10/11/2015

Good morning. Four years ago on the eve of the festival of Diwali, I was performing in a Sikh gurdwara with one of my musical mentors. This man represented the last of a 300-year-old tradition of Muslim musicians who were master exponents of traditional Sikh devotional music. After the service, the octogenarian joined us for a meal at my home where he shared memories of his youth. My family learnt a lot about how Diwali was celebrated in pre-partitioned Punjab by many cultures together.
The Sikh narrative of Diwali celebrates with lighting of lamps and singing of Sikh hymns a most joyous occasion from the seventeenth-century: the release of Guru Hargobind. He was unjustly made a political prisoner by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. The guru also demanded the release of 52 Hindu prisoners – but the emperor agreed to release only as many prisoners as could hold on to the hem of the guru's robe whilst walking through the prison door. In an ingenious plan, the guru had a special robe made with 52 long tassels, one for each prisoner to hold on to. The emperor was forced to keep his word and all the prisoners walked free. 
As I’ve discovered through my research into the British Indian Army, Sikhs continued this tradition of bravely standing up for freedom and upholding justice with a significant contribution to the First World War. In the 1911 India Census, Sikhs made up just under one per cent of the population, yet comprised twenty per cent of the British Indian Army at the start of the Great War.
Freedom and justice are universal across boundaries, backgrounds and religions. Let us be brave and ingenious in finding ways to help others at their time of need.