this section is the art/study of war, in all its forms. If we want to be winners, we need to be able to do anything and pretty much everything. That's walking, jogging, running, jumping and focusing the mind.

When this becomes the norm in Singhs, the next thing will be for Singhs to unite, before we can even move onto 'battle plans' for any of your theoretical wars.

Norm? When will this be? Today, tomorrow, next year or in a 100 years time? The answer is never. Back in the day, many accounts of sikhs described us as skinny, short, etc. Not the 6 foot 4, super muscular, man-beasts. If you attempt to reach some kind of pinnacle whilst neglecting other things, we will be attacked by those who are good at what we arent. You can try all your life to create as many one-man-armies as you like, but they will be useless. Why? Because our enemies will refuse to face us, and will come up with other ways to attack us. In the uk, pakis will tool up with firearms, and the bnp is trying its damned hardest to make inroads into the police and army, which they will use in time if they get enough support from within those organisations. I know its hard to try and face and prepare for all these threats and the different vectors they will come from, but we have to do it. Sticking your head in the sand and only marching down one path is not the right way, and you know it.

We need to concentrate on Singhs getting heavy on a street level before we can even contemplate anything bigger.

The question of unity still will go unanswered if we try it like this. You and I both know that there is a large section of the sikh community who like to put their brothers down and yet suck up to non-sikhs. The coconuts/pakilovers/sanatans will never let us ever focus our strength. Power is like a ladder. If you try and get some, you will end up knocking others off and kicking those below you who are trying to get above you. 150 years ago a fair few of our ancestors had no qualms about doing what needed to be done. Now, any attempt to reassert ourselves is met with cries of 'Why are you doing that? Arent you happy with the status quo?'. If you look at some recent examples, it was inter-sikh conflict that ended any attempts at achieving an improvement for our nation. For every youth you turn into a SV/gatka-educated one-man-army, there will be 3 who become fordcapris/hindustan-lovers or dhimis. Taking control of gurudwaras and creating institutions that imbibe Khalsa patriotism, Khalsa-centric history and a high level of intelligence will help just as much as knowing how to swing a sword. Physical strength is pointless if you cant even realise when the enemy are setting you up for a fall. It's no good fighting a brave fight after you've been duped, especially with so much at stake.

I think we paid a heavy price for the Maharaja's decision to keep the Nihangs on the sidelines and for adopting Western methods.

We paid a heavy price because we had no idea who the english were. They had spies running up and down our country when we only had the half truths told by mercenaries. If anything, it was the fact we did not adopt the west's method of war thoroughly enough. The Akali/Nihang tactics had already been tried by the scottish highland clansmen hundreds of years before against the redcoats. They were cut to ribbons. If we hadnt modernised, we would have died like the zulus. If we had known more about them, and bettered the tactics and plans they were going to use against us, we would have won. If Maharaja Ranjit Singh or someone in the Khalsa's High Command had realised the real weakness of the british lay at sea, and that is where we should have fought them, then history may have been different. Our indifference to building a navy and our reluctance to take Sindh sealed our fate. No matter what else we did, it was over as soon as the british had us surrounded.

does anybody else love this guy?

Lol, he's another one who's too funny for sikh sangat.

I know some cows in St Johns Wood, but i wouldnt want to milk them. Better off importing the cow, you might even get a dowry.

If we played to their weaknesses and utilised our strength, we would have crushed them. If we let them use any advantage they had, we would have lost.

HSD, you missed the point.

We are talking about the use of extant vidya - hand to hand, which follows the same principles as the past.

And riding around on a horse waving a sword is 'hand to hand'? Who cares if it's extant? Is this your plan on taking on skinheads/BNP? Get a sword, jump on a horse and charge after them? Woo hoo, we're all saved.

You were making a point about sikhs not being stuck in their ways... with an example from a century and a half ago. You dont mention that many sikh cavalry men were probably unhappy using the same sword their grandfathers used, and wanted something more modern. It's common sense. The reason that the british didnt maintain their swords is due to their incompetence and the fact they were expecting their enemies to wear light clothing and never expected them to have armour. As for the wooden scabbards, it is clear that it was easier for the support arms of the Khalsa to produce them out of wood than metal.

I'm not sure about this, although I'm sure it did occur in a few instances, mostly due to Panjabi 'temprement issues'.

I read an account by some Norfolk infantary twat (I think) in the Anglo-Sikh wars who was scoffing at the poor artillery. He claimed that our lot let off a long barrage that was largely flying over their heads or knocking the odd topi off.

At another point a commander simply instructed the infantry to crawl along the battlefield in the face of Sikh artillery almost eradicating casulties in this way.

An european observer of the khalsa once said that all the energy of a sikh army was used in it's first charge. If that could be resisted, the sikh troops wouldnt be able to fight off a counter attack or mount another serious attack. Unfortunately he was right.

