I got some interest and read about the life of Guru Nanak and the other Sikh Gurus. I learnt a lot about the Sikh sacrifices and stories of their courage. It was heart rendering to read about the Guru Tegh Bahadur and his disciples Bhai Mati Das and others who were brutally tortured in Delhi, Chandni Chowk by orders of Mughal emperor Aurnagzeb just because they refused to convert to Islam. Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur was approached by Kashmiri Hindus to save them from the wrath of Aurangzeb who was forcing conversion to Islam or death. To protect them, the Guru asked the emperor to first convert him before asking the Hindus to be converted. Aurangzeb gave the Guru two options, either convert to Islam or show a miracle like a prophet or face death. The Guru refused the first two options saying every human being must have the freedom to practice the faith and religion of his choice and the Islamic way of living is not the only way to reach God. Neither did he accept to perform miracles as they are a way of disobeying Nature's law of natural occurances. He chose to die instead as he had the faith that he is one with the Almighty and losing his body will not affect him. On the Guru's statement, his Disciples, Bhai Mati Das and others also declared that they will prefer dying than changing their religion. On these statements, Aurangzeb had them brutally killed. Bhai Mati Das was sawed in half from head to waist. Another was fried in boiling oil. Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded.
And all this Aurangzeb ordered only on his personal tyrannical beliefs of Islam which were no where found in the religion.
The brutalities from the Muslim emperors, resulted in the Gurus forming the Khalsa to fight and defend their community.
Then I read about the 1975 emergency and the ordering by Indira Gandhi to attack the Golden Temple to arrest Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, many were killed by that shootout. It resulted in the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards. That was even more heart rendering that it resulted in the riots and attack on Sikh families through North India mainly in Delhi and Punjab on the orders of the Congress Party. 25000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi alone and I recall I was 6 yrs old in 1984 when our neighbors house was torched and attacked by Hindu mob, mostly government school students paid and aggravated by Congress party members. I saw a documentary on the Sikh genocide of 1984 on video.google.com which depicted how brutal the massacre was, how everyone ignored the whole process, that it was planned and even the Police was deliberately not taking any actions to prevent it. The documentary also showed the widows of the Sikhs killed in that massacre now running small sewing institutions to support themselves. Their life is destroyed with no purpose left and no one to care for them. I understand that is the reason for the alienation of the Sikh community from the Indian soil when they are settling in Canada and England and asking for a Khalistan. The ironical part is the ministers responsible for executing the genocide operation have been reelected in Delhi ( Sajjan Kumar, J.D.Tytler and Kamal Nath) and no criminal action has been taken against them.
The ideals of the Sikh religion are fabulous and must be taken as a higher form of the Hindu religion with its religious superstitions removed just like Buddhism. Still there is so many differences in the Hindu and the Sikh religion.
The same should be said about Islam, that it has been blackened by the brutalities of tyrannical rulers, and the Sufism from Islam has almost vanished.
