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HOW TO HELP SIKLIGAR SIKHS??????????

I have been in contact with two organizations working for the upliftment of sikligar sikhs,namely AKHAR-SOH in maharashtra and SEWAK WELFARE SOCIETY.

CRORES AND CRORES AND CRORES are being spent on building Gurdwaras but what if these are almost empty except for one or two days in a year.

I admit that the indian government and the indian people have always discriminated against the sikhs inspite of the fact that our community is the most helping community when it comes to helping other communities .For example,we can consider the fact that the 2 crore sikh population in india serves LANGAR(free food) to 50 lakh people and that too daily.

SIKLIGARS were the people who used to manufacture deadly arms for the army of GURU GOBIND SINGH JI and were a major reason in the victory of sikh army against mughal army who used to be 10 times in numbers.No doubt, the sikh army consisted of the bravest soldiers the earth has ever had,but the weapons created by the SIKLIGARS were equally responsible in the victory of the sikh army everytime.

And today,we sikhs are not helping them and many sikhs dont even consider them SIKHS.

More than 35 organizations are working for their cause at more than 200 places.But this task is arduous because the SIKLIGARS are two crores in numbers in India.

STATUS REPORT:

Sewak Welfare Society has adopted 7 villages in Western U.P. and still 52 villages are left just in Western U.P.

Akhar-Soh has adopted 11 villages in Maharashtra and still 35 villages are left to be covered in that state.

They are lacking in moneypower and moreover,manpower.

OTHER ORGANIZATIONS: Scottish Sikh counsel Scotland, Trust for Vanjaras and other Weaker sections, Chandigarh, Guru Angad Vidiak and Bhalai Counsel Ludhiana, Akhar SOH Sholapur, Karnatka Sikh Welfare Society, Nishkam Sewa Trust, Satnam Foundation Chhatisgarh, Gurmat Gian Missionary College, Ludhiana, Poorvi Bharat Sikh Mission,UP Sikh Mission, Nagpur Sikh Mission, Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle Mumbai, Guru Granth Sahib Study centre Trust Cheenai, Sikligar Sikh educational Loan Fund, Forum for Forgotten Sikhs in the south; In Calcutta Agrahari Sikh Samaj, Gursikh Jatha, Chiraag Club, Guru Tegh Bahadur Sewa Samiti, Kalgidhar Club have been looking after the interests of Agarhari Sikhs and other Sikh Tribes in Bengal and Bihar. The task of developing them is too huge. Though large number of organizations are working; but their field of activity. is very limited due to financial and manpower constraints. They are not expected to carry out major improvements unless helped by Government and major NGOs. The entire Sikh nation has to rise to change the poor state of these tribes..

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on June 6, 2012 at 12:38

You can contact the writer of this article at gurpreet.singh123123@gmail.com

or at 9711537909

If you consider yourself a SIKH and actually want to do REAL SEWA ,then please contact me whenever you read this article ,be it after one month or after one year because this work would have to continued till the next ten years .

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Permalink Reply by Amarjit Singh on June 7, 2012 at 10:02

Sikligars, Satnamis, and other tribal Sikhs of India have drifted away from Sikhi and they are not even counted as Sikhs in the Indian census records but still some of them are Keshadharis. Only rich Sikhs who are into welfare of the community ought to come up and help these tribal Sikhs.

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on June 7, 2012 at 11:26

If we talk only about the Sikligar Sikhs ,99 per cent of them are keshdharis and teach their children that:JAAN DE DENGE PAR KESHH NAHI KATVAENGE

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Permalink Reply by Veer Singh on August 10, 2012 at 23:53

Ideal seva would be to make a list of all villages per district, state and a more authentic population figure. Making a list of the villages would be helpfull in the sense that a normal Sikh visiting that area could go and give some monetary support aswell or just give emotional support which is a big thing in itself. Also we need more pictures of these poor Sikhs so Sikhs in western countries can see the sad living conditions themselves. So if you could work on making a list with that information it would be helpfull.

Thanks for bringing up the topic.

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on August 11, 2012 at 7:11

Sat sri akal ji ,

Thanks for replying.

You would be happy to know that we have already done a door to door survey of 52 sikligar sikh villages with number of males , females and children in each of them and the combined total population of these villages is 5700 +.

We certainly share the data with the people who get involved with us but not to everyone as we dnt want this data to go into the hands of radhasoamis or christian missionaries as both of them have influenced the sikligar sikhs in 2 villages .

These villages are about 100 -200 km away from south delhi.

Regarding MORE PICS OF SIKLIGAR SIKHS,you can go to our website www.sikhawakening.com and view the photo gallery .

We are a group of college students who go to their villages every week to volunteer and interact with them and have till now sponsored the education of 62 children of 4 villages in private schools thru our sponsors from australia.

We dont accept donations and rather make the transactions directly between school authorities and the sponsors.

Please visit our website www.sikhawakening.com and view the photo gallery and like our fb page at www.facebook.com/sikhawakening and please send the link of our page to ALL ALL of ur friends as that wud fetch us many likes and hopefully ,some volunteers(till nw he hav got 2 volunteers thru fb).Atleast you can do this seva and create awareness in ur friend circle.

