Number Of Sikhs (1857 To 1947)

[samrat]

I was looking at old historical census of punjab from 1857 all the way up to1947. The interesting thing is that under British Rule the number of people identifing themselves as sikhs grew more than 5 fold from the period of 1857 to 1947. So did the British have a positive impact on sikhi?

[HSD1]

The fact that the collapse of the Sikh Empire caused the number of Sikhs to fall in half I dont think the British helped at all.

After the wars with the Afghans there were 40,000 Sikhs in Punjab, with 60,000 having died in the wars. In the years before the Punjab-AngloHindustan Wars there were supposedly 1.5 million Sikhs in Punjab. Thats an increase of 3750% or 30 times in about a hundred years. Go figure.

[SarabjeetS]

British gave loft position to sikhs and they had more respect for sikhs than hindus ... So , many hindus converted to sikhism