Rajiv Dutta
While the Sikhs celebrate 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 on this (Baisakhi) day and in this age.
On this day in 1699 a congregation of people from all across India was standing there and listening to their Guru – the then Gobind Rai. Gobind Rai asked for human sacrifice of five men one after the other. Five men from different castes from different parts of India stood up out of the crowd of thousands of people and offered themselves as the demanded sacrifice. They were as follows:
- A shopkeeper, a Baniya called Daya Ram from Lahore
- A farmer, a 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 of caste unity of all Indians – his disciples from the coast of Gujarat along Western Arabian Sea to the coasts of Odisha along the Bay of Bengal; from the great Plains of Punjab to the the Gangetic Plain and then onto the Deccan peninsula covering Karnataka. It was the symbol of a united India standing as one.
Let us not forget that at that time all these places were separate states. It was Guru Gobind Singh ji that thought of the unity of all of them as one people. This was on the Baisakhi day of 1699. With the choice of these disciples from five different caste-groups and fifferent regions, he visualised an integrated class-less society of all Indians.
The five were christened as the “First Five Khalsa Sikhs”, and the five in turn christened their Guru as the sixth one. Gobind Rai was now Gobind Singh ji. Since then on all caste names and surnames were dropped for all disciples (Sikh or Shishya) of the Guru and a common surname “SINGH” (lion) was proposed for all Indians across India – this surname denoted a caste-less and class-less creed of men willing to sacrifice themselves for their nation and against the injustice that was sought to be imposed on this nation by Muslim zelot called Aurangzeb.
History is the testimony that this motley group of people uprooted the Afghan and Mughal rule from entire North India from the Yamuna to the Khyber pass. Such was the power of this vision of a united India. This was the India that he envisioned from the five corners of this nation.
Guru Gobind Singh ji was a visionary par excellence. Unfortunately, his vision has been diluted and limited to Sikhism. It is a travesty.
Awake India, awake to his vision. Leave the caste barriers, acquire knowledge, be strong in body and be a Khalsa in spirit. Khalsa is a state of mind and not just a religion.