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Summary of Question:	Castes and Amrit Dhari Sikhs
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Sunday, 4/16/2000 12:26 AM MDT

Hi,

We recently celebrated Vesakhi and the birth of Khalsa was celebrated.
We listen to the stories of how Guru Gobind Singh Ji created Khalsa,
how and why the common surname "Singh" was created.

I'm very saddened to see that many Sikhs these days still believe in
different castes eg "Jat, Tarkhan etc". From the Sikh community that I
know, atleast 60% or more are very particular about their castes and
mostly try to marry within their castes etc. I can understand that if
our caste is related to our profession, then normally people of similar
backgrounds may get along better than those with different backgrounds.
However what I fail to understand are the views of Sikhs living in Western
countries who are working as professionals. They continue to have very
strong feelings about their caste and like promoting themselves of being
a particular caste.

What irritates me most is when Sikhs who have taken the Amrit, and thus
classify themselves as very pious Sikhs continue to feel very strongly about
their castes. From what I understand, this totally defies the whole Sikhi
and Khalsa concept! Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My question is why don't we introduce a concept such that whoever wishes to
take the Amrit needs to have "Singh or Kaur" as the ONLY surname? ie it be
made compulsory for them to drop their "caste" surname if they have one. Although this may not change their inner beliefs at least we will be trying to
address this issue instead of just preaching without practice that we have no
castes.

Regards,
Preeti

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Reply
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You make very solid points. There are many people who feel the same. But the brahminical caste system is so entrenched in the Indian society that it will not go away easily. We have to keep bringing it up an an issue and people need to stop using their last names and very gradually, we will start to see a change.