“BARAH BAJ GAYE”

 Hey, have you heard one of the lamest jokes about somebody who protects and fought for someone’s dignity, “Aree Sardarji aapke barah baj gaye”; a remark that intends to imply that sardars go into a ‘mad’ mood at midnight? Almost every Sikh go through this situation once in their lifetime. But do you know what the reason behind this is? The story behind this is that the Mughal dominion over Hindustan during the 17th century, the people were humiliated and treated as animals. Mughals thought that Hindu women were their property, pushing all Hindus to join Islam and even killing individuals who refused to convert to Islam. It all started when some Kashmiri Pandits asked our Ninth Guru, Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Ji, to step forward to help and lead the fight against all these cruel practices, and for the sake of them, he had sacrificed his life. After learning about this incident, our 10th Guruji, Sri Guru Gobind Singhji (son of Guru Teg Bahadur Ji), decided to create THE SIKH, a person who could not hide and could be easily found among thousands of people. At the start, the Sikhs were very less in numbers.

Even though they were fighting against the Mughal emperors at first, the Sikh army was quite small, but they were brave and attacked them at midnight and saved women. Following that, whenever a similar incident occurred, people began to ask the Sikh army for assistance, and Sikhs began to attack them at midnight. It gained a reputation that fighting against Sikhs at midnight, or almost at midnight, is very challenging because the Sikhs have extra strength to protect their religion, nation, and humanity. At midnight, nobody can beat them or win in any fight; this is still the case today. Nowadays, these so-called intelligent people and some Sikh enemies who fear Sikhs have spread the rumor that Sikhs lose their senses at midnight. The attacks were so brutal that the Muslims started to fear the Sikh attacks that they expected to happen at noon, midnight, or midnight. The phrase “Sardaron ke barah baj gaye” was first used by these Mughals. The irony is that the ones who were saved are mocking the rescuers. What pathetic thinking. People with this mindset always portray a negative self-image and values and a lack of understanding of their rich history, which causes them to feel unnecessarily insecure. If people adopt this type of attitude, then they are providing great hate to their community. People who truly serve God, Waheguru, Bhagwan, or Allah spread love and joy instead of spreading hate and grief.

Maganjit Kour

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