CharhdiKala

You're right in someways. One of the biggest things in Sikhi is meditation and chanting the Waheguru mantra but I don't think even the majority of Sikhs know this. Sikhi is just seen as some 'warrior' religion that provides langar by a lot of people.

He said something dumb in his early 20s? I think most people do and yes he is Charles' son, just look at the resemblence between a young Prince Philip and Harry. They look very similar. As for racism? Apne can be the biggest racists in the world. The way people speak of black people in Punjab is disgusting 'oh they have big lips', 'they look scary'. These are the things people openly say. Then you have the East African Sikhs who used to refer to black people as 'boy'. Sikhs can also be racist to other dark skinned Sikhs and Indians. As for the Royal family they are dodgy. Just look at Prince Charles' friendship with notorious paedophile Jimmy Saville. They are not a family to look up to as they are born into privilege and have not achieved much of note. It makes me laugh at how people bow down to them. I guess people love being slaves.

This makes my blood boil. To tackle people like these we need a group like the Shere Punjab who sorted these idiots out in the UK back in the 90s. Where are all of those people who shout Khalistan Zindabad in Canada? They do nothing when trouble is on their own doorstep! What cowards, all huff and puff but no action! Even Buddhists don't take any nonsense anymore and have learnt to fight back. Sadly Sikhs are just into money these days.

We do pretty much own Punjabi identity these days. We are the only group that care about the language and are interested in its survival, most Punjabi singers are Sikh. This is so much so that even a lot of Sikhs don't know that there are Punjabi Hindus and Muslims, a lot of Indians outside of Punjab assume that Punjab is a 100% Sikh state, that is how much Punjabiyat is attached to Sikhism.

At the end of the day Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Jind Kaur were King and Queen. They were not saints who we should look for spiritual guidance. We all know that Ranjit Singh liked a drink or five. Ranjit Singh had multiple wives and lived a complete life of pleasure just like all Kings do. Sure he did good things for the panth but we shouldn't idolise him too much especially not as a model Sikh. He's the only true strong King (in the literal sense) that we ever had and that is why we glorify him and have his portrait in Gurdwaras.

Heavy Metal singers never sang about shooting and stabbing people in the same manner that rap does. Those heavy metal bands that promote racism, satanism were never played on mainstream radio or TV like rap music is. But the biggest issue is boys growing up in fatherless homes.

We might be boastful simply due to the fact that we have always punched above our weight. The Sikh Empire was a great achievement and in all of the land that was ruled Sikhs must have been a total of 10% or less of the population but that was a long time ago and the empire itself didn't even last 100 years. One of the biggest false narratives we spread is that Sikhs saved Hinduism from extinction. It makes me feel embarrassed as a Sikh when we say dumb things like that, it makes us look like a bunch of illiterate fools. I don't think the boastfulness is a result of Punjabi mentality. It is due to Sikhism, even though Sikhism says not to have an ego. Hindus have India where they are the majority and Muslims have Pakistan and Bangladesh, we just have one state in India where we are a slight majority. We are always boasting because we want approval from the majority community. That is the main reason.

Boys need fathers in their lives to control them, especially if they are living in a low income neighbourhood where crime is prevalent. Being politically correct will never fix problems, in fact it will add more fire to the flames. I think rap music in general has a negative effect, it promotes violence, materialism, shallowness, misogyny and other crime. In Punjab rap music is big and has been for the last 7 years, is there any coincidence that this is when alcohol, drug abuse and violence is at it's highest? Youngsters will mimic what they see on TV or hear on the radio. Black youth will mimic what the black rappers are rapping about and Punjabi youth will mimic the likes of Honey Singh, Sidhu Moosewala etc

Yes I agree with that there is too much boastfulness but most of it is coming from a Sikh perspective. It is we Sikhs who boast about ending the Mughal Empire when the reality was that the Marathas had more of an impact and controlled far more of India than we did. We were the last to fold to the British though. We make up nonsense stories about the Americans wanting to build a statue of Hari Singh Nalwa in the white house or NASA keeping a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib and consulting it to discover new things in the universe. It is we Sikhs (rather than Punjabi Hindus) who refer to all non Punjabis as Bhaiyas. We refer to all Hindus as Bahmans. We are racist and most of that comes from Sikh elitism rather than Punjabi. So many Sikhs are so dumb that they think the word Punjabi means Sikh. If you say to most Sikhs that so and so is a Punjabi they will think that the only religion that person can be is a Sikh. This is despite Punjab only being 60% Sikh. How dumb can people be that they don't realise that 40% of the people in their state don't follow the same religion as them? It should be blatantly obvious, but not to a large portion of Sikhs. We boast about our contribution to Indian Independence, World War 2, The wars with Pakistan, and in these wars we were just used as pawns on the frontlines fighting other people's battles and sacrificing a disproportionate amount of lives. It's time for Sikhs to truly get educated and become mangers and CEOs of companies, not just remain as farmers or soldiers fighting other people's wars.

