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

[TheFancyBanana]

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

Do you mean no sense?

Well, all I meant was that most of us were born into a Sikh family. I just wanted to find out about other people's stories etc.

Like today people who convert to Sikhi have a story to tell of how they came into contact with it. It would've been the same back then when our ancestors were around.

[mrggg123]

¹

[Akaal Purakh Di Fauj]

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?

Wahegurujikakhalsawahegurujikifateh,

Excellent point Budda Singh Ji.

Guru Sahib Kirpa Karo

Wahegurujikakhalsawahegurujikifateh

[proud2bejatt]

^{my tribe/clan are nijjars, I have read that they come from Syria Palestine originally? :s I've also read that we are Caucasian avars, which are now also settled in Dagestan; can anyone confirm this? my clan are jatts but obviously it means nothing in Sikhism. But its interesting, as perhaps my ancestors may have been Christian, then Muslim, then Hindu and then in the end Sikh. I guess I'll never know properly until I do some solid research hmm.}

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.

To us, it's a funny thing to just counter gandhian weakness philosophy and have people say we were warriors, are warriors and our children will be too.

Scythians went all the way to britian jutes = jatts saxons = sakas. Mann and Hans clan are in germany, Timur hated jatts as they conquered khorasan.

Truth is truth you will find it everywhere, however all panths but sikhi are not true that is what daas will say.

---

If I was alive 3-400 years, the gurus would have been cousins doesn't mean anything.

[proactive]

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.

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. But this does not give a true picture. In the western part of Ludhiana like the Jagraon tehsil, the Jats were mainly Sikhs but in the eastern part (Samrala tehsil) the Jats were mainly Hindus. The reason given is that Jagraon was a part of the old Jangal desh where the Sikhs would seek shelter from the Muslim persecution. Samrala was close to Sirhind which was the seat of Mughal power between Lahore and Delhi. Also although the British classed all the non-Muslim and non-Sikhs Jats as Hindus, they were in fact Sultanis worshipping Sakhi Sarwar. As education spread through the Singh Sabha movement in the eastern part of Ludhiana district, The Sultanis started to become Sikhs. By 1931 when the last census which enumerated caste was taken, the Sikh Jats were 211,000 and he Hindu (Sultanis) Jats were 3,500.

Hoshiarpur district might have had the same situation but the Hindu Jats there would be more influenced by the Devi worship culture of the hills rather than Sakhi Sarwar worship. The Sikh Jats were mainly in the low lying areas whereas the Hindu Jats were in the hilly areas. In comparison in 1881 the Sikhs Jats were 29,000 compared to 86,000 Hindu Jats. By 1931 the Sikh Jats had gone up to 86,000 and the Hindu Jats had gone down to 41,000.

[proactive]

^{my tribe/clan are nijjars, I have read that they come from Syria Palestine originally? :s I've also read that we are Caucasian avars, which are now also settled in Dagestan; can anyone confirm this? my clan are jatts but obviously it means nothing in Sikhism. But its interesting, as perhaps my ancestors may have been Christian, then Muslim, then Hindu and then in the end Sikh. I guess I'll never know properly until I do some solid research hmm.}

I think you might have got your information from that jatt website which makes all sorts of claims without presenting any evidence. There is no doubt that Punjab having been the gateway to India, it saw more than its fair share of invasions and migrations. But these migrations would have been from Central Asia and not from Syria and Palestine.

[LegalSingh]

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.

[harj1ts1ngh]

^^^

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

[proactive]

Legal Singh

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.

You theory also falls flat because the three districts of Punjab which were under British control before the annexation of Punjab, Ferozpur, Ludhiana and Ambala, only Ambala district had more Hindu Jats than Sikh Jats. This was because half the district was in the area now known as Haryana. Your theory also doesn't hold true because Ferozpur had been under a Misldar until it was taken over by the British in 1835. It was under the protection of the British from 1809 as same as the Sikh states in Malwa. Patiala, Faridkot and Nabha states which were under the protection of the British since 1809 also had more Sikh Jats than Hindu Jats. In the case Patiala and Nabha this is all the more remarkable as they included large parts of the region now known as Haryana.

[LegalSingh]

^^^

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.