sikhs

"For instance Trumpp, in the introduction to his translation of the Adi Granth,cast serious doubton the historicity of Bhai Bala, a cherished figure in Sikh tradition. For long, Sikhs had believed that Guru Nanak was on his extensive tours steadfastly accompanied by Bhai Bala. Now all of a sudden this revered figure was shown to be a creature of the imagination. Trumpp based his conclusions on the fact that the oldest of the then extant janam-sakhis, the so-called Colebrooke manuscript that he had discovered at the India Office Library in London, did not mention any Bhai Bala.“ His name appeared only much later in the Sikh hagiographic tradition. The manuscript on which Trumpp based his findings had been donated by H.T. Colebrooke to the Library of East India House in 1815 or 1816, and accordingly came to be known by his name. Sikh intellectuals of the period knew nothing about this valuable manuscript and its contents. All that they could do to save face was to vilify Trumpp. His missionary background and intemperate use of language made him an easy target."

"My heartiest congratulations to the people of India on the historic foundation laying of #RamMandir in #Ayodhya, which fulfills the long cherished desire of every Indian. Lord Ram’s universal message of Dharma remains the guiding light not just for India but for the world."

"Despite my profound reservations and over the unanimous advice of almost all the MPs from Punjab, you chose to appoint an acolyte of the Pakistani deep state Navjyot Singh Sindhu who had publicly hugged the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Bajwa and Prime Minister Imran Khan, as the President of the Punjab Congress Committee.... You thought I was getting on in years and should be put to pasture. I am neither tired nor retired. I feel I have a lot to give and contribute to my beloved Punjab. I intend to soldier on and not fade away."

"“In spite of the division of the country all of us Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs--have to live together. Let us, therefore, live in peace so that the poor and the down-trodden may in the new freedom that we have achieved get enough to eat and to cover their naked bodies, leading to a happier and fuller life.”"

"In Tainch and Harnali about two dozen Sikhs were killed and brutalities committed in the latter place. About 30 women were abducted from these places and the Gurdwaras were burnt. In Harial about 20 Sikhs were killed and 40 were abducted. The Gurdwara was burnt. This last is Master Tara Singh’s home place. Masterji’s house were razed to the ground with sadistic vengeance, the site struck with shoes and ploughed over."

"Among Hindus and Sikhs resentment at the agitation is growing and, particularly in the case of the latter in an ominous degree. On the 12th of February in the second statement he has issued against the agitation since it started, Master Tara Singh declared that it was communal in its essentials and has as its purpose the domination of the Punjab by Muslims. He called on the Sikhs to prepare themselves to face the Muslim League onslaught and towards this and to reorganize the Akal Fauj."

"The reason I quote this sycophantic comment is because it reflects perfectly the consensus in smoke-filled newspaper offices and in Delhi’s television studios. And Sonia, reserved to the point of being uneasy with conversation of any kind, used this to her advantage when it came to handling the media. She evolved a policy whereby she refused to talk to journalists except those who were carefully vetted as supportive and obedient. The kind that may have asked her questions about India’s stand on important international issues or big political and economic problems were never allowed near her. The media was most helpful in this exercise. In newsrooms and TV studios I seemed always to run into some editor or columnist who had just come from 10 Janpath. You could tell that they had almost before they said anything in her support. No sooner did they get that invitation to tea in 10 Janpath than hard-boiled reporters would acquire so changed an expression on their faces that jokes began to be made about how ‘one cup of tea with Sonia Gandhi could change the DNA of a journalist’."

