RIKABGANJ AGITATION (1913-20) marked the Sikh protest against the demolition by the British of one of the walls of the historical Rikabganj shrine in New Delhi. Gurdwara Rikabganj, sacred to the memory of Guru Tegh Bahadur, at present a. splendid marble edifice, was, in the early

SHAHIDGANJ AGITATION (1935-40) marked culmination of the tussle between Sikh and Muslim communities in the Punjab for the possession of a sacred site in Lahore upon which stood Gurdwara Shahidgahj (shahid = martyr, gahj = hoard, treasure or mart) in memory of Sikh martyrs of the eighteenth century and which

DIVALI, festival of lights (from Sanskrit dipamala or dipavali meaning row of lamps or nocturnal illumination), is observed all over India on amavasya, the last day of the dark half of the lunar month of Kartika (October-November). Like other seasonal festivals, Divali has been celebrated since time immemorial. In its

ARMY OF MAHARAJA RANJIT SINGH, a formidable military machine that helped the Maharaja carve out an extensive kingdom and maintain it amid hostile and ambitious neighbours, was itself the creation of his own genius. His inheritance was but a scanty force which, in the manner of the Sikh misldari days,

ANGLOSIKH TREATY (BHYROWAL/ BHAROVAL, December 1846), signed on 16 December 1846 between the East India Company and the minor Maharaja Duleep Singh, provided for a Britishcontrolled regency till the Maharaja came of age. Maharani Jind Kaur, who was acting as regent other son, Duleep Singh, had believed that, as stipulated

ELLEN BOROUGH PAPERS, official and private correspondence and papers of Lord Ellen borough, Governor General of India (1842-44), preserved in the Public Records Office, London. Some of these papers were used by Lord Colchester in his History of the Indian Administration of Lord Ellen borough in His Correspondence with the

MONTAGUCHELMSFORD REFORMS AND THE SIKHS. The first time the elective principle was introduced to choose representatives for legislative bodies in India was with the introduction of the scheme known as Morley Minto reforms of 1909. By then the Muslims had succeeded in persuading Lord Minto, Governor General of India, that

UNITY CONFERENCE, convened on 3 November 1932 at Allahabad by a small group of Hindu and Muslim leaders led by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya and Maulana Shaukat `All, to which were invited delegates representing a broad spectrum of Indian religious communities, interest groups, and political organizations, aimed at drafting agreements

PRASADI HATHI, an elephant trained to perform several unusual feats, was among the presents brought to Guru Gobind Singh by an Assamese chief, Ratan Rai. According to Sikh chronicles, Ratan Rai`s father. Ram Rai had served Guru Tegh Bahadur during his travels across Assam in the mid1660s and received his

RAKHI SYSTEM, the arrangement whereby the Dal Khalsa during the middecades of the eighteenth century established their sway over territories not under their direct occupation. Rakhi, lit. `protection` or `vigilance,` referred to the cess levied by the Dal Khalsa upon villages which sought their protection against aggression or molestation in

CHARYARI SOWARS was the name given to an irregular cavalry regiment in Sikh times. It owed its origin to four friends, or Char (four) Your (friends), who were seen together all the time. Their names were: Bhup Singh Siddhu.Jit Singh, Ram Singh Saddozai and Hardas Singh Bania. They were all