LegalSingh

Don't forget the 5-Alive.

Everyone was down to earth and natural at occasions like these when I was a kid. Now it's a stage-managed production, with mutton dressed as lamb cavorting all over the shop, and everyone's a Bollywood superstar in their own head. Embarrassing.

But then again vanhelsing at least nobody gets blind drunk anymore. So in that regard it is progress.

Laughable. This post is embarrasing, this is YOUR truth, aka your opinion, false on many aspects but I'm not going to get into a discussion with someone I'm assuming is a 14 year old; if you're not, you certainly come off as one.

:stupidme: Good grief man. You're gonna have to improve your reasoning skills if you want to achieve anything in life. So 'false' in which sense then bruvs ?

I said 2 things : Firstly about the almost identical climate of Paris and London (with Paris actually worse in terms of winter and rainfall) and secondly about how in the UK , the only flag on display during nagar kirtans is the Nishan Sahib and how many cities in the UK have official ceremonies whereby the city Mayor lowers the British flag from city hall and raises the Khanda for the day to signify the Khanda's supremacy.

So....Here :

1) A link from the World Energy Organisation saying the same thing I've just said about the weather in London and Paris :

http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/annex_3_london_paris_1.pdf

2) Southampton City Council's own webpage in which they state the time and date they shall be lowering the British flag and raising the Nishan Sahib instead :

http://www.southampton.gov.uk/news-events/events/allevents/vaisakhi-festival.asp

Tell me.....are such poor educational and reasoning skills endemic in Canada or is it just peculiar to you ? and I ask that with the nicest of intentions, for your own benefit. You see you're here under 2 identities and both are supposed to highlight your supreme calmness and fighting skills. First as a Sikh and second as a person with a fighting moniker such as 'heatsikhingmissile'. You do neither any justice by behaving like a sensitive little girl. Be strong brother. Don't be so sensitive and fragile. You won't be able to take physical knocks to yourself if you break easily whenever someone says something negative about your country. You need to be confident with your own being. Look at us....we openly defacate on our country's flag......we make complaints to the police and authorities if anyone dares to expose our children to that flag and get the flag removed......we openly say how crap and smelly our own country is.......we openly ridicule ourselves. Take a leaf out of our book my friend. Free yourself from this rather effeminate fragility. Nobody's attacking you when they articulate some uncomfortable truths about Canada. You're not Canada's head of state being personally abused. In fact, nobody in Canada is Canada's head of state. Canada's head of state lives thousands of miles away here in my city. :biggrin2:

^ Singh1986, Thats an almost childlike utopian view you have of the world about as far removed from reality as you can get.

The Police judge you according to who you associate with. Nations judge other nations according to which nations they associate with and are friendly with. School reports judge students according to which type of characters they associate with. Released prisoners are sent back to jail if they associate with certain people considered wrong 'uns. So thats the way that the whole world operates v your very innocent but naive way.

Now, kust taking Jazzy B's example for now......how on earth could any Sikh worth his salt want to associate himself with a woman who just 3 weeks earlier made rude and disgusting comments about Sri Guru Gonind Singh ji ? Associate himself is bad enough but he's even pictured trying to kiss her.

What happens to these 'lion' when they land on Indian soil or speak to Indian journalists ? What magic potion do Indians have that turn lions into mice ? What magical spell do the Indians put on Tigerstyle and Jazzy B that they instantly forget everything Indians have done are are doing ?

anytime I go to the UK it reminds me of a cleaned up far less populated India, way to cramped, generally unfriendly public and abysmal weather, but that's just me, to each their own.

Seeing how it only mildly snows here once every 5 years and temperatures never reach the freezing lows of Canada this is surely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Anyway, I'm getting the impression that whilst white Canadians are very much realists the Sikh Canadians are a very touchy lot, easily offended when truths are told.

If anything, this thread should highlight how truth is far more important to Sikhs than fairy tales and misconceptions. Surely that is the essence of being a Sikh ?

For example, what you said above about the UK weather. I'd like to know would you say the same thing about Paris ?

The truth is that the Paris weather is on average 1 degree lower than London in winter and 1 degree higher than London in summer. Paris also has a higher average yearly rainfall than London. So thats it....a tiny 1 degree difference and a higher rainfall. But you're not dealing in truths my friend....you're dealing in misconceptions. You've conditioned your mind into believing that the weather in Paris is beautifull and the weather in London is awful. Until you educate yourself about realities yo're not going to be able to free your mind. Until you open your mind it will forever remain closed.

