proactive

I don't think it's a simple as doing Naam Simran and then opening your eyes and there a wad on notes next to you! Naam Simran will give someone confidence, chardi kala attitude to tackle their problems head on. This could be something as simple as putting pen to paper and making a list of income and outgoings. Sometimes when you see what the outgoings are going on you can reduce or stop those which are superfluous. I would suggest that the OP contact an organisation like citizens advice or something similar who will be able to see what help they could receive from govt sources according to their situation. It is amazing what is sometimes available even though the Op might think that they are entitled to nothing.

I haven't seen any official news online but if true, this is a great result and something that Sikh youth in other countries need to emulate. The Gurdwaras have so many resources which if utilised properly could bring about a renaissance of Sikhi in every country. Unfortunately the youth rather than taking part in bringing these resources to the community allow the oldies to waste the resources and treat the Gurdwaras like they are their ancestral property.

The British also put into the terms of reference 'Other Factors' which the Sikhs believed meant Religious Shrines and Economic ties. As one of the Sikh leaders said, basing partition on head count would mean taking the land off the landowners and giving it to the tenants. I believe that had Churchill or another Conservative been Prime Minister, they would have taken more time over the handover and possibly placed more emphasis on the land ownership than the Socialist Labour Party leaders did. Muslims who were tenants suddenly became the landowners. The Sikhs owned the majority of the land in the central Punjab and yet most of that area went to Pakistan. Even after the Sikhs had left the Muslims on the border areas were still nervous that the Sikh plan had been a tactical withdrawal and that they would return to reclaim their lands. This can only happen if the Muslims knew that they had suddenly been given lands which belonged to someone else. As for Sikhistan, the major mistake made by the Sikh leadership was not to make more of the Sikh States such as Patiala, Nabha and others. Whenever a Sikhistan is mentioned in recent works about the partition, the first fact mentioned is that the Sikhs were not a majority in any of the Punjab districts. This so-called fact can easily be negated when we find that the Sikh states who had a separate agreement with the British as the paramount power had a land area of over 25,000 sq km about half the size of present Punjab and a population of 3.5 million. They should have formed a nucleus of Sikhistan. The Sikhistan scheme should have been presented as an expansion of the Sikh states. Rather than the states joining the British districts, it would have been the British districts becoming a part of the States and then an amalgamation of that States into a Sikhistan. The geography of the Sikh states also precluded any attempt at India claiming the central Punjab districts as the only land route through to these districts was through the Northern Tehsils of Rupar and Kharar in Ambala district which were Sikh dominated. The present districts of Punjab which all had a majority non-Muslim population could then have been claimed for Sikhistan as the alternative was for them to go to Pakistan which would have been impossible.

The British as the colonial power had a duty to protect their subjects, the same subjects who paid taxes and who had fought on behalf of the British for over 100 years. The excuse of exhaustion is a poor one as having fought for over 6 years they could still have spared a few hundred thousand troops for a year to ensure a peaceful handover. Mountbatten is shown as some sort of expert administrator who had an impossible job of which he did his best, but he his decisions ensured that over half a million British subjects were murdered. I suppose he got his just desserts when the IRA blew him up!

The Sikligar documentary is now online.

The legal Sikh population of England and Wales has risen from 336,179 in 2001 to 423,158 which is an increase of about 26% in the past decade. Considering that not many illegals would have filled the census forms in then it looks like the increase is either due to both underenumertion in 2001 or a healthy natural increase by birthrate.

There has been a general dumbing down of the Indian population in the last few decades. The common people were pretty politically savvy prior to this. Bollywood gand, kaun banega crorepati, indian idol type shows helps the GOI keep the people too dumb to realise how their are being taken for a ride and how politicians including Manmohan Singh have been ferreting away billions abroad while the common people starve.

The problem with the partition was that it created more problems than in solved. The main upside of the partition is that East Punjab has been without a large Muslim minority since 1947 which we all know would have been a disaster for the state. The downside is that partition was never followed to its logical conclusion. Allowing large populations of Muslims to remain in India after 1947 has been a mistake. Another major mistake made by the GOI was that it did not seek to compensate fully the losses suffered by the Sikhs and Hindus from West Punjab. The Muslims having only a majority of 56% of the population of the whole Punjab got 62% of the land which went to Pakistan. Full compensation could have been achieved if the GOI had followed partition to its logical conclusion and forced out the large Muslim landholders of UP and passed their lands onto the refugees. Also the case of Kashmir should have followed the example of Kapurthala state. Kapurthala state although ruled by a Sikh Maharaja had a Muslim majority of 56% in 1947. As the Maharaja asceded to India the population majority which was a major factor in the British districts became negated. The same could have been the case in Kashmir. The Muslims of Kapurthala were forced out and the land given to the refugees from West Punjab. The same could have been done in Kashmir which would have allowed for the resettlement of excess refugees from West Punjab in Kashmir rather than in UP or Rajasthan. Even you have 10 million people uprooted from Punjab then a further 2 million uprooted from Kashmir would not have made a great difference. The farce that Nehru got into with Kashmir is examplified by the fact that even Kashmiri Sikh refugees were not allowed full settlement in the Indian controlled state and many were resettled in Ganganagar in Rajasthan!

