"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. ... By any standard, Ranjit Singh was a Hindu ruler: '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.' .... 'Guru Govind Singh (...) sought inspiration from the deeds of martial Hindu deities like goddesses Chandi, Sri and Bhagwati.(...) the dividing line between Hindus and Sikhs remained extremely thin. (...) Many Hindu families brought up one of their sons as a kesadhari Sikh and Hindus and, Sikhs in urban areas continued to give their children in marriage to each other.'"