Interactive timeline · 1469 to 2026
Five and a half centuries in 94 moments. Scroll, slide through time or tap the map.
From Guru Nanak's first hymns to the Guru Granth Sahib: two centuries that made a faith
Guru Nanak was born in 1469 at Talwandi, today's Nankana Sahib, west of Lahore. He would go on to teach Ik Onkar, one Creator present in all creation, and to found the Sikh faith.
Did you know? His 974 hymns are preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, including the Japji Sahib.
While living at Sultanpur Lodhi, Nanak vanished during a morning bath in the Bein river, and his clothes were found on the bank. He returned days later and declared: 'There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.'
Did you know? Sultanpur Lodhi was named by Bahlul Khan Lodi, a future Sultan of Delhi, while he was Punjab's governor in 1443.
With Bhai Mardana, a Muslim rabab player, at his side, Guru Nanak set out on long journeys, the udasis. Sikh tradition says they took him east to Assam, south to Sri Lanka, north into the Himalayas and west as far as Mecca and Baghdad, debating yogis, qazis and pandits and singing his message to anyone who would listen. Historians cannot confirm every stop: the janamsakhis that tell these stories were written down long after his death.
Did you know? The best-loved sakhi says that when a man at Mecca angrily turned the sleeping Guru's feet away from the Kaaba, the Kaaba seemed to turn with them: God, the Guru said, is in every direction.
After his travels, Guru Nanak settled beside the Ravi and founded Kartarpur, the first Sikh community. He lived there for 18 years, farming the fields, singing kirtan and sharing langar, until he passed away in September 1539.
Did you know? The shrine is visible from India, and for decades Sikhs gathered at the border just to see it from afar.
Bhai Lehna became Guru Angad, the second Guru, and moved the community to Khadur Sahib near the Beas. Sikh tradition credits him with formalising Gurmukhi, the script Punjabi is written in today, and with organising langar across the community.
Did you know? He set up 'Mall Akhara' wrestling arenas where people trained in exercise and martial arts.
Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, built a centre at Goindwal with a famous 84-step baoli (stepwell). Sikh tradition says that when Emperor Akbar came to meet him in 1567, he first sat on the floor and ate langar with everyone else.
Did you know? Guru Amar Das became Guru at 73 and led the Sikhs until he was about 95.
Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, built a new town around a man-made pool and invited merchants and artisans to settle there. Called Ramdaspur, it grew into Amritsar, named after its sacred sarovar.
Did you know? One account says the land was bought with Sikh donations for 700 rupees from the village of Tung.
Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru, built the Harmandir Sahib in the middle of Amritsar's sacred pool. Work began in the 1580s and the brick shrine was completed in 1589.
Did you know? Popular Sikh tradition, recorded by the SGPC, says Lahore's Sufi saint Mian Mir laid the foundation stone; some historians dispute it.
Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth from the hymns of the first four Gurus, his own and those of saints from Hindu and Muslim traditions. In 1604 he installed it in the Harmandir Sahib, with Baba Buddha as its first granthi.
Did you know? Alongside the Gurus' hymns, it included verses by 17 Hindu and 2 Muslim bhagats (saint-poets).
Arrested on the orders of Mughal emperor Jahangir, Guru Arjan was imprisoned at Lahore Fort and died in custody in 1606. He is remembered as the first Sikh martyr, and Gurdwara Dera Sahib marks the spot.
Did you know? Jahangir's own memoir says he ordered the Guru's execution, irked that he had won over many Hindus and 'even some' Muslims, and had blessed the rebel prince Khusrau. Lahore's Sufi saint Mian Mir, the Guru's friend, is said to have pleaded for him.
The young Guru Hargobind wore two swords, one for miri (worldly power) and one for piri (spiritual authority). Facing the Harmandir Sahib he built the Akal Takht, the 'Throne of the Timeless', still the highest seat of Sikh temporal authority.
Did you know? According to the SGPC, Baba Buddha and Bhai Gurdas built the Akal Takht.
Emperor Jahangir had held Guru Hargobind at Gwalior Fort since 1609. Sikhs remember that when he was freed, 52 imprisoned princes walked out with him, holding on to his cloak.
Did you know? Sikhs celebrate Bandi Chhor Divas, which often falls on Diwali, by lighting up the Golden Temple.
From Kiratpur in the Shivalik foothills, the seventh Guru, Har Rai, tended a garden of medicinal plants and kept the animals he hunted in a zoo instead of killing them. He even gave medical care to the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh.
Did you know? Kiratpur was founded by Guru Hargobind, who based himself there after defeating a Mughal force near Amritsar in 1634.
Guru Har Krishan became Guru at just five, the youngest in Sikh history. In Delhi he went out to care for smallpox victims, caught the disease himself and died before his eighth birthday.