That elitist attitude exists in all states in India not just Punjab. The upper castes in all states look down on the lower castes. Anyway Ambedkar was right, the vast majority of Sikhs believe in some form of caste system. Maybe it will go away in a couple of generations. Even Muslims in Pakistan and India practice some form of caste system. It is too ingrained. At the end of the day if someone is born into a higher caste and has power of lower castes, why would he want to give that up? Personally I would like people in Punjab to become more literate and educated. Punjab is not know for academics and that is what needs to change.

It's a completely different scenario for Sikhs as compared to Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi Hindus. Pretty much all Sikhs are Punjabi, 95% if not more. Whereas Muslims are from all over the world and Hindus are the majority in pretty much all states of India. So Punjabiness will dominate our way of thinking and behaviour. All of our leaders will be from Punjab, our literature will be in Punjabi because there is no need to communicate in any other language to other people. Gurmukhi is a Sikh script, it was invented by our Gurus so we will never let it go and Punjabi Hindus will never feel completely comfortable adopting it for this reason, hence why you see many Devanagari signs in Hindu dominated Jalandhar. I've even heard that Dr Ambedkar and his followers (non Punjabis) were considering to convert to Sikhism but the SGPC didn't want that as it would have reduced their power and actively discouraged it. The most holy shrines for Muslims are in Saudi Arabia and for Hindus they are in Benaras in Uttar Pradesh, for us they are mostly in Punjab. So again Punjab is more special to us than it is to Hindus and Muslims. Sadly Sikhi did not spread to the same extent as these two religions. For a religion to spread it needs support from rulers and the only time we had a Sikh king in Punjab he was busy building more Mosques and Mandirs than he was building Gurdwaras. When we took over Delhi we handed it back a few days later to the Muslim Mughal King, just handed it back! Compare this to King Asoka who sent Buddhist missionaries all over India and to the far east. We are so obsessed about Punjabiness because it is the only place in the world where we are a majority. It is like the country we never had.

As TejS said I think the Kara is not just associated with Sikhs just like the name Singh is not associated only with Sikhs. I work in IT in the UK and see Hindus who come from all parts of India wearing Karas and I'm sure it has nothing to do with Sikhism. Maybe Hindu Punjabis might wear it for those reasons but not other Hindus who hardly have any interaction with Sikhs or Sikhism in their life. As for the area in front of Harmandir Sahib being cleaned up, I think this is a good thing. This is our holiest place and needs to be kept in good condition. Look at the outside of St Peter's Basilica, Mecca, St Paul's Cathedral, it is all very clean and modern. India is a dirty country and Amritsar is no exception, so much of it is absolutely filthy. Hopefully what they have done outside Harmandir Sahib can be pushed out further. As for obesity, I went to Punjab in 2007 and again earlier this year, nothing's changed, Punjabis/Sikhs are still as fat as ever and don't know when to say no. In fact some people take pride in being fat, thinking they are thakra when in fact they are fat slobs! Punjab is the most obese state in India. Blame it on our diet which consists of ghee, paronthe, kulchas and couple this with laziness and relying on cheap labour from Bihar. I also read that Punjab has the highest amount of alcohol shops per square metre in the world. It looks like Punjabis love consuming unhealthy things.

I think this article is 20 -30 years too late. Yes back in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and even 90s a lot of Sikh men who came to the UK from India drank excessively. This was due to them working in physically demanding jobs in factories, foundries and that too working excessive hours. They used drinking as a coping mechanism - to deal with the physical pain and lack of social life. With the excess drinking came the other problems like wife and child beating. However the current generation (those born in the UK) do not go these same extremes, sure they might get hammered at a wedding or go on a heavy drinking session on the weekend (like every other ethnicity in the UK) but they are not doing it every day like the first immigrants to the UK did and they're not coming home to beat their wife and kids. It's like with forced marriages, sure it may still go on in the Sikh community at a very slight amount but nowhere near the level it was back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, yet you will still get articles stating that it is a big problem in the Sikh community. It doesn't help that the president of the Black Sisters organisation in Southall keeps on going on about her own forced marriage ordeal that was back in the 1980s.

I am going by what the average Sikh is like. If you are talking about Amritdhari Sikhs who follow everything to a tee then I understand. However do you honestly think the average Sikh will voluntarily go in front of a Sikh Sangat and apologise for what they have done? I'm just trying to be realistic. Apologies for offending anyone.

What is the Sikh sangat? Times have moved on. This isn't the 18th century anymore.