"It took this election campaign for ordinary Indians to notice what was going on. They noticed because Modi told voters that they were choosing between a ‘kaamdaar’ and a ‘naamdaar’. A working man and a prince. It did not help that the ‘naamdaar’ then mocked Modi and made fun of everything about him. Modi’s ‘hugplomacy’, ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’, demonetisation. Modi’s demonetisation, he said, was done to steal their money and give it to his rich friends. The country’s Chowkidar, he said too many times, was a ‘chor’. He forgot that he was demeaning not just a political opponent but the Prime Minister of India. Ordinary voters were appalled that the heir to India’s most powerful political dynasty should talk this way. He sounded arrogant, entitled and insulting and reminded them that there were too many political heirs in Indian politics"

"The 2014 general election marked the beginning of the end of India’s ruling elite. The election whose results came last week marked the end. As someone born and bred in this group of privileged Indians, I speak as an insider. So believe me when I tell you that we controlled everything. Politics, government, business, foreign policy, the police, the military and the media. All this was possible because we were to some degree all courtiers in the court of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty since the British left. We knew that their ‘socialism’ and ‘secularism’ were as fake as their ‘idea of India’.... If they have spent the past five years targeting Modi, often wrongly, for what they perceive as attempts to crush democracy, it is possibly because they know how easily this can be done. The truth is that the traditional ruling elite believes in an idea of India in which there are privileges and not rights. This was always a bad idea. Now it is dead."

"“When I go to the Vishwanath Mandir in Benares and listen to the most powerful, magical aarti I hear from the priests that the knowledge of it will probably die because the temple is now controlled by secular bureaucrats”."

"Last week I went to see Arun Jaitley. He is one of the few politicians whom I respect. I have known him from the time I was a junior reporter and can say honestly that he is one of a handful of politicians who is not in politics for personal gain but for public service. He is in the process of moving out of the house in Lutyens’ Delhi that was allotted to him as a senior minister. While waiting to see him I noticed blank spaces on the walls where pictures have been taken down. His decision to surrender his government house as soon as he demitted office is remarkable in itself. I know millionaires and maharajahs who have to be physically evicted."

"Many things have changed in India since Narendra Modi first became prime minister. But one change that has gone almost unnoticed is that a process of real decolonisation has transpired. And because of this the old, colonised ruling class has been swept away. This is a very good thing. It should have happened long, long ago. As someone who belonged to that ruling class, I consider myself well qualified to explain why this process of decolonisation was overdue and how we failed India as its ruling class."

"This is why it has been so astonishingly easy for the Gandhi dynasty to turn India’s oldest political party into a family firm. And once dynastic succession became acceptable at the highest levels of political power, it became impossible to prevent dynastic democracy spreading like a slow poison into the very soul of India. It spread horizontally at higher levels of leadership in every political party and vertically down to the lowest levels of grassroots democracy. It has now become almost impossible to find a village council that is free of this debilitating disease. ... India’s ‘tryst with destiny’ could more appropriately have been called India’s tryst with dynasty."

"The English-language media is a powerful pillar in the structure that makes up that most privileged enclave called Lutyens’ Delhi. Like the bureaucrats who constitute a much more powerful pillar, most journalists had traditionally been from English-speaking, upper class India. They saw the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty as representing their class interests as much as it represented the colonized officials who inherited India from the British. The very idea of Modi was terrifying because what language would they interview him in? Would he give them interviews at all or choose Hindi journalists instead? Would the cosy relationship they had with power remain? Would their ‘idea of India’ remain intact?"

"“the word Hindutva is being used as a term of abuse […] it is used mostly in pejorative terms […] the debate appears no longer confined to the cloistered world of priests, or even the self-serving one of politics, it has expanded into a challenge to Hindu civilisation […] the wider attack on Indian civilisation that this pejorative use of the word Hindu represents. It bothers me that I went to school and college in this country without any idea of the enormous contribution of Hindu civilisation to the history of the world. It bothers me that even today our children, whether they go to state schools or expensive private ones, come out without any knowledge of their own culture or civilisation […] You cannot be proud of a heritage you know nothing about, and in the name of secularism, we have spent 50 years in total denial of the Hindu roots of this civilisation. We have done nothing to change a colonial system of mass education founded on the principle that Indian civilisation had nothing to offer […] our contempt for our culture and civilisation […] evidence of a country that continues to be colonised to the core? Our contempt for who we are gets picked up these days by the Western press […] racism [is] equated with Hindu Nationalism. For countries that gave us slavery and apartheid that really is rich, but who can blame them when we think so badly of ourselves. As for me I would like to state clearly that I believe that the Indic religions have made much less trouble for the world than the Semitic ones and that Hindu civilisation is something I am very proud of. If that is evidence of my being ‘communal’, then, so my inner voice tells me, so be it.”"

