U.P. Sikhs Strictly Uphold Sikhi Yet Face Discrimination From Punjabi Sikhs

[Premi5]

Thoughts please @shastarSingh

https://www.baaznews.org/p/up-sikhs-punjab-sikhs-discrimination

Sandeep Singh: U.P. Sikhs Strictly Uphold Sikhi Yet Face Discrimination From Punjabi Sikhs

Ajmer Singh feels that many Punjabi Sikhs discriminate against them for speaking Hindi, even though U.P. Sikhs have largely stayed truer to Sikhi

Jan 13

5

 

Photo Credit: Sandeep Singh | Guru Gobind Singh Chowk, Lakhimpur Kheri, UP.

Sandeep Singh
January 13, 2022 | 5 min. read | Original Reporting

The Lakhimpur Kheri massacre in October 2021 brought with it greater awareness and attention to the existence of old Sikh communities in Uttar Pradesh (UP). 

Baaz visited some villages in the area to garner a better understanding of how local Sikhs live and their, at times problematic, experience with Punjabi Sikhs.

Amritpal Singh, 40, is a local farmer and shares that the history of Sikhs in UP is long. 

“Since Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s era, Sikhs are living in this region. Actually, it is our 13th generation living here. This story passed from generation to generation and we only have heard oral stories.” 

His village, Diva, is in UP’s Baharaich District. There are nearly 300 Sikh homes, and about 20 Hindu ones. 

“There are 7-8,000 Sikhs in four to five villages between Dhanauli Khurd, Ghora, Matera, and Chotepur of this district,” shares Amritpal Singh. 

The majority of local Sikhs are dependent on farming, with some working as home guards in the UP police. 

“Sikhs here are extremely poor but they have built a huge Gurudwara Sahib and Langar Hall where they organize Langars on Gurupurab and invite Gatka teams for competition.” 

 

 

[shastarSingh]

44 minutes ago, Premi5 said:

Thoughts please @shastarSingh

https://www.baaznews.org/p/up-sikhs-punjab-sikhs-discrimination

Sandeep Singh: U.P. Sikhs Strictly Uphold Sikhi Yet Face Discrimination From Punjabi Sikhs

Ajmer Singh feels that many Punjabi Sikhs discriminate against them for speaking Hindi, even though U.P. Sikhs have largely stayed truer to Sikhi

Jan 13

5

 

Photo Credit: Sandeep Singh | Guru Gobind Singh Chowk, Lakhimpur Kheri, UP.

Sandeep Singh
January 13, 2022 | 5 min. read | Original Reporting

The Lakhimpur Kheri massacre in October 2021 brought with it greater awareness and attention to the existence of old Sikh communities in Uttar Pradesh (UP). 

Baaz visited some villages in the area to garner a better understanding of how local Sikhs live and their, at times problematic, experience with Punjabi Sikhs.

Amritpal Singh, 40, is a local farmer and shares that the history of Sikhs in UP is long. 

“Since Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s era, Sikhs are living in this region. Actually, it is our 13th generation living here. This story passed from generation to generation and we only have heard oral stories.” 

His village, Diva, is in UP’s Baharaich District. There are nearly 300 Sikh homes, and about 20 Hindu ones. 

“There are 7-8,000 Sikhs in four to five villages between Dhanauli Khurd, Ghora, Matera, and Chotepur of this district,” shares Amritpal Singh. 

The majority of local Sikhs are dependent on farming, with some working as home guards in the UP police. 

“Sikhs here are extremely poor but they have built a huge Gurudwara Sahib and Langar Hall where they organize Langars on Gurupurab and invite Gatka teams for competition.” 

 

 

Many Punjabi Sikhs hv big ego issues. They feel if some sikh can't speak proper Punjabi, he is not a proper sikh. They also make fun of some nri Singhs who struggle with speaking Punjabi.

I was also told by hazuri Singhs in nanded that they are called bhayyaas due to their dark complexon when they visit Delhi/punjab.

[dallysingh101]

2 hours ago, shastarSingh said:

Many Punjabi Sikhs hv big ego issues. They feel if some sikh can't speak proper Punjabi, he is not a proper sikh. They also make fun of some nri Singhs who struggle with speaking Punjabi.

I was also told by hazuri Singhs in nanded that they are called bhayyaas due to their dark complexon when they visit Delhi/punjab.

This is a worldwide phenomena. Even I have to check myself from it. I think it also relates to the bullying culture we were talking about in the bullying against young Amritdharis in Canada.   

[proactive]

Here is a video of the news story

 

[Ranjeet01]

From my understanding a lot of UP Sikhs moved to UP post partition.

