californiasardar1

I think that they should have performed their seva in Sikhi saroop In any case, at least they had a compelling reason for their decision (though I still think it was not right) What compelling reason do clowns like Deep Sidhu have for getting haircuts? Or most stupid jatts?

I didn't say all keshdharis should be trusted. Some of them should be mistrusted too. Stop extrapolating and misrepresenting what I said. Sukha and Jinda were Singhs who became monay to go undercover and do sewa. They didn't became monay for reasons of vanity or weakness like all of today's monay, so please do not bring them up.

This is why people should never take monay who pretend to be panthic seriously

Some mona put on a parna for a day (or maybe for just a few minutes) and hoisted a flag for a second in a meaningless symbolic gesture that will be used as an excuse to brutally put down the protests. Wonderful.

I will wait for someone to inevitably come into this thread and defend monay who cut their hair despite no threat whatsoever to their livelihood.

Why is this forum filled with complete morons?

Yes, because "our ancestors" did not suffer from a much lower life expectancy than we do today (that was a sarcastic comment)

My father told me that the vast majority of government jobs in the enlarged Punjab (before it was divided into present-day Punjab, Haryana and HP) were held by people who were from what is present-day Punjab. In other words, people from what is present-day Punjab benefited disproportionately from the existence of the enlarged Punjab. Similarly, people from present-day Haryana benefited disproportionately from the division of Punjab. It is worth considering whether the division of Punjab into present-day Punjab, Haryana and HP benefited or hurt Sikhs: Were Sikhs better off as a majority in a smaller state with Punjabi as the official language? Or would Sikhs have been better off as a large minority in a larger state? Would Sikhs have benefited from being the "king-makers" in all state elections (the way Hindus do in present-day Punjab) more than they benefit from being a divided majority in present-day Punjab? Would Sikhs have disproportionately benefited from being part of a larger state with more resources and more influence? Would Sikhs have gradually settled in larger numbers in what is now Haryana expanded the region where Sikhs have influence and power (similar to what happened with Sikh settlements in the "canal colonies" of West Punjab in the early 1900s)? Would it have been more difficult for the central government to isolate and "punish" Sikhs if they were part of a larger Hindu-majority state?

No, there is something to correct. You wrote "much of Malwa" when you should have written "all of Malwa." Writing "much of Malwa was not under Ranjit Singh's empire" implies that there was some part of Malwa that WAS part of Ranjit Singh's empire, which is not true.

What good does memorizing Dasam Bani do if you flagrantly break rehat all day every day? Gurbani is useful if we act on it and ensure that it guides the way that we live our life.

Okay, then you should have actually written that she got Ranjit Singh to bring a majority of the misls under one banner. Why word things inaccurately when it is possible to be precise and accurate? Also, you wrote "much of Malwa was not under Ranjit Singh's empire" and then write "Everything on the South of the Sutlej was not under the Sikh empire." ALL of Malwa is south of the Sutlej, so that is another inaccuracy that you should correct.

Punjab was never unified. Most of what is now the current state of Punjab in India was not part of Ranjit Singh's empire. Probably half of the Sikh population of the time lived outside of the borders of Ranjit Singh's empire.

Impressive that he managed to memorize it in between stumbling around his palace drunk and fornicating with random concubines When will people stop worshiping a manmukh who, in the final analysis, probably did more to harm sikhi than to help it?

You could easily google why he was killed. Anyway, my father has argued to me that Kairon was overall good for Punjab and had a forward-looking vision of a "maha-Punjab" that was far better than what the Akalis wanted and ended up getting (a tiny, severely truncated Punjab that was thus very easy to marginalize).

Why are these kinds of things always happening in the UK, which has such a large Sikh presence?

For every jatt "kharku" there were dozens of jatts helping the brahmin-controlled state hunt down the "karkus" Face it. At best, there is nothing that makes jatts stand out in the positive ways that you want to pretend they do. At worst, jatts have done more damage to Sikhi than any group of people. I'm a jatt myself, but I can't deny the fact that 99% of jatts are clowns who have made a complete mockery out of Sikhi and who do not possess any of the characteristics (anakh, honesty, trustworthyness, bravery etc.) that they like to beat their chests and pretend they do.

Jatts did a really good job submitting to Brahmins from the 1980s up to and including the present day

Yet you neglected to mention misls that weren't led by jatts (Ahluwalia, Ramgarhia, some also say that the Shukerchakia chieftains were not jatt) You also neglected to name the traitorous Phulkian "misl" that was led by jatts. They can now stake claim to multiple centuries worth of traitorous behavior. The least you could do is not forget them.

I agree that this is great, and I also find it very surprising. I never would have expected to see western born Sikhs from nonreligious families move towards Sikhi. Here is something that I don't understand, and maybe you can help shed some light on this since you are from the UK: When a young man from a mona family grows his kesh out and becomes a singh, why does the father (and sometimes even the grandfather) remain mona? Is it a lack of sharam? Or maybe it is fear of embarrassment since they would have to admit, as middle-aged or elderly men, that they don't know how to tie a paghri? It is one of the most puzzling things that I have seen. A family with a young singh with a beautiful, full dhari and dastar ... and a clean-shaven bald man with a visible double-chin who is apparently his father. I find it so baffling that the father in such a situation is not shamed into keeping his kesh.