Now here's a question for you, when have you ever seen a British Sikh on holiday in Punjab displaying the British flag either on his person or in his car or house ?

When have you ever seen the British flag on display during UK nagar kirtans ? I've been to Canadian nagar kirtans and have always seen the Canadian flag being given prominence over the nishan sahib. In Canada, the maple leaf comes first and the nishan sahib comes second. The UK sangat would never allow the British flag to be displayed during a nagar kirtan. In the UK, during nagar kirtans, there is an official ceremony in cities where the city Mayor lowers the British flag from the city hall for the day and raises the Khanda to signify the Khanda's superiority for Sikhs. You ask a 3rd or 4th generation canadian Sikh what he is and the answer is always a proud Canadian. You ask a 3rd or 4th generation British Sikh and the answer will always be in this order: Sikh....Punjabi....Indian....English....European etc etc. British imeans nothing. Most of us hate our country.....we couldn't care less if it died tomorrow and we openly spit on the British flag. There are hundreds of thousands of British Sikhs living and working in Spain, Portugal, Canada, America...all over the world. We are far more open to the world. We are not weighed down by nationalism and patriotism. We are free enough to be able to hate our own country and unlike Canada we don't have to try and say and do things in order to please a largely hostile white propulation in order to prove anything to them. My feeling then, judging from the rather sensitive nature of some Canadians here, is that Canadian Sikhs are not very comfortable with themselves. They don't take kindly to truths being pointed out.

Well my town has sizeable amount of British Sikhs these days. So I take it your friend is the one with an issue especially given Canada is usually ranked higher than UK when comes to living standards.

UK is real <banned word filter activated> hole filled with Muslim grooming gangs and Eastern European mobsters thanks to UK joining EU.

I'll you what PSingh13, I really do agree with you in that Canada is a much much better place to live a family life. In fact, in my earlier messages I even stated how I feel it is THE best place for a quiet family life in the world.

Regarding your above point though, and being one of those statistics of UK Sikh families that moved to Canada, I can tell you that the vast majority of UK Sikhs that live in Canada are from the 'north' of England...i.e Birmingham etc. We moved there when I was 8 and the whole famlly moved back to London less than a year later. Thats a very similar story for many if not most London Sikh families that move there. From London, Canada is very much a step down and only really suitable for a middle aged couple if living alone without children.

Every time I visit Canada though, and I visit often, I do notice a certain phenonemon.........When white Canadians find out I'm from London they get stary eyed and tell me how it is their dream to live and work there one day. When Punjabi Canadians find out I'm from London there is either a negative reaction or no reaction, in fact one elderly Sikh Canadian once asked me if it was true that London is so dirty with industrial smoke that you can't see more than 2 feet ahead of you :stupidme:

London killed Paris for a dead a decade ago and is now killing New York. Its an unstoppable machine. Its no country for old men. And young highly educated and creative white Canadians are here in their hundreds of thousands being at the heart of the action. Sikh Canadians tend to mss out nbecause of their negative notions. Just to give you an example, more New York banks have their offices in London than New York itself. New York city officials are pleading with the regulators to ease off with regulation as London is leaving them for dead. Canadian Sikhs really need to shake off their negative thoughts and share in some of the booty in London. With their English common law tradition and British heritage they are ideally placed to succeed in all manner of vocations such as Law, banking etc. Read what the prestigious New York Times has to say :

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/magazine/how-london-surpassed-wall-street.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

. By the way is 'Jarnail' an indigenous corruption of the French term for general??? I investigated today and discovered that it is not a specific French term.

Oh it is indeed 13mirch, and so is the common Sikh name of Karnail' (taken from the French for colonel).

Its actually extremely interesting from a linguistics and history of language point of view. You see the substuting of the 'l' for an 'r' and the subsequently shifting back to it again does a nice job of summarizing the history of old French to middle French to modern French. Indeed not just French, this phenonema was common to the main 3 romamce languages of French, Spanish and Italian.

Starting at the beginning then, old Italian carried on with the latin term of 'colonello' for the officer we know in English as colonel. The original latin tells us what that officer was and did as we recognise the word 'column'.....i.e he was a line commander. I don't know why but during the late 1500's, 1600's and 1700's the Spanish language experienced a shift of the letter 'l' in words and so colonell became 'coronel'. France followed suit and the word in French changed to 'coronaille' (pronounced Karnail) . During the 1600's the British started using the word for the first time and although they spelt it the old way i.e with the 'l' (colonel) it is noticable how the English pronounciation shows respect to the word in vogue among the French at that time i.e Kernal. Not long after, for modern French, the French actually go back to basics and shift back to colonelle. But, you can be sure that the French officers in the Khalsa army were using the 'r' in both general and colonel.....i.e generaille was pronounced 'Jarnail' and colonaille was prounounced 'Karnail'. Over the last 100 years 2 of the most common first names among Sikhs.

