This is the first part of the story of the Sik­li­gar Sikhs in this new se­ries of For­got­ten Sikhs by The World Sikh News. Here, young bud­ding jour­nal­ist and con­tent-writer Ka­mal­jeet Singh traces the ori­gin of the area called Jha­lana Don­gri in Jaipur and how the hard-work­ing, dili­gent Sik­li­gar Sikhs strived hard to make it Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar. WSN and Ka­mal­jeet Singh will bring more sto­ries about these and other hard-work­ing Sikhs who strive to make two ends meet while ob­serv­ing the high ideals of the Sikh way of life.

A larger than life Khanda-the Sikh sym­bol stands tall in the mid­dle of the round­about near the Sik­li­gar dera -the habi­tat, in what has come to be known as the Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Cir­cle, which was built by the Sik­li­gar Sikhs and Sikhs from Guru Nanak Pura and Raja Park, Jaipur.

You en­ter the area and you can­not miss the Gur­d­wara Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar built by the Sik­li­gar Sikhs through sheer hard work and their hum­ble con­tri­bu­tions over the decades. Around the Gur­d­wara live a few hun­dred fam­i­lies of iron fab­ri­ca­tors and RCC con­struc­tion work­men, whose an­ces­tors were ace weapon-mak­ers. The Gur­d­wara Guru Teg Ba­hadur Sahib, Jha­lana Doon­gri Jaipur was built at the same time the el­derly Sik­li­gars moved from the ar­eas Hathroi Kila, Shal­i­mar to Jha­lana Don­gri.

I am a Sik­li­gar Sikh liv­ing in Jha­lana Don­gri and this is the story of my peo­ple liv­ing in this dera and five other de­ras -now called colonies of Jaipur. In the city, pop­u­larly known as the Pink city, the Sik­li­gar Sikhs live in pre­sent-day Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar, Malviya Na­gar, Galta Gate, Triveni and Shal­i­mar Hathroi Kila.

The story and fate of the Sik­li­gar Sikhs in Jaipur is no dif­fer­ent from that of Sik­li­gars across the coun­try -low ed­u­ca­tion lev­els, liv­ing hand-to-mouth, yet work­ing very hard and through hon­est means.

Prior to and af­ter the par­ti­tion of Pun­jab in 1947, Sik­li­gar Sikhs of Jaipur mi­grated from Pak­istan through land and wa­ter routes and reached var­i­ous parts of In­dia. My grand­par­ents and many of the el­derly Sikhs who are no more and whose sto­ries are lost for­ever reached Jha­lana Don­gri in the cap­i­tal city of Jaipur in the In­dian state of Ra­jasthan. The fam­i­lies here are set­tled for more than 50 years. Brick by brick, they have pooled re­sources and built a Gur­d­wara Sahib in their midst.

Many of them prior to mak­ing Jha­lana Don­gri their home, lived in a fort -the Hathrai Kila, a few kilo­me­tres from this area, near the Jaipur Rail­way junc­tion. To­day, around 20 fam­i­lies still live there.

What does Jha­lana Don­gri mean? The word Don­gri refers to a moun­tain. I think it is a com­mon name in Ra­jasthani, Hindi and Marathi. This area was a sub-moun­tain­ous area, a vast jun­gle around the small moun­tains, wa­ter brooks every­where and the por­tion of it which is still a jun­gle has wild life, in­clud­ing leop­ards.

To make Jha­lana Don­gri live­able, the Sik­li­gars toiled day and night. 60-year-old Sar­dar Desraj Singh, who has seen all these things told me “We worked very hard to fill in the place. We had to kill an­i­mals, in­clud­ing snakes to set­tle down here. Ear­lier on, we had to face many hard­ships and it was not easy to stay here.” It makes me and many Sik­li­gar Sikh youth proud that our el­ders worked hard and trav­elled the jour­ney from Jha­lana Don­gri to make it the pre­sent-day Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar.

In the last many decades, I have seen the im­pact of moder­nity on Sik­li­gar fam­i­lies and their bread­win­ners. The tall, lanky, de­vout Sik­li­gar Sikhs, who were once skilled weapon mak­ers for Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib, Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji, Banda Singh Ba­hadur and Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh -mak­ing in­dige­nous guns, Kir­pans, et al, have turned to iron and steel fab­ri­ca­tors and RCC con­struc­tion work­men. In this cen­tre of the Sik­li­gars, some have fab­ri­ca­tion shops and many work on con­struc­tion sites in and around Jaipur.