"Now that the Chief Minister of Bihar has dragged 'succularism' into the political discourse, it is time to deconstruct it so that we can end this pointless debate once and for all. I have deliberately misspelt the word because when said in Hindi that is how it is usually pronounced. It is a hard word to write in devnagri and the Hindi and Urdu equivalents do not quite mean what secularism has come to mean in the Indian political context. It is a foreign word that evolved in a European context when the powers of the church and the state were separated. In India, since none of our religions were led by pontiffs who controlled armies, or had vast temporal powers, we had no need to make this separation. But, the word secularism is used in India more than almost any other country. Why? Well, because when we entered our current era of coalition governments, political parties of leftist disposition found it convenient to keep the BJP out of power by saying they would only ally with 'succular phorces'. The BJP became a pariah after the Babri Masjid came down and so whenever someone like Nitish Kumar wants to hurl abuse at the party he is in alliance with in Bihar, or one of its leaders, the 'secularism' debate gets revived."

"There was disappointment in Nehru’s leadership, but it never took away from the deep regard in which he was held for decades after he died. He was credited with bequeathing to India democracy and pluralism, and if anyone challenged the achievements of Nehruvian socialism, as V.S. Naipaul did in An Area of Darkness, he was reviled."

"Are there no limits to what Muslims can demand, and get away with, in the imagined cause of their religion? ... There is no reason why our political leaders should have to start kowtowing and running scared everytime a bunch of semi-literate mullahs gets up and starts making a noise. ... We have just seen Shiv-Sena government in Maharashtra buckle under Muslim pressure and suspend the release of Mani Rattnam’s Bombay. It is a film about inter-religious marriage and the triumph of peace over communal hatred. ... After seeing the film they came up with a list of objections so absurd that they should have been considered ludicrous in our secular land but they have been taken seriously. They object, we are told, to the last shot. The Muslim girl while eloping with her Hindu husband carried the Koran in her hand. This was bad, they said, because it seemed to imply that her marriage had Islamic sanction. ... Nor did they approve of the film’s first scene which shows a woman lifting her burqa off her face.... Offence was taken, we are told, because a Hindu family was shown being burned alive. A Muslim family is also shown being similarly murdered, because this also happened in the terrible riots of 1992, but our Muslim objectors are selective in their disapproval."

"It is true that in the decades in which India was ruled imperiously by the Congress, the task of writing history textbooks was allotted to Leftist historians who chose to view India’s past through a distorted lens. The most celebrated of these historians, Romila Thapar, has gone so far as to deny that Muslim invaders destroyed the temples of us idolatrous infidels. Undoubtedly, if she were writing about more recent history, she would deny that the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan — and would say that they fell to pieces of their own accord."

"Dynasty, a political tool in the hands of the ruling class, has become the catalyst for a new colonization of a country whose soul has already been deeply scarred by centuries of it."

"It was the first time an Indian prime minister had been so open about his religion and a tremor of fear went up the ‘secular’ spine of Lutyens’ Delhi. Friends who had never see the Ganga puja or Benares said that they loved the ceremony but they were worried about the message this would send to Muslims and Christians. So they readied their ammunition for the attack on Modi’s secular credentials that began within months of his becoming prime minister."

"If there is a single reason why Narendra Modi became the first prime minister in more than thirty years to get a full mandate from the people of India it was because he was the only one who understood how urgently people wanted change. The word he used most in his election speeches was the word for change in Hindi. And every time he said parivartan his audience would roar its approval. During the election campaign I came to understand that it was more important than anything else he could promise on a hot, stifling evening in Pappu’s chai shop in Benares."