Forget the marathas. No discussion about the Khalsa raj and coalitions is complete without mentioning the French. The Sikh raj had no closer freind than France. The French influence was strong and growing stronger by the day. Heck, even our greatest hero of recent times is named after a French army rank : Jarnail. The King of France, Louis Phillipe, in his letter sent from the place of Versailles to the Sikh raj said : "Although long distances and oceans part the kingdoms of the Panjab from that of France, this is no bar to the love that binds

In the last days of Ranjit Singh plans were under way to bound the two nations together even closer. I have no doubt that if Ranjit Singh had not unexpectadly died France and the Khalsa Raj would have formed a coalition to invade British India to the south. Thats what France wanted and all indications show the Sikhs did too in the end.

Well in 1901 after the flawed censuses of 1881 and 1891, in Jalandhar the Dhariwal Got had 1,164 Hindus and 1,518 Sikhs.

Well now. We really are determined to base all our arguments on the findings of flawed and dodgy censuses arn't we ?

Now. The Dhariwal clan do not exist in Jalandhar district. Never have done and even today you'll be lucky to find even one stray one. So much for the census of 1901 then eh ? :biggrin2:

The Dhaliwals exist in Jalndhar district and as I mentioned earlier they came down to Jalandhar district as a Sikh misl under Bhagel Singh and as a misl they even raided Delhi and hoisted the Khanda on top of the Red Fort there. With this power....prestige...honour...all under the banner of the Khalsa in the 1700's ...you seriously trying to tell me that half of them stayed Hindus up until 1920. ? :stupidme:

Give it a rest now Procative. I salute your loyalty to the flawed cenuses but its getting rather silly now.

Isn't Canada part of G8? Isn't current head of bank in UK run by a Canadian now? How about thousands of British celebrating Canada day in London on Monday? UK sure notice us!

How about EU trying to form a trade agreement with Canada? EU don't notice us?

Remember, Canada has tons of natural resources which every major country in the world wants (this includes China and India). You don't think no one notice us? lol

If anything, it's you British who don't have much influence like you guys think you do. You guys known to be America's lap dog who just follow them whatever they do. At least we Canadians stand up for ourselves when we need to.

There's reason why so many Brits (including tons of British Sikhs) moving to Canada and Australia these days.

Veer you're being un-necceasrily defensive. I mean't no malice. My own chache, pooah and thaya and their families live in Canada as well as all of my wife's family so I ceratinly wouldn't want to insult them. The truth however is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow and does hurt.

Hand on my heart in my whole life the only time I can remember Canada ever being mentioned in world media is either when the queen visits there or there's another furore about a cull of seals. You see the stereotype that South Park portrays about Canada being a boring place with one town and one road is actually based on a commonly held view by most of the world. Indeed, honestly, if you were to go up to the common Joe on the streets of London, Paris, Barcelona or Milan and seek a reaction to the word 'Canada' 9 out of 10 would reply with these 4 words : Ice, Eskimoes, Snow and Montreal. With the exception of Montreal the average European and American isn't even aware there are any medium sized towns in Canada let alone large cities. Once you leave Canada and become a citizen of the world you'll realize this. You'll spend months and years trawling through the media expecting to find mention of your country but it'll never happen. It never happens. The world just completely ignores it.

So why is this ? Well, to find the answer to that we need to firstly compare Canada to Australia. Both share similarities in terms of British cultural heritage and population etc. But Australia has found its own seperate unique identity and through this arrogance carved out its own powerful place on the world stage. Thus the world listens when Australia talks. Canada, on the other hand has no identity and thus has no voice loud enough to be heard. The world sees it as a boring clone of America so why on earth would the world show interest in it when it can show interest in the real deal to the south of you. The same with the international media. The international reporters and correspondents based in your continent find so much going on in America they have no time or interest for little old canada. And thats both Canada's problem and saving grace. Problem because its a nation that has to live constantly in the shadow of its big powerful neighbour. Saving grace because it can and does mean a wonderful peaceful beautiful quiet environment to either retire in or bring your kids up in, i.e live. Its practically everybody's dream in middle age to move to a quiet backwater for a comfortable life. Canada as a whole is that suburb and thats no bad thing.

