Religion

• On the festival of Baisakhi, celebrated usually on April 13, Sikhs the world over will joyously wear yellow saffron colors, symbolizing spring harvest and the solar new year, when the Sun enters the constellation Aries.
• The Sikh religion, with its line of 10 gurus, is traced back to the time of Guru Nanak, the first guru.
• He encouraged his followers not to take the path of renunciation but to work hard and perform acts of charity.

The Khalsa ideal

• The dramatic creation story of the Khalsa relates that the guru demanded sacrifice of life from his loyal followers who came to his abode in Anandpur in Punjab to celebrate Baisakhi and the beneficence of the harvest.
• His five beloved disciples, known as the “Pañj Piāre,” were in the Sikh tradition the first initiates into the new order of the Khalsa, meaning the pure.
• The guru is said to have pronounced that henceforth his Khalsa will be called lions, or “singh,” and they would maintain five symbols on their person that would set them apart from ordinary Sikhs and burnish their martial demeanor.

The need for the Khalsa

• To understand the need for the Khalsa, it is important to step back into history.
• The martial Khalsa was considered to be a political necessity during these times, which they perceived as being tyrannical.
• The Khalsa also embodied self-discipline to inspire the guru’s Sikhs, the ordinary followers who did not become Khalsa.

An egalitarian stance

• For the tenth guru, Gobind Singh, the Khalsa were the ideal for others to emulate.
• His beloved five, who had been willing to sacrifice their lives for him, further demonstrated the importance of social equality.
• Belonging to different caste groups, they represented the values of compassion, duty, firmness, honor and effort.

The Khalsa under colonialism

• Customs such as early marriage and practices around widowhood that oppressed women, and caste discrimination that affected all, were reassessed.
• For Sikh intellectuals, rejuvenating the egalitarian spirit of the Khalsa at this time seemed urgent.
• Gender and caste inequities, they believed, could be combated by reviving Khalsa norms.

Anshu Malhotra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.