"When I heard Aung San Suu Kyi's address to both houses of Britian's Parliament in Westminster hall last week, what impressed me was the clarity with which she spelt out her vision for her country. But, throughout her speech, something kept bothering me and by the time she finished, I discovered what it was. What bothered me was that I could not think of a single Indian leader who could make such a speech. The Indian political landscape today has become a desert in which only the stunted progeny of stunted political leaders bloom. We need our political parties to throw up real leaders and we need a political discourse in which real political problems are discussed. So can we stop fishing 'secularism' out of the dustbin of history and holding it up as a shining ideal? Its relevance faded a long time ago."

"The realms of high culture that in more civilised countries resonate with literature, music and art are occupied in India by Bollywood and trashy TV serials. Inevitable, since mass education is such a mess that most children leave school without learning to read a storybook. Reading is so out of fashion that most small towns in India have no bookshops, most villages have no libraries and, in our bigger cities, bookshops stock mostly books and magazines written in English. So when the RSS leaders turned up in Delhi last week to tell the Minister of Human Resource Development that they wanted changes in school education, they had a point. Unfortunately, because the RSS is led by doddering old bigots and provincial intellectuals, this ‘cultural’ organisation is in no position to give the HRD Minister worthwhile advice. The RSS leaders who met the minister reportedly confined their concerns to history books that they claim portray a ‘Western’ view of history. They demanded that these books be replaced by those written by historians with an Indian view of history. They have a point, but they make it badly. It is true that in the decades in which India was ruled imperiously by the Congress, the task of writing history textbooks was allotted to Leftist historians who chose to view India’s past through a distorted lens. The most celebrated of these historians, , has gone so far as to deny that Muslim invaders destroyed the temples of us idolatrous infidels. Undoubtedly, if she were writing about more recent history, she would deny that the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan — and would say that they fell to pieces of their own accord. In the interests of ‘secularism’, most Indian schools and colleges provide only limited courses for the study of ancient India, and Sanskrit literature. So the vast majority of Indian children grow up with a sense of being Indian that is restricted to a religious identity. When this gets infused with a toxic sort of nationalism, as happens in RSS educational institutions, the result is bigotry of a lethal kind."

"In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi lost the election because he was seen as corrupt by ordinary, rural Indians who made up ditties about the ‘son-in-law of Italy’. The Congress party has never explained why the best friends of Rajiv and his wife, Mr and Mrs Quattrocchi, were bribed in this deal. Nor has there been a credible explanation for why Rajiv did not make public the names of those bribed in this deal, even after Bofors officials came to Delhi and offered to give them.... whoever advised the Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) to continue charging Modi with corruption should have reminded him that the ghost of Bofors still lurks in the shadows of 10 Janpath."

"If this was indeed the plan it unraveled early that morning when a Belgian Indologist and Hindutva sympathizer called Koenraad Elst had to be sent home in disgrace because of his remark on Islam. It was not what he said about Islam that was wrong so much as the offensive manner in which he said it... A Muslim diplomat stood up halfway through Elst's speech and walked out. Ram Madhav, who was seated in the front row, intervened and the session was abruptly ended.... The next thing we knew was that Elst had been put back on a flight back to Belgium. The conference was intended to create a new idea of India but definitely not one in which there would be no room for Muslims."

"Now the problem with that theory in my opinion as a First Amendment lawyer who has been doing this for 25 years is that what you’re really saying is that a successful private company is converted into public property and regulated by the government because it is so successful and ubiquitous. And I think that’s an argument conservatives need to think carefully about. Do we really want every private company that’s successful and that has a lot of market share to be called public property for the purposes of regulation and subject to all the regulations that occur, not just the First Amendment but a bunch of other regulations. I think that’s a big question mark."

"We see the same lack of critical thinking and inconsistency in our privacy with regard to government spying and Fourth Amendment and search and seizure issues. There are a number of issues where Americans — and I have to say conservatives — are like sheep, and they’re sheep being led to the slaughter without critically examining what it is that the government is doing and what it is that their government is allowing big corporations that are "too big to fail" to do to us. This is no different than the mortgage crisis, and some other crises in our country where some companies are just too big to fail, and they have spread so much money in so many people’s pockets on both sides of the aisle that there’s nobody left to speak for the consumers."

