Sikh Rajputs: Difference between revisions

There are many Sikhs or followers of Sikhism today who call themselves "Sikh Rajputs".

Punjabi Hindus hold Sikhism in high regard, many Punjabi Hindus not only in India but worldwide today visit their local Gurudwaras regularly and adhere to the preaching’s of the Guru Granth Sahib. Sikhism is traditionally seen as a religion of warriors who were protectors of Hindus against marauding Islamic invaders who seeked to convert Hindus to Islam by lethal force.

There has been a long standing practice in Punjab which still continuous [citation, evidence is needed] where Hindu families give their first born son to the Guru to be baptized as a Sikh and join the Guru’s army of protectors. Many Punjabi Rajput families too have been giving their sons to be enrolled in the Guru’s Army and baptized as Sikhs. Thus there are many Hindu, Punjabi Hindu Rajput and Punjabi Hindu Mair Rajput families whose kin are proud followers of Sikhism today. Thus there are many Sikhs who call themselves "Sikh Rajputs" today and still use Rajput family names. citation needed: Usually Hindu Khatri families raised their first born as a Sikh, not Hindu's in general.

Sikhism eliminated caste based differences and so Sikhs of one background or the other cannot find any religious basis for differentiation or caste affiliation. Despite casteism being anti-Sikh, some people insist on differentiation based on this paradigm. Sikhs themselves do not regard themselves as being protectors of Hindus, but rather ready to protect society from tyrannical, oppressive forces. [see www.Sikhs.org]

As for Rajput history, there are many villages that converted to Sikhism mostly in central Punjab districts of Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Faridkot, Moga, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur. There are many Sikh Rajputs with common Rajput surnames such as Chauhan, Parmar, Doad, Rathore, Minhas, Bhatti etc. spread across many villages in Punjab.

Many have intermarried Jats because of small numbers of their own community due to forced mass conversions of Rajput landlords in Punjab plains to Islam in the medieval times , for example the Manj Rajputs of Patti were uprooted for refusing to convert and migrated to Nakodar and Raikot where they were finally forced or coerced to convert and given back their Jagirs. The ones that intermarried with Jats have overtime become a part of Jat caste and many Jat last names are the same as Rajputs such as Bahtti, Chauhan and Parmar also a lot of well-known Jat clans have their ancestry in major Rajput clans e.g Gill, Dhillon, Waraich, Goraya, Sohal all have some Rajput ancestry. Some [[Rajputs from the Western Punjab especially from Sialkot, Gujrat and Sargodha districts migrated to Jalandhar Doab during the Muslim rule to escape conversion and are concentrated around the Adampur, Bhogpur, Mahilpur belt. Also there is large concentration of their kith and kin around Patiala and Rajpura.

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Sikh Minhas Rajputs