.

There's reason why so many Brits (including tons of British Sikhs) moving to Canada and Australia these days

Not just these days.....ALL days. Its always been the case. A million live in France...a million in Spain etc. Its a country with 60 million people crammed like sardines into a tiny tint island. People go.....more keep coming in. Thats the way its always been. But if you're expecting some patriotic nationlistic pride from me as a retort you're barking up the wrong tree my friend. Thats not how we roll here. As our continent burned through ww2 we are brought up in Europe to consider ourselves citizens of the world rather than individual nation's subjects. Couldn't care less if this country died tomorrow.......Happily stamp my dirty shoes over the British flag.....Means nothing to me. But you see thats why you will never see a British flag on display in UK Nagar Kirtans and you will never see a thread on here by a Sikh wishing everyone a 'Happy St. George's Day'.

The reason why the debate is going in different directions is because points of view counter to your own are being presented and as yet you have not been able to give an answer to these

I've offered a number of possible answers....from the clearly flawed census' to the common practice in Punjab at the time of referring to yourself as a Hindu if not a muslim to the uneduacted and unenlightened relying on the urban educated classes to answer his census questions for him. However, you've ignored everything as you desperately cling to the census findings with tunnel vision.

You said 1881 census was flawed but then what about the 1891

I said no such thing. What I've said again and again is "the census' of the late 1800's". Please correct me if I'm wrong because I make no claims of being great at spelling and grammer but doesn't the fact that I keep putting an apostophe at the end of the word census imply that I'm talking about more than one census ? Doesn't an apostophe at the end of a word ending with the letter 's' signify a pluralisation of the singular ? Like I said, I'm actually quite bad at grammar, but i did try in a couple of messages to write 'censuses' but it looked wrong so I changed it to census'. It still looks wrong (and probably is) but seeing how I kept doing it in message after message I would have thought my meaning was clear enough.

You state that no Sikh Jat has discovered that he had Hindu ancestors. If you go back long enough you will get Hindu names.

I said absolutely no such thing. Are you suggesting that I'm suggesting our ancestors were rastafarians or dropped onto the Punjab plains by an alien spaceship ? Seriously, re-read the thread bruvs, you're getting yourself confused. What I said was that it certainly wasn't the case that most jatt Sikhs only became Sikhs relatively recently during the singh sabha movement....i.e the 1920's.

Unless you answer the above points then this debate will not be going anywhere.

Well I've shown quite clearly how your 'above points' were wrong but I agree with you in that this debate ain't going anywhere fast. If you think about it there really isn't too much of an argument. I've stated that if people like Johnny say his family only became Sikhs recently because of the singh sabha movement than that is an undeniable fact. None of us can impose our own family's history onto another. It doesn't make him any less of a Sikh than me just as I'm not a lesser Sikh than the khatri or bhatra who's family have been Sikhs since Guru Nanak dev ji. Whats important and what we should be thankfull for is the fact that our ancestors, somehwre along the line, stepped out of the darkness and entered the light. However from a purely historical point of view I think you should place slightly more weight on my valid points and slightly less on data that is proven flawed.

Canada is a different thing to 2 different types of people. The ones who live in Canad and the ones who don't. The ones who live there don't seem to realise or understand what their true position is. For example my cousins in Toronto tell me Toronto is the most mult-cultural city on earth. This is in fact a fairy-tale and shows how a single remark can get re-hashed when used over and over again. In fact, 20 years ago, someone important (i'm not sure who) said Toronto was "one of the most multi-cultural cities" in north america. Since then, Canadians, through their media, have re-used and misquoted that and now actually believe their city is the most multi-cultural. Anyone who goes there from London, where 350 different languages are spoken on the streets each day, sees very quickly how false that is.

Canadians keep thinking they have a truly world class city in Toronto. They don't. According to the world city rankings Toronto is a 3rd tier city on the same level as Frankfurt, Mumbhai and Jakarta. Cities such as Paris, Tolyo and Sydney are in the 2nd tier with only London and New York considered top tier Alpha ++ cities. But the Candians arn't told any of this. They are not told how backward and behind other cities their mass transit system is for example. They are not told how most other civilised countries, such as those in Europe, have free health-care and safety nets and free public housing and free education etc. Instead, Canadians simnply compare these values they have with the Americans and conclude that Canada must be the most caring and civilised in the world.