WLS, What you have done is to present the experience of your family in 1947 with regard to the massacre of Muslims in Doaba as the experience of the entire Sikh community. This is similar to how Khushwant Singh has presented the Hindu-Sikh intermarriages that occurred in his family pre-1947 as the normative experience of the whole Sikh community. There is no doubt massacres of Muslims took place in East Punjab committed by Sikhs and the contemporary witnesses note the particular ferocity of these acts of violence. You appear to want the whole Panth to beat themselves over the actions of that generation without placing their actions in perspective. Note the background at the time the violence took place. 1. 40% of the community had suddenly become refugees, and moved to an area over which they still did not have political control. 2. If we accept that about one million were killed, 500,000 Muslims, 250,000 Sikhs and 250,000 Hindus. This meant that even though a lower number of Sikhs had died than Muslims, in terms of percentage 4.5% of Sikh population had been killed compared to 2.5% of Muslims and 2.6% of Hindus. For a small community losing such numbers would have been devastating. 3. There was a belief that the Muslims would choose to stay in East Punjab and the Sikh population numbers would be diluted and they would not be a majority in any of the East Punjab districts. Not only would the Muslims were staying put but they were also attacking Sikh refugees in areas where they should have been safe (East Punjab). The cities of Jalandhar as well as Ludhiana were being used as bases to attack neighbouring Sikh villages similar to the way the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebenica was used to attack Serb villages. 4. The Sikh Jathas replicated the exact same violence on the Muslims of East Punjab that the Muslims had visited on the Sikhs of Hazara in 1946. The Muslim leadership believed that the Sikhs had lost their martial nature due to decades of economic success they had enjoyed. In essence the Muslim league plan in Punjab was to use violence in Hazara to beat the rest of the Punjab's Sikhs into submission. As they Sikhs did not retaliate after Hazara this convinced the Muslim league that their plan had worked. This is why the violence after partition in East Punjab came as such a shock to the Muslim league. This is the reason that the Pakistani representative at the UN wanted a resolution passed blaming the Sikhs for the violence!

Any death is sad but when the Chadha guy was also a major player in the liquor trade in Punjab and has been responsible for the destruction of countless lives while he makes money out of people's misery then I can only think that he got his just desserts. Imagine getting killed over a few acres while apparently his yearly income was 6000 crore rupees!

I wouldn't be surprised if he is a chela of Niddar and it just shows how much mischief Niddar has done to the Panth.

Niddar and his cult have no credibility. The funny thing is when they started their 'hatti' they used to go on about how the Singh Sabha were lackeys of the British and yet his chelay and their organisations beg for money from the Lottery fund!

Reform movements take place in most religions, it usually occurs when the religion has lost it's vitality and is at it's lowest ebb. This was the case with Sikhi in the 1870s. The Singh Sabha as well as the Arya Samaj were organisations that believed that the decline both respective religions were suffering was due to the fact that many rituals had come into the religions which had not basis in the holy books of each religion. The Arya Samaj believed that idol worship was a later development and was never a part of the Hindu religion. For the Singh Sabha the fact that many Sikhs worshipped idols, Guga Pir and Sakhi Sarwar, showed that Sikhi needed to go back to the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib. Being against Sikhs worshipping idols does not necessarily mean you also need to supportive of British rule. The case in point is the Nirankaris and the Namdharis. You couldn't get more anti-British than the Namdharis in th 1870s and yet the fact thing that many Kukas did on become disciples of Baba Ram Singh was to go back to their villages and destroy the Jathera 'mattis' that dotted each village. The automatic assumption seems to be that the Sikhs of the 1840s were following the same Sikhi that existed at the times of Gurus and therefore if there is evidence that those Sikhs believed in a Sikhi that is substantially different from the Sikhi of today then the Sikhi of today is false and their Sikhi was correct. What the Singh Sabha did was look at the validity of each rite and ritual that Sikhs took part in through the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib.

This is the problem. The ones who want a free for all with any Tom, <banned word filter activated> or Harry able to have an Anand Karaj at the Gurdwara want to point at those Sikhs who might be monay or drink and smoke are also allowed to have an Anand Karaj. The thing to consider is this-; 1. What is the likelihood that these monay who have an Anand Karaj will take to the Sikhi lifestyle in future and become Keshadhari and then Amritdhari? and 2. What is the likelihood that some gora or other non-Sikh will come to Sikhi because he was allowed to have an Anand Karaj against the teachings of Guru Gobind Singh as well as the Akal Takht? Are we willing to go against Guru Gobind Singh and Akal Takht in the hope that some non-Sikh will come to Sikhi? For me there is more chance of number 1 happening than number 2 and plus with number 1 we still adhere to the Guru's instructions.

His response is hilarious, why doesn't he name the people when according to him the 'fraud' has been exposed. The above could easily be a self description of himself!

Don't believe everything you read in the media and that goes double for the Indian media! European nations grant asylum status according to each case. Even if the governments suddenly become amenable to India, the tribunal system especially in the UK makes sure that the government doesn't always get their way. The stupid Indians have no idea of how the European system works. They think Cameron just has to click his finger and someone seeking asylum will be on the first plane out of the country. The Indian media is notorious for making up 'facts' and 'agreements' when none exist.

