What is the sig­nif­i­cance of the Vaisakhi of Guru Gob­ind Singh? Every Vaisakhi, what tran­spired in 1699 at Anand­pur Sahib and how it trans­formed a peo­ple is a story that needs to be re­told.   Through the prism of Vaisakhi, WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh peeps into the doc­trine of the Gu­rus, the Sikh legacy, its im­agery and its cur­rent-day rel­e­vance.

Yes­ter­day, when the Sikh world was cel­e­brat­ing Vaisakhi, im­bib­ing the spirit of the Khalsa, it was nat­ural to ex­pe­ri­ence thoughts of rev­er­ence and pain in view of pre­sent-day Pun­jab.

We are used to this pain.  In Sikh par­lance, there is a quip,

ਕਾਬੁਲ ਦੇ ਰਹਿਣ ਵਾਲਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਨਿੱਤ ਮੁਹਿੰਮਾ
es­sen­tially mean­ing, the Khalsa is al­ways on a mis­sion 24 x 7 x 365.

So, every Baisakhi, we reded­i­cate our­selves to our glo­ri­ous legacy. On this day, we
fondly, in the most rev­er­ent man­ner pos­si­ble, re­call the con­tri­bu­tion of our Gu­rus,
who over a con­struc­tion, re­con­struc­tion and con­sol­i­da­tion pe­riod of 239 years, cre­ated the Khalsa –a sov­er­eign sui generis peo­ple, who fear God and no one else, who owe al­le­giance to the God and Guru and no worldly rule or au­thor­ity, a peo­ple seeped in spir­i­tu­al­ity yet mar­tial to de­fend their own rights of and that of oth­ers -Saint sol­diers, who in­vari­ably do not stray from the life mis­sion of Sar­bat da Bhala –wel­fare of all –an epit­ome of hu­man ex­cel­lence.

Over a pe­riod of two cen­turies, the Gu­rus shared the wis­dom of be­ing part of a
Uni­ver­sal force –Ek Onkar – a wis­dom, in the words of the Gu­rus, re­vealed to us
through the Gu­rus from Akal Pu­rakh –God Almighty.

This is the spirit that makes the Sikhs a unique and dis­tinct peo­ple. The out­ward ap­pear­ance of the Khalsa is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of this spirit and a self-dis­ci­pline, so
gra­ciously be­stowed by Guru Gob­ind Singh at Takht Kesgarh Sahib, Anand­pur Sahib that we have to re­main stead­fast in our unique­ness and al­ways be Ever As­cen­dant –’Chardikala.’

Over the cen­turies, Sikh his­tory records how the ad­her­ents of this young re­li­gion of
the world have demon­strated this unique char­ac­ter of the Sikh peo­ple, in word and
deed. On this day, we re­call the val­our of the founder of the first Sikh rule -Baba
Banda Singh Ba­hadur in 1710. On this day, we can­not help but rem­i­nisce about the rule of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, be­gin­ning 1819 and last­ing nearly half a cen­tury. Both sov­er­eigns ruled in the name of the Khalsa and struck coinage, read­ing in Farsi,

Ob­verse
Per­sian Script: Sikka Zad Bar Har Do Alam Fazl Sachcha Sahib Ast Fath-i-Gur Gob­ind Singh Shah-i-Sha­han Tegh-i-Nanak Wahib Ast

“Coin struck through each of the two worlds (spir­i­tual and tem­po­ral) by the grace of the True Lord. Of the vic­tory of Guru Gob­ind Singh, King of Kings, Nanak’s sword is the provider.”

Re­verse
Per­sian Script: Zarb Khalsa Mubarak Bakht Ba-Aman Ud-Dahr Zi­nat At-Takht Mash­warat Shahr. Sanah 3

“Struck by the Khalsa of aus­pi­cious for­tune at the Refuge of the Age, the Or­na­ment of the Throne, the City of the Coun­cil. Year 3.”

Or the sim­ple lan­guage,

Degho-Tegho-Fateh Nuzrat Bedrang
Yafa­taz Nanak Guru Gob­ind Singh

mean­ing,

In this rule, no one will go hun­gry and with­out jus­tice
This is the rule with the Grace of Guru Nanak and Guru Gob­ind Singh.

“Sikhism is not a Hindu sect but a prophetic re­li­gion and a unique po­lit­i­cal so­ci­ety, guided and led by an Or­der of the elite Sikhs, the Khalsa, whose un­shorn hair and tur­bans are merely an ex­te­ri­or­i­sa­tion of their re­li­gious psy­che, nat­ural, spon­ta­neous, evo­lu­tion­ary and au­then­tic.”

Bhai Sahib Sir­dar Ka­pur Singh

Sikh ide­o­logue and Sikh Na­tional Pro­fes­sor of Sikhism –Bhai Sahib Sir­dar Ka­pur Singh, in his mon­u­men­tal speech said, “Sikhism is not a Hindu sect but a prophetic re­li­gion and a unique po­lit­i­cal so­ci­ety, guided and led by an Or­der of the elite Sikhs, the Khalsa, whose un­shorn hair and tur­bans are merely an ex­te­ri­or­i­sa­tion of their re­li­gious psy­che, nat­ural, spon­ta­neous, evo­lu­tion­ary and au­then­tic.”

Fur­ther­more, Ka­pur Singh stated, “Sikhs are com­mit­ted to help the es­tab­lish­ment of a world-so­ci­ety which is plural, non-co­er­cive, ex­pan­sive and for­ward look­ing, mo­ti­vated God-wards, in which there is max­i­mum tol­er­a­tion, ever-grow­ing af­flu­ence and min­i­mum of mu­tu­ally de­struc­tive am­bi­tion.”

Every Vaisakhi, this is the legacy to which we reded­i­cate our­selves to. Any other
ex­pla­na­tion thrust on the Sikhs, is an ex­cur­sion, away from facts, the
Sikh doc­trine and a per­verted di­ver­sion from the glo­ri­ous his­tory of the Sikhs. Such fic­tion will not stand the test of times.

Photo adap­tion: https://​scot­tish­sikh.word­press.com/​blog/