I know the country well and I know it to be full of misconceptions. For example Canadians convince themselves they are the best environmentalists. They are not and thats not how the world sees them at all. In fact, by per population Canada is the worst polluter on earth just slightly behind Saudi Arabia and the USA.

Canadians think of themselves as caring but what they don't realise is that when most of the world thinks of Canada it instantly thinks of images of Canadians clubbing baby seals to death as that is the only time Canada is mentioned on TV.

They think they had an Olympics there a few years ago but what they don't realise is that apart from a few people in the snow mountains of Switerland, the French Alps and Norway, nobody in the world even knew there was a winter olympics going on.

Its a nice country to live in. Probably the nicest in fact. But thats it. Its everybody's 'nice friend'. Nice friends are exactly that.....simply nice. They don't have attitude and they don't move with the big boys. Read international media and you wouldn't even know Canada exists. Read the Sikh media and you'd think Canada is the most important and powerful country in the world. The fact is Canada could have a Sikh Prime Minister and a Cabinet made up entirely of Sikhs and the rest of the world would still be none the wiser as to who the Sikhs are. The country would have to experience a tsunami, earthquake and plague all in one day before it finally gets mentioned in the world media. Having all the Sikhs in the world in Canada is very similar to having all the Sikhs in the world in Punjab : Little or no exposure to the wider world who ignore both places

So.....whats the point of all this ? Well, its to remind my Canadian cousins that they should sit back and enjoy life because that personal life is extremely comfortable and good. Sometimes its good to be boring and ignored because you can get on with a peaceful family life. You can enjoy home life far more when you know nobody's watching. And trust me....there ain't nobody watching.

Isingh1699, putting your thoughts in giant red writing doesn't add any weight to your argument. The exuses seem to be going in all sorts of directions now. I don't know why but we've got people talking about muslim jatts alot even though there's no dispute or issue with them in this conversation. We've got people talking about the jatts of haryana and u.p even though there's no dispute or issue with them in this conversation. Its all getting a bit silly as well as confusing because of the different irrelevent viewpoints being expressed now.

The fact is we've got most people here drawing conclusions from clearly flawed cenus' from the end of the 1800's. Even the cenus takers themselves admit the flaws in them. These people are also totally ignoring the other factors I mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, we've got people from those areas and background who cannot find any trace whatsoever of anybody in their family being hindu as recently at the early 20th century. In fact, the only one that can is the one still desperately clinging on to the findings of the flawed cenus. But, if its true for him then it is true for him. Nobody can dispute that. But it is clearly very very unusual and rare. Talk to a hundred other jatt sikhs and I doubt you'll find more than two others with the same tale to tell about not being sikhs in the 1700's or earlier.

So, to answer the original posters question. As a dhaiwal jatt from doaba, the manjki tract to be exact, my own family history is crystal clear. That tract encompasses alot of viillages and it is those villages that a very large number of Sikhs in England, Canada, Italy, Australia and California are originally from. That tract was given as a jagir specifically to jatt sikh clans by the mughal emporer in the late 1700's to keep the piece with them as they were constantly at war with his forces. They were attacking the mughals in the name of Sikhism. The historical context then for alot of doaba villages in Jalandhar district to even exist lies totally in Sikhism as all of the jatt clans settled there oroginally came from both majha and malwa and actually came with the adavancement of Sikh misls.

The British were very meticulous when it came to their census reports. They had good reasons too. Most of their army was recruited from so called martial castes belonging to Punjab and Rajputana. Their census not only recorded how numerous the members of each caste were, but even down to every single Gote/gotra, it's population and which religion it's members subscribe to. Even the modern Indian census is not this detailed nor this accurate.

Sorry Johnny but you're just over 100 years too late with the news. The British census makers already admitted at the end of the 1800's that they'd made mistakes with the '81 and '91 census by including lots of non-jatts groups in the heading of 'jatts'. By continuing to quote the findings of a seriously flawed census you're now flogging a dead horse. Give it up bruvs. It's over.

Do some detailed research into what kind of groups made up that figure of '50% of punjab's jatts were Hindu' in the 1881 census. You're in for a nasty shock. There are groups in there that you would never in a lifetime think of as having anything in common with jatts.....groups that are even to this day very hindu in character. Groups that as far removed from jatts as you can possibly get.

But like I said, it's over now. Even the British admitted the mistakes. It'd be silly for you to cling on to the findings even after the authors admitted their own flaws.

