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This transformation of Sikhism had been started already, though in a small way, by Guru Har Govind. The tenth Guru, Govind Singh, completed the process when he founded the Khalsa (Party of the Pure) in 1699 A.D. He was a versatile scholar who knew several languages, kept the company of learned Brahmins and composed excellent poetry on varied themes. He had been had been fascinated by the Puranic story of Goddess Durga, particularly in her incarnation as Mahisasuramardini. He performed an elaborate Yajna presided over by pandits of the ancient lore and invoked the Devi for the protection of dharma. The Devi came to him in the shape of the sword which he now asked some of his followers to pick up and ply against bigotry and oppression. Those who could muster the courage and dedication to die in defence of dharma were in- vited by him to become members of the Khalsa by wearing the five emblems of this heroic order--Kesh (unshorn hair) Kangha (comb), Kada (steel bracelet), Kachha (shorts) and Kirpan (sword). A new style of initiation termed pahul was ordained for this new class of Sikh warriors--sipping a palmful of water sweetened with sugar and stirred by a double- edged sword. Every member of the Khalsa had to add the honorofic Singh (lion) to his name so that he may be distinguished from the non-Khalsa Sikhs who could continue with their normal attire and nomenclature. No distinction of caste or social status was to be recognised in the ranks of the Khalsa.
The Khalsa was not a new religious sect. It was only a martial formation within the larger Sikh fraternity,, as the Sikhs themselves were only a sect within the larger Hindu society. It was started with the specific mission of fighting against Muslim iryranny and restoring freedom for the Hindus in their ancestral homeland. Soon it became a hallowed tradition in many Hindu families, Sikh as well non-Sikh, to dedicate their eldest sons to the Khalsa which rightly came 'to be regarded as the sword-arm of Hindu society.'
Guru Govind Singh was forced to fight against a whole Muslim army before they could consolidate the Khalsa. His two teen-aged sons courted matyrdom along with many other members of the Khalsa in a running battle with a fully equipped force in hot pursuit. His two other sons who were mere boys were captured and walled up alive by the orders of a Muslim governor after they refused to embrace Islam. The Guru himself had to go into hiding and wander from place to place till he reached Nanded town in far-off Maharashtra. He was murdered by a Muslim fanatic to whom he had granted an interview inside his own tent. But the mighty seed he had planted in the shape of the Khalsa was soon to sprout, grow speedily and attain to the full stature of a strong and well-spread-out tree.
Before he died, Guru Govind Singh had commissioned Banda Bairagi, a Rajput from Jammu to go to the Punjab and punish the wrong-doers. Banda more than fulfiled his mission. He was joined by fresh formations of the Khalsa and the Hindus at large gave him succour and support. He roamed all over the Punjab, defeating one Muslim army after another in frontal fights as well as in guerilla warfare. Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singh's younger sons had been walled up, was stormed and sacked. The bullies of Islam who had walked with immense swagger till only the other day had to run for cover. Large parts of the Punjab were liberated from Muslim depotism after a spell of nearly seven centuries.
The Mughal empire, however, was still a mighty edifice which could mobilize a military force far beyond Banda's capacity to match. Gradually, he had to yield ground and accept defeat as his own following thinned down in battle after battle. He was captured, carried to Delhi in an iron cage and tortured to death in 1716 A.D. Many other members of the Khalsa met the same fate in Delhi and elsewhere. The Muslim governor of the Punjab had placed a prize on every Khalsa head. The ranks of the Khalsa had perforce to suffer a steep decline and go into hiding.
The next upsurge of the Khalsa came in the second half of the Century. The Marathas had meanwhile broken the back of Mughal power all over India and the Mughal administration in the Punjab had distintegrated speedily. A new Muslim invader, Ahmad Shah Abdali, who tried to salvage the Muslim rule, had to give up after several attempts from 1748 to 1767 A.D. His only satisfaction was that he demolished the Harimandir and desecrated the sacred tank with the blood of slaughtered cows, two times in a row. But the Sikh and non-Sikh Hindus rallied round the Khalsa again and again and rebuilt the temple every time.
The Khalsa had a field day when Abdali departed finally from the scene. By the end of the century, Muslim power evaporated all over the Punjab and several Sikh principalities came up in different parts of the province. The strongest of them was that of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1783-1839 A.D ) who wiped out the Muslim rule from Kashmir and the North West Frontier as well. He would have conquered Sindh and Afghanistan also but for the steam- roller of British imperialism which took over his farflung kingdom as well, soon after his death.
The British had conquered India through their superiority in the art of warfare. They could not hope to hold such a big country by means of military might alone. They had to devise policies of devide any rule. The residues of Islamic imperialism had become their allies quite early in course of the conquest. Now they had to contend with the national society constituted by Hindus. It became the main plank of their policy, therefore, to fragment Hindu society and pit the pieces against each other. At the same time, they tried to create pockets of solid support for their regime in India. One such pocket was provided by Sikhs.
The British planned and put into operation a move to separate and seal off the Sikh community from its parent Hindu society by converting it into a distinct religious minority like the Muslims and the Christians. Tutored Sikh theolgians and scholars were patronised to make them pronounce that Sikhism was a decisive departure from Hinduism, the same as Christianity was from Judaism. The labours of Christian missionaries and the timings of Western Indology were mobilized in order to achieve this end.
