Navratri - Sikhs got nothing to do with this Hindu Religious day. We don't have any significance attached to this date. We respect all other religious days but we don't celebrate them at all and those who do; either they got something to learn or has some dubious agenda.
Hindu swami teaching idolatry during meditation saying it is 1000 times more powerful than mere chanting of lords name as a picture is worth 1000 words.
It seems like there was always an undercurrent of division but relative peace was possible. The division was seemingly exacerbated opportunistically by both Muslim elite and the British, to the point of extreme violence and to the point now where co-existence seems impossible. 70 years in the partitioned nations has radically changed the ideology of South Asian Muslims, whereas before there was some religious fluidity, now they are vehemently opposed to all Sikh or Hindu tradition.
I now frequently wonder what it would take just to reach that previous state of relative peace. A lot of the discussion on this post, especially regarding the economic effects of partition reminds of this article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reunification which asserts the diversion of economic spending and of each country's social consciousness to issues at the borders keeps India in a dormant and weakened state.
After all, the Sikh empire existed in a pre-partitioned India with religious pluralism, and I don't think it would be crazy to assert that a unified India is better for Sikh/Punjabi independence than being positioned right between two nuclear powers with westernized governments. In a unified state with less militaristic conflict, Khalistanis, Dravidian-separatists, or Bengali language activists cannot so easily be dismissed as national-security threats or as agents of Pakistan, and can therefore achieve more cultural independence for their region of India. I acknowledge this maybe idealistic, but I still think its worth thinking about.
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