Weddings where good too then. Straight tables none of this round tables with names on.

Thats the truest thing anyone's ever said here.

Do a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the name of the gold commander in charge of these raids on Sikhs. I bet you any money the result will be a police commander with a Sikh name. I dread the day I ever have to have any dealing with an officer from our community. They treat their own people a hundred times worse than white police officers for 2 reasons. One is an inferiority complex so want to be seen as not showing favouritism and the second is the mad and dangerous desire for promotion. They don't care who they step on to get it.

Put in some official complaints to the IPCC. Pakistani grooming gangs are big news in the media these days so let the mainstream print media know the score.

The migrants to Canada and California were mainly former soldiers of the British Indian army. For Hindu Jats there was not specific regiment to join which was not the same in the case of Sikh Jats. The Jat regiments were for Hindu Jats from the Haryana region. A Hindu Jat from Punjab would need to become a Sikh to join the army.

I know who and what they mostly were bruvs. My own family were among the pioneers in the Imerial Valley in the late 1800's. But if you look back at what I actually said you'll notice how I mentioned how the Californian historical records show a fair number of Muslim Jatts among those early sikh jatts. Those muslim jatts were not soldiers. Those Muslim jatts were not from active service in China, Hong Kong and Singapore. They were just normal Punjabi jatts, just like my extended family that settled there at the time. So, please explain why there were no Punjabi Hindu Jatts present (not a single one) if they supposedly made up the majority or at least half of Punjab's jatts at the time ? You see the early settlers contained numbers of ALL Punjabi jatts and the muslim ones were not part of the British Army. So why were there no Hindus among them ?

The Sikh Jats actually went from 66% of the Sikh population to 53% between 1881 and 1931. This was because they increased by 90% over this period whereas the non-Jat Sikhs increased by 310% over the same period

.

Then why are we even having this conversation centered on someone's assertion that most jatts only became Sikh relatively recently during the singh sabha movement ?

Surely then the conversation would be centered around the assertion that the jatts became Sikhs much earlier but it was the 'others' that are new to it ?

But I'm actually at a loss to explain who these 'others' were. We know the originals from Guru Nanak's time were the Khatris, their sub-group the Aroras and the Bhatras as missionaries. So who were these 'others' because not many other groups exist in such significant numbers if not the scheduled chureh mazabhis.

True that a certain numbers of other agricultural tribes such as Mahtons (Bhai Bhala Singh), Arain/Kambohs (Bhai Sukha Singh), Saini's (Bhai Jamala Singh) and even some agriculturalists who were Rajput's (Shaheed Bachiter Singh), Khatri's (Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa), Ahluwalia's (Sardar Jassa Singh) and Labana's (Bhai Makhan Shah) were wrongly included within the population figures for the Jatt tribe which artificially skewed the figures in 1881

Exactly ! Thats why nobody should be drawing foolish conclusions such as 50% of Punjab's jatts in 1881 being Hindu. Those census's included as 'jatts' a large number of groups that are clearly not jatt and far more likely to be Hindu rather than Sikh. I could today publish a census that includes khatris as jatts and then draw the conclusion that most of the urban shopkeepers in the city are jatt. On paper, according to my flawed census it would be true but that doesn't make it factually correct.

All sikhs naturally meant to be a perfect Canadian, because of our very nature of selfless service(seva) caring to whole humanity and our belief of one vision/non dual vision of humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone once asked me to sum up Sikhism in one word. I did it in two : Organised Compassion

Many European countries do of course better articulate the above Sikh ideals better than Canada. For example, in most of the northern European countries everything is free regardless of social status ; pure equality. The benefits are universal. Both rich and poor get the same welfare whether they want them or not. The same free education etc etc.

Not sure what the 'Canadian spirit' is but in essence doesn't history show us that it is being an American anglican who moves north out of loyalty to the crown at the time of American independence and has since then been ruled by a German monarch sitting in another foreign country thousands of miles away in another continent ?

