How did the singh sabha movement converted so many hindus and muslims into following sikhi?

[Tamansingh123]

How did the singh sabha movement converted so many people into sikhi? I have thought abt it various times and have heard from many people that singh sabha movement helped to get many people into sikhi.

[MisterrSingh]

Free barfi and jalebiyan.

[proactive]

Because they started to implement the teachings of the Gurus such as equality among Sikhs and against the hereditary claims of Guruship that many Sodhis and Bedis were making. They also attacked the blurring of boundaries that meant that a Sikh would go to a Mandir and a Sufi shrine without feeling in any way that he was being a hypocrite in going against the teachings of the Gurus. They also understood that many attitudes that had become ingrained into the Sikh population were instrumental in making people move away from Sikhism to other religions. Many Sikh Sardars and landholders kept many Muslim mistresses and the children born to them would invariably be bought up as Muslims as Sikh society did not accept them as legitimate and Muslims were eager to accept them to boost their own numbers. I remember reading about Giani Ditt Singh who bought over 200-300 descendants of a Sikh who had been banished by his village because he had married a Muslim woman and he had had to set up his own village separate from the Sikh village. Over time his descendants were worshippers of Sakhi Sarwar, the Muslim Sufi which was a half way house to Islam. There's no doubt within a few decades these person would have become Muslims and lost to Sikhi forever. Yet the tenacity and the preaching skills of Giani Ditt Singh led to them becoming Sikhs. 

 

[Tamansingh123]

27 minutes ago, proactive said:

Yet the tenacity and the preaching skills of Giani Ditt Singh led to them becoming Sikhs. 

I have heard abt giani ji a lil bit in the local gurudwara. And yea one of the problem we as a panth have is that majority of our people dont accept people from diff religion, hence our numbers are this low. Only if we convinced ambedkar to follow sikhi im sure we sikhs would have gotten khalsa raj after 84. 

[proactive]

2 minutes ago, Tamansingh123 said:

I have heard abt giani ji a lil bit in the local gurudwara. And yea one of the problem we as a panth have is that majority of our people dont accept people from diff religion, hence our numbers are this low. Only if we convinced ambedkar to follow sikhi im sure we sikhs would have gotten khalsa raj after 84. 

Rather than looking at the past wishing things had been different, we should use our energy and resources to make up for the mistakes of the past. If you have money to spare and wish to donate, then  donate to organisations that work with Sikhs in need.

[proactive]

The problem is that the Sikh religious establishments, the SGPC, DSGMC, the Babas and Nihang Dals have no interest in parchar. The SGPC and DSGMC were set up not just to manage the Gurdwaras but also to spread the message of Sikhism. But today they are all involved in politics and the daswand which should be spent to spread Sikhism is either siphoned off by the Badals or misspent on langars for political rallies for them. Ordinarily in such instances, the people who have genuine pain at the mis-management of the Gurdwaras and the mis-spent Daswand would unite and re-take back the SGPC or at least form counter organisations in order to do the work which the SGPC is unwilling to do until they get a chance to re-take back the SGPC. Bhai Ranjit Singh, the former Jathedar of Akal Takht is actively attempting to unite Panthic minded Sikhs so that when the next SGPC elections happen that the gand of the Badals can be cleansed from the SGPC. 

Until then as individual we should use our intellect in order to discern what in the best interests of the Kaum. Personally if I go to Durbar Sahib I would only matha tek about 100 rupees which should cover the parshad and the langar. Anything more is a waste at this time as it would only go to increase the wealth of the Badals. It feels bad to write this but we have to see the truth and not be influenced by feelings that we might feel that we are somehow disrespecting the Guru by giving so little. We have to understand the system that we are under at the moment, once a decent SGPC committee committed to Sikhi comes into power then we can donate as much we can to them. At present the money that I would ordinarily have put in the golak I donate to organisations that are working to help Sikhs in need. 