The poor artillery is an account of the battle of Gujrat, the last battle of the second war. At the beginning of the first war, our artillery were the best in the world. Some of the pieces you see in regimental museums in this country are just majestic. The british scoff that no 2 sikh artillery guns were ever identical but that didnt mean a thing on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the men who manned and fired these guns had a habit of dying with their guns. European artillery men would abandon their pieces in the face of a cavalry/infantry assault. They would run to the safety of their own infantry and wait for their side to break the enemy assault, before going back to their weapons. If they had time they would hitch up their guns and relocate behind their own forces. Our lot didnt realise they were more valuable alive than lying dead under their cannons. You can read about the high losses the sikh artillery took, it was only a matter of time until the british killed so many that it would be hard to replace them. Without proper artillery schools capable of producing crews quick enough, we had to draft anyone to fire them. By the second war, we had no heavy artillery because of the peace treaty signed at the end of the other war. Coupled with a load of raw recruits, it was no wonder the artillery lost its edge. At Chillianwallah we forced the british to attack early, at which point it didnt matter who had the bigger artillery as the armies were so close. At Gujrat they took no chances. The redcoats lured our artillery into firing early, which kicked off an artillery duel between the two sides. The british artillery was heavier so it hit us from further away and wore the Khalsa down. Without the threat of artillery the redcoats charged in and kicked our arses pretty bad. Gujrat was more urban than Chillianwalla which is more brushwood. Gos knows what our cavalry were up to at Gujrat, but they didnt do anything effective.

When I made my earlier point about successfully utilising the enemies weapons I was talking about the guerilla phase of the post Banda period. I always thought that the Khalsa under Ranjit Singh was pretty well equipped. The kingdom also had it's own foundaries apparently. Maybe they weren't that good a shot with the taups to decimate the chitay chumree wallay in the battle? This is strange though, as I read one gora who observed them using a taup/mortars during a demo and he said that they were as good a shot as the English

Yes we had our own works to produce weapons. If we had beaten the british, they could have rivalled Krupps. After Ranjit Singh died, it all became a bit random with regards to research and supply of weaponry. We managed to kill or scare off most of the white mercenaries, so we lost access to french/american weaponry, which is where a lot of our gun designs took inspiration from. After the Maharajah's death, we had to rely on EIC deserters to see what weapons were being used by our enemies.

My point about WW2 or the Falklands wasnt just about supply, it was about doing the bleeding obvious. If you are a tank commander, and you see an enemy tank, chances are you will shoot at it. No one will remember you in a 150 years time for just doing your duty. If you knocked out a couple of hundred tanks like Michael Wittmann, you might be remembered by your generation, but you wouldnt expect to be still used for propaganda by your own side 150 years later. Unless of course, your side had run out of heroes. Which is what it feels like when people start going on about what happened in the Anglo-Sikh wars, like the people who fought back then were their best mates. 'A true yudh vidyaarthi'? Oh please. Not if you get beaten by some posh twat with a horse whip you arent.

Actually I read another contemp. account in which a whitey seemed to be almost crying at the uselessness of European blades compare to the the ones the "Seikhs" had. He was saying how they failed to cut Singhs when both sides charged at each other on horseback. He said apnay were simply ducking down and sort of hugging their horses necks as they passed each other and that the thick pagrees and shields[?] on the Singhs back, meant that their attacks were fruitless. Seriously, he seemed to be literally cryimg about it. He was saying Singhs were simply turning around after the pass and 'clahting' them with their razor sharp tulwars.

So I would go as far as to say that in the LION-WASP wars we had as good, if not better war equipment as the feringhees.

As for 1984 and post 1984, yes, I would agree that Singh's arms were woefully inadequate in comparison to the resources of the sarkar. Though they put up a stiff fight with what they had (mainly 303 and stens I imagine, possibly those big fat doonalis laying around in villages and a few Chinese AKs from Pakland???).

Armies are massive. Infantry guns are guns nonetheless. Infantry wise we matched the english. Artillery wise we surpassed them. But our tactics were still pretty basic. These wars were our first ones involving a modernised Khalsa against a modernised enemy. The europeans had been practicing on one another since the middle ages. Wars arent just about guns or tactics. Politics, the home front, intelligence, spying, etc all have a place. We failed to maintain our security by allowing traitors to lead the army. It shouldnt have happened. We cant just throw our hands up and say 'you cheated!'. If you cant play rough with the big kids, you might as well stay at home. Some people nowadays think that a bit of SV/gatka will change our nation into something that the rest of the world should be scared of. What do you think?

There is a dangerous tendency by some apnay to transpose the 'framework' of the remembered 1700s jung experience onto the modern world. This doesn't work because what has happened since then is that the changed nature of judh has led to the relative decrease in the efficacy of physical bravery (what Sikhs are famed for) and a sharp increase on the reliance of tactics using technology. You can clearly see this in what is happening in Afghanistan today. Drones/missiles versus IEDs will play a significant part in the overall outcome there probably.

They only do that because we were winning back then. If the entire world went back to guns, bayonets and other 19th century stuff, we would still get our arses handed to us. All this talk of things returning to 2 centuries ago is just some people's way of saving face.

I didn't know Mahrajah Ranjit Singh, was trying to surreptiously form an alliance to expel goray from India.

Really? He didnt do a good job. Maybe he should have spent more time playing politics than all the other stuff he got up to.