People must understand the historic significance of Baisakhi of April 1699 for India and humanity
JAMMU: While the Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi across India on April 13, the rest of India wonders if it is all about doing Bhangra and dancing.
No, it is not.
Baisakhi holds a lesson for all Indians.
On this day in 1699, a congregation of people from all across India were standing there in Anandpur Sahib in Punjab listening to their Guru, Shri Guru Gobind Rai.
Guru Gobind Rai Ji asked from the gathering for human sacrifice of five men, one after the other.
Five men from different castes and from different parts of India stood up from the crowd of thousands.
1. A shopkeeper (Baniya) Daya Ram from Lahore.
2. A farmer (Jat) Dharam Das from Meerut.
3. A water carrier (lower caste) Himmat Rai from Jagannath Puri, Odisha.
4. A tailor (Chheemba) Mukham Chand from Dwarka, Gujarat.
5. A barber (Nai) Sahib Chand from Bidar, Karnataka
With his choice of disciples from five different corners of India, Guru Gobind Rai ji visualised the national dream – from the coast of Gujarat along the Arabian Sea to the coast of Odisha along the Bay of Bengal; from the great plains of Punjab to the the Gangetic Plains and then onto the Deccan peninsula covering Karnataka.
Do not forget that at that time, all these were separate states.
It was Guru Gobind Rai ji that thought of all of them as one on this Baisakhi day of 1699.
With the choice of disciples from five different castes and 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.
Guru Gobind Rai ji was now Guru Gobind Singh ji. All caste names and surnames were dropped and a common surname was proposed for all Indians across India; a surname that denoted a caste-less, class-less creed of men willing to sacrifice themselves for the nation and against injustice.
And the swaroop of 5Ks he chose for the class-less people was an amalgamation of the ancient Indian thought of Rishis (as mentioned by Guru Gobind Singh in the Sarbloh Granth) and the Kshatriya tradition of warriors, hence the Jooda (kesh) or the unshorn hair and the kirpan.
The concept of Miri-Piri was coded in the dress-system of this new society envisioned by him. A group of people who were strong in Miri (physical strength and material possessions) and Piri (spiritual strength and humility).
So, the five so-called lower castes were given the temporal strength of a Rishi (a Brahmin citadel till then) and the physical responsibilities of a Kshatriya (a duty till then limited to the Rajputs).
This 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.
And this was the India that Guru Gobind Singh ji envisioned from the five corners of his nation. He 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.
Happy Baisakhi… ???????
This is how the tradition of Panj Piaray started among the Sikhs.
(Courtesy WhatsApp Group called Jammu Narrative)
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