"Comfort zones, after all, are the enemy of growth."

"Unhappiness is simply when the picture in your head doesn’t match the picture in front of you."

"“I have not a particle of confidence in thee. I was forced to engage in the combat and fought to the utmost of my ability. When an affair passeth beyond the region of diplomacy, it is lawful to have recourse to the sword. If thou come to the village of Kangar, we shall have an interview. Thou shalt not run the slightest danger on the way, for the whole tribe of Bairars are under me. I am a slave and servant of the King of kings and ready to obey His order with my life. If thou hast any belief in God delay not in this matter. It is thy duty to know God. He never ordered thee to annoy others. Thou art seated on an Emperor’s throne; yet how strange are thy justice, thine attributes and thy regard for religion! Alas, a hundred times also! for thy sovereignty! Strange, strange, is the decree! Smite not anyone mercilessly with thy sword, or a sword from on high shall smite thyself. O man, be not reckless, fear God. He is the Emperor of earth and heaven. He is the creator of all animals from the feeble to the strong elephant. He is the Protector of the miserable, and destroyer of the reckless. What though my four sons were killed? I remain behind like a coiled snake. What bravery is it to quench a few sparks of life? Thou art merely exciting a raging fire. I will not enter thy presence, nor travel on the same road with thee, but if God so will it, I will proceed against thee. When thou lookest to thine army and wealth. I look to God’s praises. Thou art proud of thine Empire, while I am proud of the Kingdom of the Immortal God, Be not heedless; this caravanserai is only for a few days. People leave it at all time. Even though thou art strong, annoy not the weak. Lay not the axe to the Kingdom.”"

"Khushwant Singh notes with a certain disappointment that even when the Sikhs carved out a state for themselves, they did not separate from Hinduism: 'The Sikhs triumphed and we had Ranjit Singh. You may feel that here at long last we had a Sikh monarch, and the Khalsa would come into their own. Nothing of the sort happened. (...) Instead of taking Sikhism in its pristine form, he accepted Hinduism in its brahminical form. He paid homage to Brahmins. He made cow-killing a capital offence'. ... Further, he donated three times more gold to the newly built makeshift Vishvanath temple in Varanasi than to the Hari Mandir in Amritsar. He also threatened the Amirs of Sindh with an invasion if they didn't stop persecuting the Hindus. ..."

"Govind Rai, the tenth and last guru (1676 — 1708) and the only son of Tegh Bahadur, was a man of whom it had been prophesied before his birth that ‘’he would convert jackals into tigers and sparrows into hawks." He was not the person to leave his father’s death unavenged. [...] Govind steadily drilled his followers, gave them a distinctive dress and a new oath of baptism... “Mother dear, I have been considering how I may confer empire on the Khalsa. ’ ’ And, again, “I shall make men of all four castes lions and destroy the Mughals.’’"

"Someone worshipped stone and placed it on his head. Someone hung the phallus (lingam) from his neck. Someone visualized God in the South and someone bowed his head towards the West. Some fool worships the idols and someone goes to worship the dead. The whole world is entangled in false rituals and has not known the secret of God. [30]."

"He worshipped as much in Hindu temples as he did in gurudwaras. When he was sick and about to die, he gave away cows for charity. What did he do with the diamond Kohi-noor? He did not want to give it to the Darbar Sahib at Amritsar which he built in marble and gold, but to Jagannath Puri as his farewell gift. When he had the Afghans at his mercy and wrested Kashmir from them, he wanted the gates of the temple of Somnath back from them. Why should he be making all these Hindu demands? Whatever the breakaway that had been achieved from Hinduism, this greatest of our monarchs bridged in 40 years."