Please come forward and Donate & moreover ,Volunteer for this noble cause as now also only 11 out of 52 villages have been covered.

You can contact me at 09711537909 or at gurpreet.singh123123@gmail.com

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on August 11, 2012 at 7:23

You wud b happy to know that we work in a professional way and have already done the IDEAL SEVA

We have done a survey of 52 villages and have a detailed list with us which we share only with those who get involved with us .

For more pictures of sikligar sikhs ,please visit our website www.sikhawakening.com developed by ourselves and view the photo gallery.

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Permalink Reply by Veer Singh on August 12, 2012 at 11:38

Thanks for the prompt reply. I will certainly try to raise awareness about it amongst friends. Are those villages located near each other?

Have you tried contacting Khalsa Aid, which is a British Sikh organisation, in regards to this matter (the remaining villages)? They are doing some good seva and I also remember a video they made in a Sikligar Tanda.

I have some suggestions which I have in mind since a long time, will mail you them.

At the moment you have only located Sikligars, is anything being done for the Satnamis, Vanjaras, Lobanas, Johris etc? This I am asking from you personally or the organisations you are affiliated to, because I know there is the Vanjara Trust, Scottish Sikh Council etc taking care of the other Sikh tribes but what about you? I feel that you should already start taking surveys about other Sikh tribes near UP, Uttarakhand, maybe even Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan - this would be helpful in case we get massive awareness in our Panth in some years - especially here in the west.

I have also heard of Pachhada Jatts in western UP who had converted to Sikhi but merged back into Hinduism slowly, near Moradabad area, any more information about them?

Unfortunately I can't donate or assist due to personal reasons but will be able to do so from the end of next year. So Sewak Welfare Society doesn't take funds but does the transactions directly to the school authorities etc? How is donating possible?

Keep it up veer

Jithai Neech Samaleean, Tithai Nadar Teri Baksees

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on August 12, 2012 at 12:53

Thanks a lot for replying . see the villages are in different districts like Baghpat ,Hapur,Aligarh,Muzzafarnagar,Moradabad,Saharanpur,Ghaziabad,Meerut,etc.

But the villages in each district are near each other like in baghpat,baraut,etc

See we contacted Khalsa Aid & united sikhs both but both of them replied that they wud takr those projects next year.

Irony is that they are spending 10 crore in kenya and haiti but they dont have even Rs.10,000 for sikligar sikhs.

There is no discrimination from our side we wud certainly help satnami and vanjara sikhs but till now we havent found any village where they live .According to our research we dnt have satnami and vanjara sikhs in WESTERN part of uttar pradesh.

We havent reached Moradabad yet.Its about 250 km away from our house ,so even if we want to do something for the sikligar sikhs of moradabad ,so its just impossible to visit that village once in a month bcoz we are college students and we have a lot of studies to do.

If any one wants to donate then we direct them to the school autoritities or ask for somethhing in kind like copies for the kids,books,shoes,patkas,etc.

In rare cases ,we accept donations thru cheque.

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Permalink Reply by Veer Singh on August 13, 2012 at 0:48

I am facing the same difficulties as you, being a student in Europe. In Moradabad I was talking about Pachada Jatts not Sikligar Sikhs. Madhya Pradesh has about 100,000 Sikligar Sikhs too - Khargone, Barwani, Burhanpur areas. Anyways I do understand that you mainly deal with the Western UP districts. So there are only 5700 Sikligars in Western UP or are there more villages you haven't explored?

Yes, Khalsa Aid is however also working in Punjab (Focus Punjab).

I don't think you are aware about the Pachada Jats, here is some more information about them from internet:

"Pachhada Jats are the Jat people, that are mostly found in the western districts of Uttar Pradesh. There are about 400,000 Pachhada's there. Their biggest concentration is in the Moradabad district where some 785 villages are mostly populated by them. They belong to the Jat caste, but are differentiated from the Hindu Jats of western U.P. by their names 'Pachhade' (from the west) Jats as opposed to the Hindu Jats who are called Deswali (of this land - UP) Jats. Their name is a clue to their origins. According to the author of the Gazetteer of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh ( present U.P ) writing in 1878 these tribes migrated about a hundred years ago into their present areas and settled there. The author also remarks that the language spoken by them is Punjabi and not Hindi.

Although the Pachhadas claim that their ancestors came to U.P. during Banda Singh Bahadur's assault on the Mughal power at Saharanpur in 1711, it is possible that given the approximate date given by the Gazetteer that these Sikhs might have migrated during the great famine of 1783, the so-called Chalisa ( 1783 AD was 1840 in Bikrami calendar ). Whatever their date of settlement they are certainly the descendants of Sikhs. Although they do not keep the 5 K's, they like the Banjaras use the Guru Granth Sahib in their ceremonies. During the 1920s and 1930s there was a great desire amongst them to be accepted as Sikhs and between the 1921 and 1931 census the number of Sikhs in the Moradabad jumped from a mere 231 to 20631 due to the Pachhadas of moradabad registering themselves as Sikhs. Unfortunately these Pachhadas reverted back to Hinduism after 1947. Since the 1930s the U.P. Sikh Mission in active in these areas and there has been some success with regard to their reversion back to Sikhism."