Happy Canada Day :biggrin2:

Many people think that Jatt Sikhs have been Sikhs since either the Guru period or 1700s. This is a huge misconception. Some Jatts became Sikhs, but there were still significant numbers of Hindu Jatts still remaining in Punjab

Actually I think its the other way 'round. The misconception comes about from the census of '81 itself. There are things about it that just simply do not add up under closer scrutinization. The next census even acknowledeged the flaws of the earlietr census by changing the way it recorded the word 'jatt' for in the 1881 census various other 'castes' , for example the rais and other mahaton 'castes' were included under the bracket jatt. Secondly, the 1881 tries to tell us 2 things : Firstly, the fact that 66% of al Sikhs were jatt and secondly the fact that half if not more of all jatts in Punjab were Hindu. If we are to believe this is true and that the other half of the Punjabi jatts only became Sikhs during the 1920's then surely the 1931 census should show the proportion of Sikhs being jatt jumping to 90-95% ? It doesn't. Instead it stays at near enough the 66% mark. Something somehwhere just simply doesn't add up.

The other clue is in the historical records of jatt immigrants to California, Canada and the far east in the late 1800's (the same period as the census). The public records and archives in California for example show a fair number of muslim jatts among the vast majority Sikh jatts. What the early records of early immigrants show is that although the vast majority o them were Sikh, the jatt character of them also encompassed a fair number of muslim jatts. And yet not a single Hindu jatt among them. Not one. How was it that Punjab's jatts from all religion's were settling in places and yet not a single Hindu jatt was among them even though they supposedly made up half the jatt population in Punjab ?

I suspect the answer lies in the rather nonchalent way that the uneducated country bumpkin types have reacted to written words, reports, census' etc. Having spoken about this with my father, he informed me that even relatively recently when he was a child he and other sikhs regularly called themselves 'hindu' sometimes. They were not enlightended, educated or on terms with worldly affairs to know better. The term was almost universally used in Punjab as meaning 'Indian' and 'not-muslim'.

As you can see then, there are many misconceptions. One is how, contrary to the census, practically every jatt from Punjab narrates his family history as being Sikh since the 1700's. If the census is correct then half of all jatt Sikhs should have a Hindu grandfather for the singh sabha movement is recent. The census is flawed.

This still would not have had a great effect on why Jalandhar became a Sikh minority district. The true reason was that whereas Sikh Chamars were only 5% of the Chamar population of Jalandhar, Sikh Chamars in Ludhiana were 63% of the Chamar population.

Its never as simple as that. Just like any other groups in any other country around the world are divided by geography, the same is true for the 'scheduled castes' of doaba. Its always been the case that the 'scheduled caste' in doaba were the chamars and the scheduled caste in malwa (Ludhiana) were churhe. The 2 groups hate each other with a passion and each look down on the other. Since the beginning of Sikhism the chamars have always mostly kept their distance from Sikhism proper and adhered to their own seperate ad dharmi faith. The churhe, on the other hand, embraced en masse either Christianity or Sikhism. When they became Sikh they have always been the best Sikhs there are, provining themselves in war and spirituality. They've alwats been the best proper Sikhs ; Mazabhi Sikhs.

Anyway, cut along story short, I think you're confusing the churhe mazabhi Sikhs of malwa with the chamars of doaba.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of the 1881 census. Its full of anomilies. For example, many of those listed as jatts were, in the next census of 1891, not included in the jatt category at all. Also, the 1881 described how 66% of all Sikhs were jatt and at the same time says half the jatts in Punjab were Hindu. If thats the case then surely the 1931 census after all the supposed 'hindu' jatts dissapeared and became Sikhs, the jatt proportion of Sikhs should have increased to a figure in the 90 per cents. Instead it stayed near 66%. Something somehwere just don't add up.

But I'm not knocking it. The legend in my village is that our clan became Sikhs when Guru Arjan Dev came down to our doaba area to get married. Most others say it was during Guru Hargobind's time. I can't claim the same for every jatt clan out there so who am I to argue with the census.

your theory falls flat because areas such as Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur which were a part of the Lahore state had more Hindus Jats than Sikh Jats. This was also the case with Sialkot and Gujranwala districs. If your theory was correct then in Gujranwala most of the Hindu Jats would have been Sikhs because Gujranwala had been the base of the forefathers of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and there would have been a great urge among the HIndu Jats to become Sikh being from the same area as the Maharaja. The Gujranwala district also witnessed a great deal of turmoil because of the wars between the forefathers of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Muslim tribes, Exactly the type of situation which if your analysis was correct would have led to a large number of Hindu Jats becoming Sikhs.

Please show me which census shows the majority of "jatts' in Lahore and Gujranwala were Hindus. Sure, as everyone knows, those districts always had more Hindus than Sikhs, but can you tell me how you've concluded that those Hindus were jatts rather than arora or khatri for those areas were the traditional heartlands of those 2 latter groups.

