HOW EUROPE IS INDEBTED TO THE SIKHS ? - Global Sikh Studies

y Beant Singh and K.P. Gill in the Sikh homeland stopped initiation
movement in the Punjab.
A Sikh must not dye his/her hair, beard or moustache. This act
is liable to religious punishment. Similarly, a Sikh must not pluck
white/grey hair from any part of his body. It is a misconceived notion
that dying hair can conceal one's age. Nor it is true that a black-haired
or dark-brown haired person is [or looks) stronger or younger. Those
who dye their white hair are, in fact, mentally weak persons who don't
want to accept their seniority. Strictly speaking, one who dyes one's
hair to conceal age is not worth credibility as he can try to deceive
others in any other situation, under any other garb, in any other
manner, with another excuse. Concealing, deceiving, cheating are a
general way of behaviour.
A European writer, while commenting upon the Sikhs' hair and
beards, once said "the best appearance of a nice man on this earth is a
Sikh with untrimmed beard." He further said, "the worst appearance of
a person is a Sikh who has insulted his beard."
A look at the histories of different religions shows ,a
remarkable factor common to all the religions. The founders of all the
religions of the world kept unshorn hair. Moses, Christ, Mohammed,
Buddha, all kept unshorn hair. All the great philosophers, scientists
and intellectuals keep (even now) unshorn hair. Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Walt Whitman,
Kali Das, Tagore, Acharya Rajneesh, all kept unshorn hair.
According to Christianity and Islam, Adam (according to them
the first man on this earth) was the one with unshorn hair. In Islamic
and European world no one had ever trimmed one's hair till the
beginning of the twentieth century. In Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Greece,
Iraq (then Mesopotamia) no body ever trimmed hair. In Turkey, only
the slaves were not allowed to keep unshorn hair. Shaving hair meant
slavery. The same was die rule in the Hindu world. A sinner or a
criminal was condemned to shaving his beard and cutting his hair. In
Britain, Henry I (1154-89) was the first clean-shaven king. But Henry
HI (1216-1272) started keeping hair again. After the death of Edward
III (1377), the British rulers stopped keeping unshorn hair. By seventh
century, all the Anglo-Saxons used to keep unshorn hair. William I
had issued orders that the ordinary people won't be allowed to keep
unshorn hair as only rulers had a right to keep unshorn hair, as it was a
God-given privilege of the royal family only.
Russia, too, has interesting history about hair. Peter, the
Russian king, in 1705, levied a tax on those who wanted to keep
unshorn beard. Queen Catherine finally withdrew this tax.
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