| | Orion,
Good article, but I did want to correct a misapprehension you had about the Sikhs. They are not pro-Muslim, but were originally founded to combat the Muslims.
When Islam began to carve its bloody way through South Asia (by the very early 13th century,) the big military advantage it had over the native Hindu kingdoms was that every Muslim man could take up a sword for jihad, whereas the Hindus had an elaborate caste system in which only members of the second highest caste were allowed to fight. The best of the Hindu armies were man-for-man better trained and organized than the mobs of Islamic fighters, especially in cavalry, but were overwhelmed by superior numbers. This situation went on for years as Islam seized control of all northern India.
Finally, as Hindus woke up to the military reality, a new sect came into being in northwest India, near the area of initial Islamic penetration. These were Hindus who eliminated the caste restrictions when it came to fighting Muslims. R. R. Colton and Joel Palmer write "The Sikhs, who had originated in the fifteenth century as a reform movement in Hinduism, went to war with the Mogul [i.e. Muslim] emperor in the seventeenth century. They became one of the most ferociously warlike of Indian peoples." [_A History of the Modern World_, 5th ed., 1978, p. 264.] They were one of the forces that stopped Islamic expansion on the subcontinent.
Mutual antipathy developed between pacifistic, vegetarian, orthodox Hinduism on the one hand, and Sikhism, with its sword-swinging, gun-shooting ways, on the other, The Sikhs broke away from Hinduism and claimed to compose a separate religion, though Hinduism continued to consider Sikhism a Hindu sect.
Later, there were groups of Sikhs who required every boy upon reaching manhood to carry a long arm. Upon being confirmed in the faith, each swore an oath "never to speak a word of greeting to a Hindu, and to shoot any Muslim on sight."
To this day, adult male Sikhs are required to carry a ceremonial knife or sword on their persons at all times. (One of the current grievances of American Sikhs is that post-9/11 they are no longer allowed to carry this ceremonial weapon on commercial airplanes.)
In the 19th century, the British Empire in India was saved by Sikh warriors from the Punjab, who rallied to suppress the "Sepoy Mutiny" among the Hindu and Muslim troops of the British East India Company.
In the 20th century, India's socialist Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh members of her own bodyguard.
In the 21st century, British-born Sikh Gurinder K. Chadha co-wrote and directed the greatest sense-of-life motion picture of recent years, "Bend It Like Beckham." In this film, actress Parminder K. Nagra portrays Jesminder K. Bhamra, a young Sikh woman establishing her independence from her tradition-minded parents while coming of age in suburban London. (The prevalence of the initial "K." in the two preceeding sentences is due to all Sikh women having the same middle name: "Kaur", Punjabi for "Princess.")
Okay, that was just a few thoughts on Sikhs through the ages...
-Bill
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