Who are the Sikhs and why did they become fierce warriors

Sikhism appeared in the 15th century among the population of the Punjab plain. ‘Sikh’ means disciple, his mentor is ‘guru’. The first guru was Nanak, he is still revered.

An interesting personality: he grew up in a wealthy family of a tax collector, from childhood he studied works on Hinduism and Islam, he knew four languages. And at the age of 30 he became an ascetic and went to wander. When he went around almost all of India, he returned home and created his own teaching – Sikhism. By the age of 50, Nanak had a following, grew a full beard, and wrote 10 spiritual books. Before his death, he chose the best student and made him the new guru. And so it went – let’s go.

The most famous guru after Nanak is Govind Singh. In 1699, he founded the Khalsa – “The Brotherhood of the Pure” and his own army, all recruits added “Singh” to their name, which means Lion. At that time, the Punjab entered the Mughal Empire, with which the Sikhs categorically disagreed and began an irreconcilable war. And their spiritual teachings turned into a religion of warriors.

A distinctive feature of the Sikhs were chakras – sharp throwing discs. Sikhs spun and threw them up to 50 meters away, and wore them on a huge turban.

But despite the awesome appearance and militancy, the Sikhs still had to submit and enter the Mughal empire. But soon the British appeared and subjugated the whole of India, since then it has become the “pearl of the British Empire”. And if not so poetic – the main cash cow, the British became fabulously rich, but the Indians rolled back almost to the early Middle Ages.

By the way, the British willingly took the locals to the British Indian Army. With its help, they suppressed the protests of the population and maintained order. The White Sahib – the English master – was in charge, and the Hindus carried out his orders. In rare cases, it was necessary to bring in an expeditionary force, this is only if the uprisings took on a really large-scale character.

So the Sikhs also served with the British. For example, they participated in the First World War. Then they were thrown on initially impossible tasks, on this subject there is a film “Recruit Sajan Singh”

Fought in World War II. In one of the operations, the Sikhs evacuated the British and French at the Battle of Dunkirk and were killed almost in full force. In general, they fought desperately, but not for long.

And when the British Empire collapsed, part of the Sikhs went to England – now there are a lot of their descendants. They serve in the army and already sit in parliament. Such is the historical zigzag.