History’S Baggage: Pakistan’S Punjab Problem

[Jonny101]

Essentially where reason that the Sikhs lost out both in 1849 and in 1947 was demographics. Had the Sikhs been the majority in Punjab in 1849 then the British would never have been able to subdue the Khalsa and if they did win a few battles the Punjab would have been ungovernable for them and then there would have been mutiny in 1857. The article is true in one aspect, the Punjab Muslims got a country gifted to them by the British without any effort but then the British also gifted the rest of the India to the Brahmin elite.

The thing about Punjabi Muslims is that they had the misfortune of being located next door to the Afghans/Turks who have always eclipsed them militarily and politically. The current order of India and Pakistan is an artificial creation of the British. Had the British not been to India, the whole of the subcontinent would have been ruled by the aggressive Sikhs, Marathas, Afghans instead of the current ruling elite.

Unfortunately for the Sikhs, our people have always been a small minority. There were even more Punjabi Hindus than Sikhs in Punjab. So it is unfair to compare Punjabi Muslims who formed the majority of Punjab to the Sikhs who did not even form a double digit of Punjab's population. Only Baba Banda Singh Bahadur realized the need for the growth of Sikhi which is why he actively encouraged non Sikhs to embrace Sikhi. But unfortunately future leaders could not realize this very important fact that having a strong concentrated demographic presence in an area will also insure the safety of the Sikhs and their sovereignty. The Misl Sardars and later Maharaja Ranjit Singh non tried to actively promote the spread of Sikhi. If they did, at the very least central punjab could have become a Sikh majority area. But since it wasn't, the land lords ended up losing this very important land during partition to the tenants.

[username1]

Interesting how 1849 and 1947 were cases were democracy failed. Perhaps because it was devoid of secularism and brought religion into it- mainly islam and how it could be superior to other groups in a democratic way which lead to other groups losing their homes. The number game didn't work and the voice of the masses wasn't the voice of god as navjot sidhu claims it is.

Since the history is done and dusted, alot of youngsters feel the past never happened and sikhs can't rise to their former glory in a new constructive way which doesn't harm other communities but benefits everyone.

Sikhs couldn't go around the world to make trade as the british did such as acquiring books from the Turkish or attaining the basics for the motor or going to china to attain gun powder, the art of war and tea. Nor could sikhs establish such structure where by everyone was satisfied with where they sat and found themselves in a position to upgrade later on, on the basis of their merit abit like how British and american companies promote people as the east indian tea company did yet structures like sikh gurdwaras are still fighting of the president seat maybe in an attempt to extort the gurdwara funds into their own pocket and have people respectfully greet them on a daily person as a man of power.