"Someone is Hindu and someone a Muslim, then someone is Shia, and someone a Sunni, but all the human beings, as a species, are recognized as one and the same. [2|15|85]"

"On reaching the fort, Banda Singh, Baj Singh, Fateh Singh and other leaders were packed off to the Tripolia prison. Banda Singh’s wife, his four-year-old son Ajai Singh and the child’s nurse was handed over to the harem. The remaining 694 Sikhs were sent away for execution that began from 5 March 1716 in batches of hundred every day, going on for a week. Life was promised to anyone who chose to renounce his faith and embrace Islam, but not one among the 700 opted for it or sought pardon.26 As William Irvine states: ‘All observers, Indian and European, unite in remarking on the wonderful patience and resolution with which these men underwent their fate. Their attachment and devotion to their leader was wonderful to behold. They had no fear of death, they called the Executioner Mukt, or the Deliverer, they cried out to him joyfully, “O! Mukt! Kill me first.”’"

"Before he died, Guru Govind Singh had commissioned Banda Bairagi, a Rajput from Jammu to go to the Punjab and punish the wrong-doers. Banda more than fulfilled his mission. He was joined by fresh formations of the Khalsa and the Hindus at large gave him succour and support. He roamed all over the Punjab, defeating one Muslim army after another in frontal fights as well as in guerilla warfare. Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singh's younger sons had been walled up, was stormed and sacked. The bullies of Islam who had walked with immense swagger till only the other day had to run for cover. Large parts of the Punjab were liberated from Muslim despotism after a spell of nearly seven centuries. The Mughal empire, however, was still a mighty edifice which could mobilize a military force far beyond Banda's capacity to match. Gradually, he had to yield ground and accept defeat as his own following thinned down in battle after battle. He was captured, carried to Delhi in an iron cage and tortured to death in 1716 A.D. Many other members of the Khalsa met the same fate in Delhi and elsewhere. The Muslim governor of the Punjab had placed a prize on every Khalsa head. The ranks of the Khalsa had perforce to suffer a steep decline and go into hiding."

"Banda Singh was impelled by the purest of motives in consecrating himself for the liberation and independence of his people and was an embodiment of selflessness. He always lived up to the principles: ‘Wishing the advancement of the Panth, walking in the path of dharma, fearing sin, living up to truth,’ as enjoined by Guru Govind Singh, who never considered lying, intrigue and treachery as part and parcel of politics ."

"When in 1716 Banda Bahadur with his 740 followers was given by Farrukh Siyar the choice between Islam and death, they all died to a man rather than become Musalman."

"One paper after another highlighted some quotes from contemporaneous writers in praise of Aurangzeb. These are easy to find, as he had the last say over their success or marginalization, even over life and death. On Stalin too, you can easily find many contemporary sources praising him, and then silly academics concluding therefrom that he can’t have been so bad. Thus, one of the sources was Guru Govind Singh’s Zafar Namah or “victory letter”. If you quote it selectively, you might think he was an admirer and ideological comrade of Aurangzeb’s. But the Guru was strategically with his back against the wall and had to curry favour with the man holding all the cards. So he wrote a diplomatically-worded letter and held his personal opinions to himself (and here is one case where personal relations must have trumped ideology). It is entirely certain, and academics cover themselves with shame if they cleverly try to deny it, that Govind hated Aurangzeb from the bottom of his heart. Aurangzeb was responsible for the murder of Govind’s father and all four sons. Any proletarian can understand that in private, Govind must have said the worst things about Aurangzeb. You have to be as silly or as partisan as a South Asia scholar to believe that the Guru meant to praise Aurangzeb. [...] I heard an “academic” describe how contemporary Hindi writers praised Aurangzeb, the dispenser of their destinies. Well, many eulogies of Stalin can also be cited, including by comrades fallen from grace and praising Stalin even during their acceptance speeches of the death penalty; but it would be a very bad historian, even if sporting academic titles, who flatly deduces therefrom that Stalin a benign ruler. Govind Singh’s “Victory Letter” to Emperor Aurangzeb was, in all seriousness, included among the sources of praise, leaving unmentioned that Aurangzeb had murdered Govind’s father and four sons. Every village bumpkin can deduce that Govind hated Aurangezb more than any other person in the world, and that he was only being diplomatic in his writing because of the power equation. Academics laugh at kooks who believe in aliens, but it took an academic, no less, to discover an alien who actually admired the murderer of his father and sons."

