WHY INDIA MUST KNOW ABOUT BAISAKHI

While the Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi/Vaisakhi across India; rest of India wonders if it is about doing Bhangra and dancing.

No, it is not; Baisakhi holds a lesson for all Indians…… Specially in this day and age…It is a day of national unity and a message of a classless society 👇

   On this day in 1699, in a huge congregation of people from across India...standing there listening to their Guru, the then, Gobind Rai. 

Gobind Rai asked for human sacrifice of five men. Five men from different castes from different parts of India courageously stood up, one by one, from the crowd of thousands.

• A shopkeeper, Baniya called Daya Ram from Lahore
• A farmer, Jat called Dharam Das from Meerut
• A so called low-caste water carrier, called Himmat Rai from Jagannath Puri, Odisha
• A tailor,of Cheemba caste called Mokam Chand from Dwarka, Gujarat
• A barber, of Naai caste called Sahib Chand from Bidar, Karnataka

With his choice of disciples from five different corners of India, Gobind Rai ji visualised the national dream… from the coast of Gujarat along Western Arabian Sea to coasts of Odisha along the Bay of Bengal; from the great Plains of Punjab to the Gangetic Plain and then onto the Deccan peninsula covering Karnataka.

With the choice of disciples from five different caste-groups, he visualised an integrated class-less society.

The five were christened as the First Five Khalsa Sikhs, and the five in turn christened their Guru as the sixth.

Gobind Rai was now Gobind Singh ji.

All caste names and surnames were dropped, and a common surname SINGH* was proposed for all across India; a surname that denoted a caste-less, class-less creed of men willing to sacrifice themselves for the country and against injustice.

This motley group of people uprooted Afghan and Mughal rule from entire North India from the Yamuna to the Khyber pass, such was the power of this vision.

Guru Gobind Singh ji was a visionary par excellence. His vision has been diluted and limited to Sikhism, that is a travesty.

Awake India, awake to his vision. Leave those caste barriers, acquire knowledge, be strong in body and be a Khalsa in spirit. Khalsa is a state of mind, not just a religion.

Author: Pearl Jasra