You are right that early rural Punjabi immigrants made the turban out to be a much bigger hurdle to obtaining employment than it actually was. I don't have much sympathy for their decisions to cut their kesh. But look how far we have fallen: at least the early Sikh immigrants had some excuse they could point to and some of them legitimately felt bad to have discarded their kesh. Today's pathetic Sikhs sitting in Punjab discard their kesh routinely WITHOUT ANY EXCUSE. And they don't feel any sense of shame for having done so. They are always ready to try to justify themselves.

You are right. My comparison really pertain to families in America whose parents left rural Punjab between the 1970s-early 2000s (but mostly from the late 1980s on) vs. families in the UK whose grandparents or great grandparents left rural Punjab in the 1950s-60s or whose parents or grandparents left East Africa in the 1960s-70s. In this comparison, the relatively recent rural roots of the American families preserved some more traditional/conservative aspects of Punjabi culture. But in the last 10-20 years, rural Sikhs sitting in India have been moving away from traditional Punjabi culture at a highly accelerated rate. Today's Punjabis will run as fast as they can towards anything that they perceive to be western or (to use the word that they constantly use and abuse) "modern." I doubt that people who have arrived from Punjab in the last 10 years will be raising their kids in traditional environments.

Yes, there are plenty of "urban" Sikhs who cut their kesh too. But let's be honest here: they still keep their kesh at a much higher rate than "rural" Sikhs. The trimmed beard and turban is not an East African innovation. That style has existed in Punjab for a very long time. The reason you can say that the East African Sikhs "brought it into the UK" is because the kinds of "rural" Sikhs who would trim their beards in Punjab would take it one step further and remove their paghs and head hair before moving to the UK (showing a combination of cowardice and lack of confidence even though they like to portray themselves as brave, confident people). The only "rural" Sikhs who kept their paghs intact after moving to the west were the 100% pakay ones (with full beards too).

You are absolutely right in making these points. I can only speak for myself, but I should have been more clear that the "westernization" that the East African Sikhs brought, in my opinion, had to do with women behaving less "traditionally" than they might in families that recently arrived from Punjabi pinds. I apologize for my mistake. But you are right, "rural" (I'm using the term "rural" to stand in for something else, but I'm sure you know what I mean) Sikhs are absolutely pathetic when it comes to keeping kesh. I say this as someone who comes from precisely this background. I'm not holding any other group responsible for "corrupting" rural Sikhs. As we see in modern day Punjab, rural Sikhs are quite adept at corrupting themselves. I just was noting how the further the time-distance from India, the further various Sikh communities have moved from traditional Punjabi cultural practices in various ways.

(just to be clear, I'm commenting here on America only ... I don't think my comments necessarily apply to Canada) The uncles do indeed all have haircuts. But when I was growing up, I basically never saw an auntie with a haircut, regardless of what her husband's practice was. (That is changing a bit now, but seeing aunties with haircuts is still far less common than in the UK, where it is the norm.) My point is that, aside from uncles all having haircuts, the situation was not that different from what one would see in India. Men would drink openly and do stupid things (just as you'd see in India), but women still retained Punjabi cultural traditions in terms of their behavior. Also, "kids" in their 20s and 30s would behave a certain way in front of their parents (not like the UK where they seem to do whatever they want). This is not to make any sort of statement other than to note how things change in each community depending on how far removed from India they are. When I was growing up, there was virtually no such thing as an American born uncle or auntie (and it's still rather rare today). And there was no community of Sikhs from East Africa or Malaysia who were already westernized. Basically all uncles and aunties grew to adulthood in the pinds of Punjab. Things have already changed a bit from when I was growing up, but it is still far from what one would see in the UK. But give it 10-20 years, and the American Sikh community will be like today's UK Sikh community (probably much worse, to be honest). By the way, don't get me started on the post-84 asylum seekers. Only a tiny percentage of them were legitimate. Most were monay who couldn't care less about Sikhi but saw an opportunity to move to America.

I remember a conversation 20 years ago with a friend of mine. Somehow the topic of the UK Sikh community came up. My friend said (I'm paraphrasing): "They are going on their third generation there. Imagine what the girls are like these days. Their community is going to hell." That was from a conversation that took place 20 years ago! Now, that statement wasn't 100% correct. I am actually surprised that some young British-born Sikhs are into Sikhi (and in some cases, more into Sikhi than their parents). But here are some things that are VERY common in the British Sikh community that I basically never (or very rarely) saw in the American Sikh community: 1. Girls drinking openly at Punjabi wedding receptions and parties 2. Aunties drinking openly at Punjabi wedding receptions and parties 3. Aunties with haircuts 4. Aunties wearing revealing clothing 5. Clean-shaven "babay" (grandfathers) 6. Boys and girls in their 20s or 30s who live with their parents but come and go as they please, going out partying, wearing revealing clothing and getting drunk and coming home in the middle of the night ... and somehow not having to hide any of this from their parents. It seems like this kind of behavior is very widely tolerated. 7. Boys and girls with tattoos I could go on and on ...