Often we see people romanticizing the idea of Khalistan or being a kharku or being married to a kharku. We put on our Sant Jee shirts, blast songs about AK-47s and jujhaaroos and think we know what it means to be Guru Jee’s soldier.

We don’t. We know nothing about it. We know nothing about the gursikhs who were so consumed with everything that was wrong with the world, that they left their homes in the middle of the night to take up arms with other singhs. We know nothing about the feeling of bullets lodged in between our ribcages and the cops taunting us with even more torture. We know nothing about the darkness in Punjab prison cells, where the only sound is that of your brothers and sisters screaming as they are tortured by the police. We know nothing about the blisters and open wounds. We know nothing about the isolation, the pain and the knowledge that no future day is promised. We know nothing about the decisions that these singhs and singhnia made to throw away easy, simple lives, and instead dedicate their minds, bodies and souls to the Panth. We know nothing of the singhnia who stopped reading bani for themselves, and jap every akhar of bani that escapes from their lips for the chardi kala of their singhs and their families. We know nothing of the wives that couldn’t sleep, night after night, wondering if their singhs were being tortured behind the walls of prison doors. We know nothing of their courage in raising their sons and daughters to follow in their daddy’s footsteps. We know nothing about the tears of watching the gursikhs you live for breathe their last breath. We know nothing about the fearlessness and the undying chardi kala that consumes their souls no matter the circumstances. We know nothing of the realization that the only life worth living is that of a shaheed.

We know nothing of sacrifice. We know nothing of their sacrifices.

we know nothing.

we know nothing. 

What is attachment?

When you can’t imagine life without something? It could be an object or a person.

When if that something goes missing you won’t know what to do anymore?

When without that thing you don’t feel whole?

When we can’t accept that thing is gone?

What is life without attachment?

You’ll be okay with whatever happens to that thing/person.

You will love and care for that thing/person everytime you see it/them.

You understand that this is temporary. It could disappear at any moment.

You understand your life is separate to it/there life. And you exist without them.

How do you overcome attachment?

Every time you see that thing/person love it in that moment.

Accept in that moment that this might be the last time you are doing this.

Accept that anything could happen at any moment and that person could die or you could die.

But give as much love as you can.

Each time you say goodbye recognise that you might not ever see that person again.

Recognise that you had a life before this person or they had a life before you.

Your lives are separate and can be lived out separately.

This doesn’t mean stop caring.

Care and love with all your heart.

Just be aware that at any moment that could disappear.

Make yourself aware of that.

And when it happens you’ll be okay. Because you’ve said your goodbyes already.

You are detached when that change occurs in your life and that thing you love isn’t there anymore and you are okay with it.

You live in acceptance.

Its all part of the game.

Scottish Sikh Jagtar (Jaggi) Singh Johal has been illegally abducted and detained in India without cause or access to legal representation since November 4, 2017. Today, he was presented in court and his legal council confirmed that he has been physically tortured. Jaggi was in Punjab for his wedding, and shortly after, police came in plain clothes and forcibly hooded him from behind and took him away in an unmarked vehicle to an undisclosed location.

The British High Commission failed to secure his release and he has been remanded until November 17th. His legal team has confirmed that he has been tortured and Jaspal Singh Manjhpur described the torture in a SikhSiyasat article: “Jaggi told me that he was tortured physically and mentally as his legs were forcibly stretched beyond limits and he was given electric shots on nipples, ears and genitals.”

This is not something new, but a continuation of the history of abduction, torture, and disappearance of Sikh youth in India. There is a precedence of impunity and extra-judicial murder that has taken thousands of lives.

Jaswant Singh Khalra was a Human Rights advocate who exposed these crimes in the 80s & 90s, toured parliaments around the world and then returned to India where he was abducted, tortured and extra-judicially murdered by Indian officials in 1995. Twenty-two years after the illegal abduction and murder of Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra, Jagtar Singh Johal has been abducted and tortured for exposing Indian state violence and human rights abuses.

Speak out against this perpetuation of minority oppression in India. In the past, India benefited from media and power blackouts that hid the reality of their human rights violations. The internet can now challenge that darkness. Speaking openly about cases like these sheds light upon decades of stories that the Indian government attempted to hide.

Reblog this post, whether or not you are Sikh, and make your own posts with the hashtag #FreeJaggiNow. Your silence in this case will be violence.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” -Elie Wiesel

In the Zafarnama, Guru Gobind Singh’s anger is focused on one thing: Aurangzeb has broken a promise that he made on the Qur’an. He broke a promise to Allah. This is the man who killed all four of his sons, who hunted his followers down to a few hundred in number, who destroyed his Gurdwaras, who took everything that Guru Gobind Singh had except for his love of Waheguru. But in the Zafarnama, the thing that Guru Gobind Singh is angry about is not the things that he has suffered, or the injustices and pains that Aurangzeb has inflicted upon him. What he is angry about is that Aurangzeb committed a crime against Allah: he swore in Allah’s name and broke that promise. Despite all his pain, the Guru is hurt most of all by the affront to the Divine.

And despite it all, Guru Gobind Singh offers forgiveness. He says that he has it in him to forgive all of the pain that he has caused, if Aurangzeb will only come to meet with him and pray alongside him. Every Sikh head on his account will be forgiven if only Aurangzeb will extend the hand of peace and come to pray with the Guru, side by side, as equals in the eyes of Allah. Aurangzeb never did.

I can’t even fathom that. I can’t put myself in that position, where a man has taken everything from me, where the blood of my family and loved ones has been spilt on his account, where the life I knew has been utterly destroyed by one man’s violence, and to say to that man, “Sit with me and pray alongside me.” To still see Waheguru’s light in that man, to offer compassion and forgiveness to that man. I just…I don’t think that’s in me. I don’t think I have that capacity in my spirit to do something like that. I cannot fathom the depth of the Guru’s love and compassion even for his bitterest enemy, even for a man like the Shah, a man who took countless innocent lives.

He even has six stanzas where he praises Aurangzeb for his qualities as a leader. He praises his skill with the blade and his sharp intellect, and his exemplary leadership of his kingdom. One thing stands out in particular to me: The Guru calls him ਸ਼ਹਨਸ਼ਹੇ… Šahanšahe. The king of kings. That’s the same epithet that the Guru uses for Waheguru in Jaap Sahib:

ਇੰਦ੍ਰ ਇੰਦ੍ਰਾਣਿ ਸਾਹੁ ਸਾਹਾਣਿ You are the Indra of all Indras, the King of all Kings.

This man, who took everything from the Guru…the Guru calls him by the same title he has once called Waheguru. Because even despite everything Aurangzeb has done, the Guru sees the Divine presence inside him, as he sees it in all things.

it is necessary that human must fall and becomes melancholic, forget path and get scared, to understand about his lackness, inability, unawareness, and then he feels, need of Lord and His existence.

ਸਿੰਘਨ ਪੰਥ ਦੰਗੈ ਕੋ ਭਇਓ ॥ The nation of Singh’s was created for battle,

ਸਿੰਘਨ ਜਨਮ ਜੰਗ ਸ਼ਸਤ੍ਰਨ ਲਇਓ ॥ The Singh’s take birth from the weapons of war

The way you knew it

How even in the midst of pain

You chose your guru’s happiness

How you would rather be sawn in two

Than to leave your guru’s side

How when you were given one last wish

You spent it on facing your guru

Teach me how to love, the way you knew it