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on August 13, 2012 at 6:13

Sat sri Akal ji

See we have a list of sikligar sikh villages in Moradabad but we have no activities over there as the distance is 200 km so we arent able to do anything over there as we want some persons with honesty andd integrity which we have luckily found in other areas but in moradabad.

Currently we have no knowledge of Pachhadas jats in U.P.

We are in contact with few persons from Madhya Pradesh who are active in sikligar sikh villages over there but their activity is limited to 2-3 villages due to limited manpower and limited moneypower.They are active in villages of Indore.But the areas of madhya pradesh that u mentioned are not being taken care of by any of our organization.But THE TEHELKA magazine has reacched there and have printed a detailed article on Sikligar Sikhs from Madhya Pradesh last week.You can check that from the net.

Regarding the facts given regarding Pachhadas ,let me tell you that there is a huge difference between the facts on the net or in the books AND the actual things in the FIELD.Only the persons active in the field and who do a lot of fieldwork know the actual facts.

One of the things mentioned in the facts is that U.P.Sikh Mission of SGPC is reverting the Pachhadas back to Sikhism .This IS ENTIRELY FALSE.These things are printed and circulated by SGPC so that the sikhs sitting worldwide can think that they are doing a great job.

REALITY:The U.P.Sikh Mission is located in HAPUR district of uttar pradesh.This year we went there to take up two villages USTRA & SADDIQPUR and when we contacted them and went to meet them to ask for their help to come and help in locating and identify more villages and to guide us as they had complete knowledge of the area,THEY REFUSED to come with us and help us.Then we did that fieldwork within 3 days time .Then we requested them to GIVE us a PRACHARAK to teach sikligar sikh kids about sikh history and Punjabi language,they DECLINED inspite of us promising to pay the pracharak on a monthly basis.Then we requested for PUNJABI books ,they DECLINED and told us to write a letter to SGPC.Finally we got the books from Delhi committee.

The facts on the net and the actual facts are different.

In the same way ,They say that work is being done for bringing back the Vanjaras to Sikhism in Nagpur but its FALSE as it cant be done over there as RSS has its headquarters over there and have lacs of Hindus ready to kill Sikhs.

We will certainly start finding about Pachhadass but the thing is that its difficult to work for sikligar sikhs who are complete sikhs as the Hindu people stare at us and dont like our coming to their villages repeatedly.So how its possible to reconvert the Pachhadas back to Sikhism and that too without the support of SGPC and their mission in U.P.

One of our senior members said that this Sikh Mission is not for Prachaar but for STOPPING the Prachaar.All the members of the Mission are just taking salaries from Guru Ki Golak and not doing anything for the Sikligar sikhs leave bringing back the Pachhhads and Vanjaras back to Sikhism

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Permalink Reply by Veer Singh on August 13, 2012 at 17:58

It is nice that you already have a list prepared for areas where you are not doing work yet. What districts have the most Sikligar population? Whats their population in Moradabad? In whole UP?

Can you link the Tehelka article about Sikligars in MP? Its sad that so many areas are still not taken care of by any of our organisations... Soon perhaps.

Thanks for informing me about SGPCs fallacy and corruption - nothing new - they are the Masands of today. You could still start gaining information about the Pachade Jatts and still see how much they still know about Sikhi, for example if they still use the Guru Granth Sahib for their rituals etc. If not it will be even more difficult.

You know there are sometimes villages or Tandas where there are only 5-10 Sikh families, so instead of helping there locally you could also help the moving into a larger Sikh tanda? What do you say? For example if you find a tanda of 7 families you could help them move to a larger Sikh village, by this you won't have to pay tuition, gurdwara building, etc twice (which is happening with some other organisations who are building Gurdwaras in every hamlet of these poor tribal Sikhs)

What about southern Haryana? Any Sikligars there? That is also near you right?

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by GURPREET SINGH on August 13, 2012 at 18:23

Sat Sri Akal ji,

This is my email id :please send me a mail so that i can get ur id and then we can select a common time for video chatting .I can give answers to almost all of your questions.I have sufficient knowledge regarding haryana.In short,there are more than 150 sikligar sikh villages with each having a population of more then 500 members.

Combined Population in districts of Meerut,Muzzafarnagar,Ghaziabad,Baghpat,Hapur = 5000+

Combined population in ABOVE districts + in districts of Aligarh,Moradabad,Saharanpur == 30000+ This is an authentic research done by visiting the villages by one of our members Sardar Vijay Singh aged 70.

Population in Madhya Pradesh =2 lac approx This is also authentic.

Population in Alwar (Sikligar,Mazhbi,Lubana) =2 lac This is authentic research by Shaheed Bhai Mani Singh Seva Society.

Population in India =50 lac out of which only 10 lac are counted as sikhs in census and others as hindu.

I can share much more but only thru gmail video chat.