Historical Sikh Population Records From 1800S (Tangent Topic: When Did Your Family Become Sikhs)

[Jonny101]

My family were originally Hindus who had shardha in Sikhi. But they officially became Sikhs during the Singh Sabha movement.

[californiasardar1]

My family were originally Hindus who had shardha in Sikhi. But they officially became Sikhs during the Singh Sabha movement.

Are you jatt?

I ask because I've often heard how Jatts converted to Sikhi in mass numbers from the time of Guru Hargobind through the time of Banda Singh Bahadur

Other groups of Sikhs are often characterized as being the ones who converted during the time of Ranjit Singh's empire or during the Singh Sabha movement

I'm curious if, contrary to this, there were large number of jatts who eventually became Sikhs but were Hindu or tread the line between being Hindu and Sikh as recently as the late 1800s

[californiasardar1]

Thats actually very true. Before partition, for rural jatt Sikhs it was the mirasis that kept the records of family history. Not written records mind.....the mirasi tradition was and is purely oral, passed on from generation to generation. After 1947, the only mirasis that stayed behind were the bhangra singers such as kuldip manak etc. The rest all left for Pakistan. Thus, as the muslim half of my clan has since re-settled in rural district Faislabad, thats probably where I'd have to go to get an in-depth history of my family.

If I had to guess though....I'd say we only became Sikhs from Guru Hargobind ji's time onwards. Most Jatts only joined when the martial fighting tradition started.

Btw....that Punjab govt website is total rubbish. Not only can I not find anything on it but it even has my village listed in the wrong Tehsil.

Were the jatts who lived in your village a mix of Sikhs and Muslims before 1947?

I know that before 1947, there were many muslim jatts in east punjab (and, similarly, many sikh jatts in west punjab). However, I wasn't sure if this mix was present even WITHIN a given village

Do the Sikhs members of your clan have any contact with the relocated muslim members?

[Jonny101]

Are you jatt?

I ask because I've often heard how Jatts converted to Sikhi in mass numbers from the time of Guru Hargobind through the time of Banda Singh Bahadur

Other groups of Sikhs are often characterized as being the ones who converted during the time of Ranjit Singh's empire or during the Singh Sabha movement

I'm curious if, contrary to this, there were large number of jatts who eventually became Sikhs but were Hindu or tread the line between being Hindu and Sikh as recently as the late 1800s

According to the census reports, before the Singh Sabha movement there was still a large number of Hindu Jatts in Punjab. My family being one of them. In many districts, there were actually more Hindu Jatts than Sikh Jatts. But when the Singh Sabha movement happened, nearly all the Punjabi speaking Hindu Jats converted to Sikhi. In my family's case, my elders had taken Amrit and became full Sikhs during during this movement. So many Hindu Jats had become Sikhs in Punjab that Punjabi HIndu Jatts became extinct. The only Hindu Jatts you could have find in Punjab were the ones who were in Haryana. But for some reason Sikhs did not venture there and do parchar to them, so they became Arya Samajis in large numbers. It's a shame because maybe today Haryana would not have separated from Punjab on the bases of religion had Singh Sabhias also done Parchar in that region.

Besides the Punjabi Hindu Jats, the Lubanas had also converted to Sikhi in large numbers during the Singh Sabha movement.

[californiasardar1]

According to the census reports, before the Singh Sabha movement there was still a large number of Hindu Jatts in Punjab. My family being one of them. In many districts, there were actually more Hindu Jatts than Sikh Jatts. But when the Singh Sabha movement happened, nearly all the Punjabi speaking Hindu Jats converted to Sikhi. In my family's case, my elders had taken Amrit and became full Sikhs during during this movement. So many Hindu Jats had become Sikhs in Punjab that Punjabi HIndu Jatts became extinct. The only Hindu Jatts you could have find in Punjab were the ones who were in Haryana. But for some reason Sikhs did not venture there and do parchar to them, so they became Arya Samajis in large numbers. It's a shame because maybe today Haryana would not have separated from Punjab on the bases of religion had Singh Sabhias also done Parchar in that region.

