Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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five K’s or other characteristic of the movement, this view remains
conjectural. For, there is no evidence to suggest that the K’s were
distinct and characteristic Jat features. MczGregor writes of the people
of the Punjab, who opposed Alexander when he crossed the Ravi :
“Some had darts, others spears and axes. No mention is made of bows
and arrows, so generally employed by the Sikhs of the present day, as
weapons of war. No mention is made of the weapons used by the Jats
in their encounters with Mahmood Ghaznavi, Timur and Babar. If the
Kirpan (the sword) was ever used as a weapon by the Jats, Manu had
specified it as Kshatriya’s weapon much earlier, and its used in Indian
history was more conspicuously associated with the Rajputs. Then
why trace the adoption by the Khalsa of this ‘K’ (Kirpan) to the Jat
cultural patterns?
Another important ‘K’ is the Keshas (hair). Alberuni noted that
the Hindus ‘do not cut any hair of the body’. This shows that the
keeping of hair was, if it was, not a Jat peculiarity. Anyhow, the point
is not about keeping the hair as such, but about the sanctity that came
to be attached to them; so that the Singhs would give up their lives
rather than allow these to removed. Rose writes : ‘The only distinctive
Jat cults are tribal…. Among the Hindu and Sikhs Jats, especially of
the north central and central Districts, a form of ancestor-worship,
called Jathera, is common. Sikhism transcends tribal consciousness, is
opposed to all forms of ancestor-worship, and the position of the
non-Jats was not so subservient in the Panth as to enable the Jats to
impose their cultural patterns, if any, on the Panth against Sikh tenets.
In any case, this Jathera-worship can in not way be linked with the
sanctity attached to keeping of hair by the Singhs. Had there been any
substance in this conjectural hypothesis, how would one explain the
total disappearance of these cultural symbols from amongst the non-
Sikh Jats of the Punjab and the neighbouring states? How, during
the days of the general persecution of the Singhs, only the Khalsa
of genuine faith retained their hair at the cost of their lives, while
others, who joined them for temporary gains, had no compunction
to remove these in order to save their skins? How, in the modern
times, the Jats among the Sikhs, comparatively speaking, have become
tax and the non-Jats Sikhs grown strict 42 in their adherence o the these