I have some relatives in UP, Delhi and Gurgaon.

They do predominantly speak Hindi or at least speak Punjabi with  Hindi accent where they use thee instead of si. 

There is a bit if mickey taken out of UP Sikhs. I have heard some comments about the paan spitting of Bhaiyas and how their state is disgusting. 

However, it does make a change where Punjabi speakers are made fun of and how our boli sounds crude to the Hindi speaker.

 

[proactive]

There are different groups of Sikhs in UP.

1. Sikhs or Punjabi Jats who moved into UP in the early 1700s located mainly in and around Moradabad district. These Sikhs have a hybrid culture and religion which is a mix of Sikhi and cultural Hinduism. They are called Pachhandas. They number about 400,000. 

2. Vanjara Sikhs, they have been in UP since the early 1700s and form a part of the larger Vanjara group of people all over India. They number about 50,000. 

3. Sikhs from probably earlier than the 17th century who migrated either from Punjab or from central India who trace their link to Sikhi from Guru Nanak or some of the Sangats founded by the later Gurus. They are similar to the Bhatras of Punjab and they have a legend that they were originally from Sri Lanka and followed Guru Nanak back to Punjab and north India. They are a small group of about 10,000 people and are called Ramaiya Sikhs. They have a number of villages in Bijnor district. 

4. Sikh settlers from Punjab in 1947. These are the Sikhs we normally think of when we talk of UP Sikhs. They are settled in both UP and Uttarakhand in districts which are a part of the Terai region.

5. However the Sikhs from the news report are not from either of these, they seem to have come to UP in the last 150 years and the link they make is to Maharani Jindan who escaped to Nepal from British custody after the annexation of Punjab. She would have had retainers with her who were Sikh and other Sikhs from Punjab would have also visited her in Nepal which was just 20 kms from these villages in the news report. Later after 1857 mutiny, many of the Sikhs Rajas and other nobility who fought on the side of the British were gifted land holdings in these districts such as Bahraich and Gorakhpur. They would have sent their people here to settle and look after the land. So it looks like these Sikhs especially are a combination of these two groups of settlers. Being a small population they would have lost their Punjabi language skills and started to speak Hindi instead. There are also Sikhs from this group over the border in Nepal. 

6. Local converts to Sikhi. Over time many Hindus have converted to Sikhi for a number of reasons. The larger Gurdwaras such as the ones in Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra, Nanakmata inspire local Hindus especially of the lower castes to become Sewadars and then these Sewadars become Sikhs and in many cases bring their families into Sikhi. There have been cases of mass conversions to Sikhi such as the one of Jatavs in the villages around Meerut in the late 1980s. These Jatavs got involved in a dispute over elections to the village Pardhan position in one of their villages with the local Jats who in this case were Muslims. The Muslims tried to use their muscle power to force the Jatav candidate to take back his candidature. As some of these Jatavs had become Sikhs in a few years prior a decision was made for all the Jatavs to become Sikhs to take on the Muslims. Sikhs from Meerut and some Sikh organisations from UP also helped these Jatavs. 

As for the treatment of UP Sikhs, the groups 1, and 3 do not have any issues. The problems is that we have become so Punjab centric in our thinking that we assume that non-Punjabi Sikhs are just a handful and the vast majority of Sikhs are Punjabi. So when these Sikhs come to Punjab then they are assumed to be Hindu converts and their lack of knowledge of Punjabi is assumed to be a lack of commitment to Sikhi. But with the increase in social media and internet more and more Punjabi Sikhs are realising that there are some large groups all across India who have a link to Sikhi as old as the one that they have. 

[ChardikalaUK]

We're probably the only faith in the world so obsessed and tied to one language. It really shuts other people out. Do Buddhists in South East Asia speak any Indian language? Do Indonesians speak Arabic? Do European Christians speak Aramaic? Do western Jews speak Hebrew?

It's one of the reasons Sikhi never spread much beyond Punjab.

[shastarSingh]

2 hours ago, ChardikalaUK said:

We're probably the only faith in the world so obsessed and tied to one language. It really shuts other people out. Do Buddhists in South East Asia speak any Indian language? Do Indonesians speak Arabic? Do European Christians speak Aramaic? Do western Jews speak Hebrew?

It's one of the reasons Sikhi never spread much beyond Punjab.

I agree.

[shastarSingh]

Punjabi Sikhs make fun of Sikhs who can't speak proper Punjabi.

But these same Punjabi Sikhs , if they hv enough money send their kids to expensive schools in punjab so that their children can learn English.

These Punjabi Sikhs will deliberately use some English words while speaking Punjabi to show that they are educated etc.