Besides the Punjabi Hindu Jats, the Lubanas had also converted to Sikhi in large numbers during the Singh Sabha movement.

Thanks for the response, that's interesting.

What district is your family from? I'm wondering if there is a geographic trend

It is very surprising to me that jatt religious practices are so perfectly divided by the Punjab/Haryana boundary. I've never heard of there being Hindu jatts in the modern state of Punjab (if anyone has, please let me know). I know there are some Sikh jatts in Haryana, but my understanding is that these are virtually all Punjabi-speaking jatts who were originally from central/west Punjab and resettled in (what later became) northern Haryana after 1947.

One would think the geographic division wouldn't be so precise (In other words, I would have expected a few Punjabi-speaking Hindu jatts left over in the modern state of Punjab, and I would also have expected a few Hindi-speaking Sikh jatts sprinkled throughout Haryana).

[Jonny101]

Thanks for the response, that's interesting.

What district is your family from? I'm wondering if there is a geographic trend

It is very surprising to me that jatt religious practices are so perfectly divided by the Punjab/Haryana boundary. I've never heard of there being Hindu jatts in the modern state of Punjab (if anyone has, please let me know). I know there are some Sikh jatts in Haryana, but my understanding is that these are virtually all Punjabi-speaking jatts who were originally from central/west Punjab and resettled in (what later became) northern Haryana after 1947.

One would think the geographic division wouldn't be so precise (In other words, I would have expected a few Punjabi-speaking Hindu jatts left over in the modern state of Punjab, and I would also have expected a few Hindi-speaking Sikh jatts sprinkled throughout Haryana).

My family are from the doaba region. But originally they were from Malwa and settled in Doaba generations ago. The Singh Sabha movement was active all over central, southern and eastern Punjab. The old census reports were the most accurate reports. They not only reported the religion but also caste of the people of Punjab. One can see the trend of how the Sikh population greatly increased during the Singh Sabha movement and which castes entered the Sikh religion in large numbers. There was a large Hindu Jatt population in Ludhiana before the Singh Sabha movement but now none at all.

There were three religious movements in Punjab at the time which were very active. Amongst Muslims were the Ahmadis, Arya Samaj were doing Hindu parchar, and the Singh Sabha had to compete with these two movements. Singh Sabha parcharaks did not do any parchar in Haryana region while the Arya Samaj did. And the result was that the Haryana population came under the influence of Arya Samaj while in Punjab the urban Hindus became Arya Samajis.

The partition of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal did not happen on the bases of language but on the bases of religion. The Sikhs were a minority in Himachal and Haryana and those regions separated as a result, yet Indian media and government would have the world believe the Sikhs are the "separatists".

[proud2bejatt]

I read about sangha clan and there was one man who was a big follower of guru amardas di and his grandson was guru hargobind sahib's brother in law so str8 family there.

And one of guru gobind singh ji's generals nand chand or nand lal also.

Idk about my mom's side which is a deol clan.

edit - Also at the rajput guy, ksatriya is a lot of 'castes'.

Rajput, tarkhan, gujjar, and jatt all have the same saka origin.

Khatris despite being a trading caste today are a warrior clan originally.

Here's a question then:

1. Do you think a similar movmeent will come and have mass people join the panth?

--

As for my personal family, my grandfather was born in 1912 and knows that his grandparents were sikhs but this is british times. Before that, he doesn't know and my mom's side doesn't know before grandfather however, she did say that he took amrit after he prayed to Naina devi or something after my mom's uncle and grandmother got the plauge; he did ardaas on one foot, and after they died he said not going there no more and took amrit and they been amritdhari since.

Idk if that means they were hindu before, but they don't see it that way, doaba as I have just learned due to lack of parchaar has a strong hindu influence in regular practices I guess. (Idk really..)

[LegalSingh]

According to the census reports, before the Singh Sabha movement there was still a large number of Hindu Jatts in Punjab. My family being one of them. In many districts, there were actually more Hindu Jatts than Sikh Jatts.

Census reports for which districts ? I would be inclined to think that the 'Punab' mentioned in that census is the area known as Haryana today, as the jatt clans of doaba became Sikhs alot earlier than the relatively recent singh sabha movement.