^^^

But the Sikh percentage in Malwa was higher than Doaba in 1947, so clearly the majority were not all Sikh until 1900's

Excluding Hoshiarpur, which as I explained earlier has always been a bit of an anomily in terms of demographics and geography, the jatts of Jalandhar district have been Sikhs since the 6th Guru's time but doaba as a whole has always been minority jatt. It is the heartland of the ravidassias and they, and other groups, have always been larger in numbers compared to malwa and majha where the jatts are easily the majority. Thus, given doaba's non-sikh face, it is not surprising that the sikh population has always been lower in doaba. However in the case of the just the jatts, the opposite is true.

Glad someone brought this thread back up.

2 movies I'd recently seen to reccomend.

1) Mynn Bala. Its a Kazhak mongolian movie and it is equisite. Beautiful and inspirational as a Sikh. Kulwinder Singh Sidhu would do well to watch it and gain inspiration of how to make an epic about Sikh history. Its set in the olden days about when the Kazhaks were constantly invaded by the dzungars, forcing them to hide in the hills on horseback and learn fighting skills to reclaim their land from their oppressors. The Kazakh govt spent a multi-million dollar budget on it and it is epic in every way. Fantastic film of quality. Imagine Braveheart with even more money spent on it...even better acting....even better story etc.

2) Baba Aziz. This Persian / Arabic fim is someothing neosingh wiould love most of all because of the enduring spiritual quality of it but you'd all see the beauty in it. Mezmorising scenery and cinematography. A film that really touches the heart. At the end of it you go away with the feeling that you've just watched something truly life changing. It will hit home with us because its essence is about sufism and it possesses a bit of a punjabi aura. Minimalist in dialogue with the photography and atmosphere allowed to do much of the talking. A truly beautiful, epic, soul-uplifting movie set in the desert. As you watch it, you can't help but picture in your mind the image of Guru Nanak dev ji travelling through those same deserts many centuries earlier spreading the name of love and words of wisdom. This movie really hits the spot in terms of spiritual Sikhism.

Probably not, sakas aka scythians (incl. jatts) came to India long time ago. Maurya was a jatt, it's ok to know your history but the more you poke and understand this stuff a 'sikh' jatt is a very different thing from a haryana one or other.

712 AD. That was the actual year the jatt clans first came down to Punjab.

Before that, they were settled in Sindh for many generations. It was the Arab conquest of Sindh that led them to settle in Punjab.

For Ludhiana district in 1881, the first time a reliable census was done in Punjab, the HIndu Jats were only slightly less than the Sikh Jats, 95,000 compared to 102,000.

We tend to forget this basic fact these days but its worth remembering that Ludhina district wasn't even part of the Sikh Kingdom of Punjab. Areas such as Kashmir, the deserts around Multan and parts of Afghanistan were but Ludhiana was not. Thus the independent military might of being a Sikh was present in doaba and majha but not in much of malwa. Psychologicaly, there is a world of difference in living as an actual power than living as a suzerainty dependent on the protection and kindness of other neighbouring powers. From those old census reports I conclude that the jatts that lived in the Sikh Kingdom felt empowered and emancipated....so were Sikh. In contrast, the jatts that lived in the principalities or suzerainties were not as empowered under the Khalsa flag. Hence the large number of jatts in those districts that were still Hindu in those days.

Wow. If true, they sacrifice their son for our faith and we repay them with insults about their faith.

We really do come across as lovely people don't we. :ohno:

Are the tigerstylia not working on something with hard <banned word filter activated> as well? They won't perform at sarnas sons wedding but happily retweeting and tweeting hard numpty. They happy with her doing upmahan of Guru Ji? If they kissing her hardass then I don't expect any better from Mr Bains.

Thats exactly my point here zoltan. I'm sick to death of being taken for a ride by these 'stars'. They're taking us all as gullible fools. Each month I'll read an interview in the UK media in which Tigerstyle makes reference to the Sikh struggle against India. Then the next month I find Tigerstyle being interviewed in Bombay where they're recording bollywood tracks....in these interviews they profess their love of India.

They're all playing us for fools. They go where the money is. They say the things the locals wanna hear....and they wear the things the locals want them to wear purely for the end goal of money. Jazzy B is not the fool for milking us in that way. We're the fools for letting him.

I mean seriously, exactly 3 weeks ago Hard Kaur made some disgusting remarks about Guru Gobind Singh ji. Jazzy B knows that, and yet Guru Gobind Singh ji means so little to him that he'd rather kiss the insulter than slap her.