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WHY INDIA MUST KNOW ABOUT BAISAKHI
While the Sikhs celebrate Vaisakhi across India, the rest of India wonders if it is about doing Bhangra and dancing.
No, it is not. Baisakhi holds a lesson for all Indians, especially in this day and age.
So, this day in 1699, in a congregation of people from all across India, stood there listening to their Guru—then Gobind Rai. Gobind Rai asked for the 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.
- 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 the western Arabian Sea to the 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.
Do not forget that at that time, all these were separate states. It was Guru Gobind Singh ji who thought of all of them as one—this Baisakhi day of 1699.
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 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.
This motley group of people uprooted Afghan and Mughal rule from the entire North India—from the Yamuna to the Khyber Pass—such was the power of this vision.
And this was the Indian that he envisioned from the five corners of HIS nation.
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.
Happy Baisakhi