For example a large chunk of the Sikh diaspora comes from just 2 different areas of doaba in Jalandhar district ; The manjki tract and the villages around Talwan. Both these areas have their Sikh roots since the 1700's. The first as a tract given as a jagir to various jatt Sikh clans by the moghul emporer in oder to keep the peace with them and the second as a cluster of jatt Sikh villages constantly, since the 1700's, at war with the extremely powerful pathans of Talwan. Thus the doaba jatt Sikhs have been Sikh since at least the 1700's so the 1920's of the singh sabha movement makes little sense as a point of reference given how being a Sikh meant power in doaba from the misl time onwards. Now, the term doaba is used a little to widely these days because the areas within are actually extremely different in terms of demographics and geography. We must therefore, seperate Jalandhar district from Hoshiarpur district for this discussion. Even Rudyard Kipling in his book 'Kim' makes his vegetable grower a 'Saini' from Hoshiarpur, because historically the main farmers of that district have always been Sainis rather than Jatt. As the Sainis enjoyed no power either under the Misls or the Sikh Raj I would guess that they could well be converts from the recent singh sabha movement

My own guess is that happened during 3 phases in doaba : The first when Guru Arjan Dev ji came to doaba to get married. The second during Guru Hargobind ji's time when Sikhism took on a martial fighting tradition and thirdly during the misl times.

And if I had to choose between the 3, I would guess that it mainly occurred during the 6th Guru's time when Sikhism changed to a more military aspect.

Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji shows us that somewhere between the 1st and the 10th Guru, the Khatris started to abandon Sikhism en masse. I have no doubt that it happened during the 6th Guru's time when large numbers of jatts became Sikhs.

ਖਤ੍ਰੀਆ ਤ ਧਰਮੁ ਛੋਡਿਆ ਮਲੇਛ ਭਾਖਿਆ ਗਹੀ ॥

The K'shatriyas (khatris) have abandoned their religion, and have adopted a foreign language (become Turks)

Do the Sikhs members of your clan have any contact with the relocated muslim members?

Short answer, californiasardar, is no. All we know is that the muslim jatt clans formerly of doaba were re-located by the Pakistan government solely in what was then Lyalpur district and is now Faisalabad district. That is why even today the doaba Punjabi dialect is known as Faisalabadi Punjabi in Pakistan because the dialect of Faisalabad is today doabi.

But for all the jatt Sikh clans the answer to our family history still lies with the mirasis in Pakistan. As I mentioned before different groups of Sikhs in Punjab before partition had different practices. Some went to Hardwar etc and kept records, but for the jatts there was always a relationship with the mirasis. Indeed the word 'miras' means heritage and thus the very definition of the word mirasi is 'keeper of the heritage'. By actual definition then the main function of the mirasi was to keep and narrate the family heritage.

[Jonny101]

Census reports for which districts ? I would be inclined to think that the 'Punab' mentioned in that census is the area known as Haryana today, as the jatt clans of doaba became Sikhs alot earlier than the relatively recent singh sabha movement.

Jatts did convert to Sikhi very early on during the Guru period and later the 1700s. But that does not mean all Punjabi Jatts were Sikhs. There was a large Hindu Jatt population all over malwa and in Doaba area. Ludhiana, Hushiarpur districts for example had a sizable Hindu Jatt population. Over all, the Sikh population more than doubled due to the Singh Sabha parchar and it was nearly all at the expence of the Hindu population. By the end of the Singh Sabha movement, the Punjabi Jatt was either a Sikh or a Muslim, The Punjabi Hindu Jatt was no more. The only place you could find Hindu Jatts were in the non Punjabi speaking areas i.e. Haryana. Besides the Punjabi speaking Hindu Jatts of Punjab, Lubanas in Doaba and Pathankot, Aroras in Central Punjab and many Khatris in pothohar had also embraced Sikhi.

[buddasingh]

Very interesting topic. The original question "When did your family become Sikhs?" seems to make logical sense to all.

It begs the question: "What did your family do to become Sikhs?" which then raises the question "Is your family/are you Sikh today?"

Do we suddenly apply different criteria to becoming/being Sikh today?