If significant numbers of Sikhs follow these actions then it will not be long before the SGPC stops being a cash cow for the Badals. Just recently because of the lockdown in India, the SGPC has been making statements that it is running out of money even after a month of lockdown. This shows just how wasteful and corrupt the organisation is that it did not set aside money to cover emergencies. It shows that money was being corruptly taken as soon as it was put in the golak. 

As I wrote above ordinarily Sikhs should be forming counter organisations to the SGPC to take on the work that it refuses to do and the funds for this should come from us by redirecting our normal contributions to the golak to these organisations. The tragedy is that some organisations which have very little intention to do any work for Sikhs are now trying to seize this trend that many Sikhs are displaying and trying to get these contributions into their hands. Such an organisation is Khalsa Aid. Ravi Singh recently put out a video wanting Sikhs to donate to his charity in order that he can make it a $100 million organisation! He criticised Gurdwaras for hoarding money but the way I look at it, if the Gurdwaras hoard money at least that money is available if ever it is needed but in Ravi Singh view that money should be his and for him to visit exotic locations to spend the money on non-Sikhs. 

[DailyMail]

43 minutes ago, proactive said:

Because they started to implement the teachings of the Gurus such as equality among Sikhs and against the hereditary claims of Guruship that many Sodhis and Bedis were making. They also attacked the blurring of boundaries that meant that a Sikh would go to a Mandir and a Sufi shrine without feeling in any way that he was being a hypocrite in going against the teachings of the Gurus. They also understood that many attitudes that had become ingrained into the Sikh population were instrumental in making people move away from Sikhism to other religions. Many Sikh Sardars and landholders kept many Muslim mistresses and the children born to them would invariably be bought up as Muslims as Sikh society did not accept them as legitimate and Muslims were eager to accept them to boost their own numbers. I remember reading about Giani Ditt Singh who bought over 200-300 descendants of a Sikh who had been banished by his village because he had married a Muslim woman and he had had to set up his own village separate from the Sikh village. Over time his descendants were worshippers of Sakhi Sarwar, the Muslim Sufi which was a half way house to Islam. There's no doubt within a few decades these person would have become Muslims and lost to Sikhi forever. Yet the tenacity and the preaching skills of Giani Ditt Singh led to them becoming Sikhs. 

 

Can you remember which book this was? The one mentioning Giani Ditt Singh.

[proactive]

23 minutes ago, DailyMail said:

Can you remember which book this was? The one mentioning Giani Ditt Singh.

I can't remember which book it was, I must have read literally over 500-600 since the 1980s. I will try and find out which book it was. There was also a similar case where a Jat woman from Sarhali in Amritsar district could not have a son and she make a vow at a Sakhi Sarwar shrine that if she had a son the family would become his followers. She had a son and by the time of Giani Ditt Singh the son's descendants had increased to 200 families and although with the general trend among Jats in the district to become Sikhs, these families also became Sikhs but still continued to follow Sakhi Sarwar as well. One of the members of one of these families read Giani Ditt Singh's book Sultan Puara about the hypocrisy of Sikhs following Sakhi Sarwar and he invited Gianiji to visit the village and preach there. All the families stopped following Sakhi Sarwar and became Amritdharis. 

There is a general trend now especially among a few Sikhs educated in the west pursuing PhDs in western universities that the Singh Sabha somehow subverted Sikhism and they try to present the popular and debased form of Sikhism that existed after the annexation of Punjab to the founding of the Singh Sabha as the pure form of Sikhism even though many of the practices were totally against the teachings of the Gurus. There is no doubt the Singh Sabha transformed Sikhism, but was this transformation more in line with the teachings of the Gurus or against the teachings of the Gurus. 

[Premi5]

1 hour ago, Tamansingh123 said:

 Only if we convinced ambedkar to follow sikhi im sure we sikhs would have gotten khalsa raj after 84. 

This myth has been dispelled in a recent thread 

 

[MisterrSingh]

2 hours ago, Premi5 said:

This myth has been dispelled in a recent thread 

 

It's a myth that pro-Hindu anti-Sikh activists have latched onto as being a narrative promoted by Sikhs, as well as it being an event that's lamented by us, and these activists are certainly determined to bust this particular myth.