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Summary of Question:	Nirankari's Are Sikhs
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Monday, 12/01/2003 11:11 PM MST

I have done great research on this group since my last post. I was in India for 3 months and was able to access the government archives located in the Delhi library. The interesting fact is that the Sant Nirankaris are in fact sikh, the recent tone of " not being a religion" was after the assassination of Baba gurbachan singh in 1980. It is also interesting to note that thousands of sikhs were saved by the nirankaris in the 1984 riots. If a person was a true nirankari prior to 1980 they actually had adopted sikhism and repected the nirankari leader as ateacher rather than a guru. I am giving you direct government accounts from the archives that anyone can access in the delhi central library. After the death in 1980 the new baba ji wanted peace so he tried to generalize the movement into a mission rather than specifically use sikh scripture. I am a die hard sikh and I went to Nirankari colony with my questions and you would not believe what I saw, I went to the colony and of all people I saw there were 80% with turbans, it felt as if I was in punjab. They gave me the utmost respect and quite openly stated that they follow the teachings of the guru granth sahib. Unfortunately for the 1978 incident I now feel that it would be so much better if we had unity with our nirankari sikh brothers, after all they do believe in the same teachings of our 10 gurus although they are much more moderate and do have a living teacher. If you have any questions please let me know because I can find a detailed answer and respond. In regards to the official stance, I was told that a deal was hatched out with the akalis in the 80's because so many sikhs were going to the nirankari sangats. If you are from punjab you will see that all of the cities and major villages have nirankari worship centers everywhere, and they are full of our singhs.

a true khalsa,
Jarnail Singh Brar

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REPLY
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Sat siri akaal. Most religious scholars would say Nirankari's are a SECT of Sikhism, but not part of the Sikh mainstream, because they regard their Sant as THE GURU, rather than Siri Guru Granth Sahib, although they definitely treat SGGS with respect.
-DKK