The tall, lanky, de­vout Sik­li­gar Sikhs, who were once skilled weapon mak­ers for Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib, Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji, Banda Singh Ba­hadur and Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh -mak­ing in­dige­nous guns, Kir­pans, et al, have turned to iron and steel fab­ri­ca­tors and RCC con­struc­tion work­men.

Some years ago, there were el­derly peo­ple who could still make tra­di­tional Sikh weaponry like Kir­pans, but to­day, sadly, there is no one to make them. I feel that Sikhs at large failed to pa­tron­ize these tal­ented Sik­li­gars and that is one of the rea­sons that this art and craft is on the verge of ex­tinc­tion.

In this Dera of the Sik­li­gars, many chil­dren have gone to schools but not many have moved be­yond the tenth and twelfth stan­dards. There is a heavy dropout of stu­dents, es­pe­cially girl stu­dents. The way I look at it, I am for­tu­nate to be guided and men­tored by ed­u­ca­tion ac­tivists whereas many oth­ers are not. This is one area that needs to be bol­stered with reg­u­lar coun­selling and men­tor­ing.

As the phys­i­cal en­ergy lev­els of Sik­li­gar boys and girls is at the op­ti­mum, with many of them do­ing reg­u­lar phys­i­cal ex­er­cises and phys­i­cal work, they take to sports very eas­ily. Many en­joy play­ing hockey and cricket. Kul­jeet Singh has been se­lected for Ra­jasthan Po­lice through the sports quota. Rand­hir Singh is the first Sik­li­gar lawyer from Jaipur, Ra­jasthan, prac­tis­ing in the dis­trict courts as well as in the High Court of Ra­jasthan.

I have had the priv­i­lege of com­plet­ing my grad­u­a­tion in Jour­nal­ism through the pos­i­tive and con­sis­tent in­ter­ven­tion of A Lit­tle Hap­pi­ness Foun­da­tion.  My mother is ec­sta­tic, “Humko to patarkar ka mat­lab bhi nahi pata, sanstha ne hamare ghar se yeh baat khatam kar diya ke Sik­li­gar bachhe pad­hte nahi – I do not know what jour­nal­ism means. The peo­ple who helped me have un­done the di­a­logue that Sik­li­gar chil­dren do not study.”

This or­gan­i­sa­tion has en­abled Jasvin­der, Singh, Sukhbir Singh, Kar­nel Singh, Bal­jeet Singh and oth­ers from this cen­tre to read and write Eng­lish which has boosted their self-con­fi­dence and en­abled them to get jobs.

It must be men­tioned that due to the sus­tained in­ter­ven­tion of so­cial and re­li­gious ac­tivist Jas­bir Singh from Raja Park, Jaipur over the last two decades, Sik­li­gar chil­dren of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Na­gar are well-versed in Sikh prin­ci­ples and Gur­mat prac­tices. They per­form Kir­tan and many play Gatka. Jas­bir Singh and his team en­sure that school and col­lege-go­ing stu­dents com­plete their stud­ies and this has brought about a big change in the lives of many Sik­li­gar chil­dren. Still, much more needs to be done.

While speak­ing to WSN, Par­mender Singh said, “I have worked as a fab­ri­ca­tor for the last ten years. I have two chil­dren. I am 32 years old. I work hard but am still un­able to save much for emer­gen­cies and ex­i­gen­cies.”

“I am con­stantly wor­ried about the fu­ture of my chil­dren. What will they pur­sue af­ter school? What is good for them and the fam­ily? It is in­vari­ably a shot in the dark and that is dread­ful.”

Many young and mid­dle-aged Sik­li­gars, who could not get any ed­u­ca­tion have also joined their parental work of fab­ri­ca­tion and some of them are do­ing well while the ma­jor­ity live from hand to mouth. Even grad­u­ates end up as fab­ri­ca­tors and they yearn for ways to move into other fields and en­deav­ours.

Think­ing of the life ahead of the Sik­li­gars of Jaipur and those like them, I wish to re­call the words of my men­tor who says, “The Sik­li­gar Sikhs are for­got­ten no more and there is hope for the fu­ture. Stay in Chardikala.”

Ka­mal­jeet Singh, pur­su­ing his post-grad­u­ate stud­ies in Jour­nal­ism is a young Sik­li­gar Sikh from Jaipur, as­pir­ing to be­come a jour­nal­ist, con­tent writer and video­g­ra­pher.