"Guru Govind Singh (...) sought inspiration from the deeds of martial Hindu deities like goddesses Chandi, Sri and Bhagwati."

"In the entire range of Sikh history, the account of Banda Singh Bahadur has remained almost an enigmatic phenomenon for the historians. Most scholars have not been able to perceive how an ascetic of some credibility, engaged in exercise of occult powers made an instant decision of joining the Khalsa-fold after a short but fateful meeting with Guru Gobind Singh in his own hermitage."

"The entry of Banda Bahadur and his Sikhs into Delhi is better articulated with greater detail by a number of eyewitnesses. One Muslim eyewitness had gone to see the procession of the Sikh prisoners and recorded what he saw: On this day I had gone to see the tamasha [spectacle] as far as the Mandavi-i- Namak [Salt Market] and had thence accompanied the procession to the Qilah-i-Mubarik [Imperial Fort]. There was hardly any one in the city who had not come out to see the tamasha or to enjoy the show of the extirpation of the accused ones [Sikhs]. Such a crowd in the bazaars and lanes had been rarely seen. And the Musalman could not contain themselves tor joy. But those unfor- tunate Sikhs, who had been reduced to this last extremity, were quite happy and contented with their tine; not the slightest sign of dejection or humility was seen on their faces. In tact, most of them, as they passed along on their camels, seemed happy and cheerful, joyfully singing the sacred hymns of their Scripture. And, if any one from amongst those in the lanes and bazaars called out to them that their own excesses had reduced them to that condition, they quicldy retorted saying that it had been so willed by the Almighty and that their capture and misfortune was in accordance with His Will. And, if any one said, "Now you will be killed," they shouted, "Kill us. When were we afraid of death? Had we been afraid of it, how could we have fought so many battles with you? It was merely through starvation and for want oftood that we fell into your hands, otherwise you know already what deeds we are capable of.""

"Though you are the king of kings, O Aurangzeb! you are far from righteousness and justice. I vanquished the vicious hill chiefs, they were idol-worshippers and I am idol-breaker. [94-95]"

"When all other methods fail, it is proper to hold the sword in hand. [22]"

"Arun Shourie quotes Govind Singh as declaring: 'Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear. (...) May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.'"

"Though Govind Singh is considered as the founder of the Khalsa order (1699) who 'gave his Sikhs an outward form distinct from the Hindus', he too did things which Sikh separatists would dismiss as 'brahminical'. As Khushwant Singh notes, 'Gobind selected five of the most scholarly of his disciples and sent them to Benares to learn Sanskrit and the Hindu religious texts, to be better able to interpret the writings of the gurus, which were full of allusions to Hindu mythology and philosophy.'"

"Salutation to Him, Who is Primal and Immortal. He hath Created millions of Krishnas like worms. He Created them, annihilated them, again destroyed them, still again Created them. He is Unfathomable, Fearless, Primal, Non-dual and Indestructible. Yonder and Yonder is He, the supreme Lord, He is the Perfect Illuminator. [96]"

"He was a versatile scholar who knew several languages, kept the company of learned Brahmins and composed excellent poetry on varied themes. He had been fascinated by the Puranic story of Goddess Durga particularly in her incarnation as Mahisamardini. He performed an elaborate Yajna presided over by pundits of the ancient lore and invoked the Devi for the protection of dharma. The Devi came to him in the shape of the sword which he now asked some of his followers to pick up and ply against bigotry and oppression.... Soon it became a hallowed tradition in many Hindu families, Sikh as well as non-Sikh, to dedicate their eldest sons to the Khalsa which rightly came to be regarded as the sword-arm of Hindu society."