Firstly can we at least say that there is no proof that the smashed window had anything to do with the wedding? Why do we think and believe the worst? I don't know any Amritdhari that would smash a window because some family want to broadcast their besharm for the world to know by having an Anand Karaj. So let's lay off the fundo hate mob comments. From what I heard of the radio show, the girl's sister seems to the typical dumbo involved in these kinds of situations. You can tell what knowledge her family gave her about Sikhi and you can understand why her sister is marrying some Hindu if that is the way the family have raised them. Her attitude was typical, who are the 'extremists' to stop her sister having her 'dream' wedding ceremony! This is the attitude that the people fighting to implement the Akal Takht hukumnama are facing. I am surprised that she didn't come up with a death threat as is usual for people who know their position is untenable from the Sikhi point of view but want to buttress their position by playing the victim. To be honest, I feel she is playing ignorant when she says that the Gurdwara never told her that her sister couldn't have an Anand Karaj. With all the publicity that happened when the incident took place in Swindon then I do not believe that her family didn't know about the Hukumnama.

Age gaps only matter when you are both at a young age. A four year age gap is huge when one is 18 and the other is 14. But when one is 34 and the other is 30 then it doesn't look that big a deal. From your post about both of you being ready to leave education and pursue your careers then I assume you must be in the age range 20-24. If so, then that's not such a big gap. The only issue is that traditionally the man has always been older and whether this is an issue depends on how traditional both families are. I mean in a cultural rather than religious way. But if it's not an issue for his family and yours then I would say go ahead. If it is an issue then you could try and wait a few years until your are both older and the age gap becomes less relevant. Good luck in whatever decision you both make.

I agree with MrDoaba, the dialect thing isn't a problem because they have become so mixed up. The best way to learn to speak Punjabi is to have a good friend who is fluent and then make sure you only speak Punjabi with them. The Sangat at your university should be able to help and watching channels such as Sikh Channel and Sangat should also help you to understand the correct way to speak Punjab. At the end of the day, it is probably the fear of making mistakes when speaking Punjabi that is stopping you speaking Punjabi. So I would suggest that you just go ahead and speak it whenever you have the opportunity!

I fail to understand how people who have left the gand of India behind and are living in a free western society need to still show their slave mentality to their former masters. I can only assume that in their previous existence before this one they had been donkeys or cattle.

Shows what could have been, even after the Radcliffe award had been announced had the leadership been strong enough http://www.deccanchr...as-too-weak-700 The article writer is wrong in his view that the areas referred to my Liddell in his diary are areas centred on Amritsar. The fear amongst the Pakistan leadership was that the Sikh migration from West Punjab was a tactical withdrawal after which the Sikhs would invade and occupy Lahore, Lyallpur and other West Punjab areas.

Let's be honest, that post my Niddar is just a salesman's pitch. He is using the tragedy to gain more chelay for his dodgy 'martial' art. Once you've gained most of the naive and foolish Sikhs in one country, you need to try and gain the naive and foolish Sikhs in another country, expand or die that's the maxim. I trust that the vast majority of the Sikh Sangat in Canada and the US will not be taken in by this snake oil salesman.

No offence but we should be careful about promoting these so-called comedy videos. I came across some made by some Urdu speaking Muslims from Pakistan a few years ago. The aim in my view is to show that just speaking Punjabi in a rural accent is funny.

The interesting development here is that the trial will offer a number of opportunities and could even be a blessing in disguise. 1. If the accused want to admit their role and yet the defence can offer the mitigating circumstances about what atrocities that Brar had committed during the attack in 1984. Sikh organisations need to get on the ball and get sworn witness statements from eyewitnesses as well as media reports from that time. 2. It is likely that Brar and his wife will need to give evidence at the trial. If so then Sikh organisations need to collect statements from witnesses especially from Sikhs who suffered during the attack in 1984 and who are now British citizens. These statements can be used to apply to the courts to arrest Brar when he sets foot in the country. 3. If Brar does not come to the UK because of the real fear of arrest the court could take his evidence via video link but then the Sikh organisations need to bring this to the attention of the media as well as sympathetic MPs. 4. In any evidence given by Brar the defence team should take the opportunity to ask about what atrocities were committed by men under his command.

There is no proof that Bhai Sukha Singh was a Gurdev of the Akhara, looks like Niddar is just picking up the names of the great shaheeds in the hope that some of their glory will get attached to his akhara. So if we accept Sukha Singh was the gurdev of the Akhara, and he killed Massa Rangar because of what he did in the Durbar Sahib. So why hasn't the present Gurdev Niddar not done something similar to those that attacked the Durbar Sahib in 1984? Put aside whether niddar agrees with Sant Jarnail Singh or not, the fact is that innocent Sikh pilgrims, men women and children were massacred during operation Bluestar. Why hasn't niddar done anything about that? Btw before you response with' what have you done.. blah blah blah; I am neither 'the last Sikh warrior' nor do not pretend to be.