Did you know? The bungalow where he stayed is now Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, one of North India's most famous gurdwaras.
While Guru Tegh Bahadur was travelling in Bengal and Assam, his wife Mata Gujri gave birth to a son in Patna on the Ganges. Named Gobind Rai, the boy spent his first years by the river before the family moved to the Punjab hills, and he became the tenth Guru at nine after his father's execution. The house where he was born is now Takht Sri Patna Sahib, one of the five Takhts, the Sikhs' seats of authority.
Did you know? The five Takhts are the Akal Takht in Amritsar, Kesgarh Sahib at Anandpur, Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo, Patna Sahib, and Hazur Sahib at Nanded.
Sikh tradition says Kashmiri Pandits came to Guru Tegh Bahadur for help against Aurangzeb's persecution, and he chose to defend their freedom of faith. He was publicly beheaded at Chandni Chowk in Delhi, where Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib now stands.
Did you know? Bhai Jaita, later named Bhai Jiwan Singh, carried the Guru's head away so it could be cremated with honour.
At Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Singh asked who would give their head for the faith. Five volunteers stepped forward, became the Panj Pyare, took amrit stirred with a double-edged sword, and then initiated the Guru himself.
Did you know? The first five were Daya Ram, Dharam Das, Himmat Rai, Mohkam Chand and Sahib Chand, all given the title Singh.
Anandpur had been besieged by Mughal troops and the Hindu rajas of the Shivalik hills, who then attacked the Guru's departing column at the Sarsa river. At Chamkaur, Guru Gobind Singh and about 40 Sikhs made a stand against a much larger Mughal force. His elder sons, Sahibzada Ajit Singh and Sahibzada Jujhar Singh, died fighting, and the Panj Pyare ordered the Guru to escape.
Did you know? Sangat Singh put on the Guru's clothes and stayed behind so the Guru could get away. Two Pathan brothers, Nabi Khan and Ghani Khan, are said to have then carried him to safety.
Betrayed and captured with their grandmother Mata Gujri, the Guru's youngest sons, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, were held in Sirhind's cold tower, the Thanda Burj. Though only small children, they refused to give up their faith and were executed on governor Wazir Khan's orders; popular tradition says they were bricked up alive.
Did you know? Sikh tradition remembers three men from that December: Gangu, a former servant, who betrayed them; Nawab Sher Mohammad Khan of Malerkotla, who protested against the sentence in Wazir Khan's court; and the banker Diwan Todar Mal, who paid in gold coins for land to cremate them.
Forty Sikhs who had abandoned the Guru at Anandpur were shamed by Mai Bhago and returned with her to fight. At the pool of Khidrana they held off the pursuing Mughal army; all forty died, and the Guru honoured them as the Chali Mukte.
Did you know? The Guru then stayed at Talwandi Sabo (Damdama Sahib), where the full version of the Guru Granth Sahib was prepared.
Having lost his four sons, his mother and his home at Anandpur, Guru Gobind Singh wrote to Emperor Aurangzeb in Persian verse. The Zafarnama, the 'Epistle of Victory', accuses the emperor's commanders of breaking oaths sworn on the Quran, and argues that when every other means has failed, it is right to take up the sword. Bhai Daya Singh and Bhai Dharam Singh carried it south to the emperor in the Deccan.
Did you know? Aurangzeb died in early 1707, and Sikh tradition says he had asked to meet the Guru. Some scholars, among them Christopher Shackle, doubt the surviving poem is the letter exactly as it was sent.
After Muktsar, Guru Gobind Singh rested at Talwandi Sabo on the edge of the Malwa desert, a place Sikhs call Damdama, 'the breathing place'. Sikh tradition says that here he dictated the full scripture to Bhai Mani Singh, adding his father Guru Tegh Bahadur's hymns to the Adi Granth. This Damdami Bir is the text Sikhs read today; scholars still debate how it was put together.
Did you know? The SGPC recognised Damdama Sahib as the fifth Takht in 1966 and the Government of India did so in 1999, though the Budha Dal Nihangs still dispute its status.
Guru Gobind Singh spent his last days at Nanded on the Godavari, far from Punjab. Before he died on 7 October 1708, he affirmed the Guru Granth Sahib as his successor, ending the line of human Gurus.
Did you know? Takht Hazur Sahib at Nanded was built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh between 1832 and 1837.
Martyrs, massacres and a comeback: the Khalsa fights its way to power
Sent north by Guru Gobind Singh, Banda Singh Bahadur beat the Mughals at Chappar Chiri and stormed Sirhind two days later, where governor Wazir Khan was killed. He made Lohgarh his capital, struck his own coins and gave property rights to the farmers who tilled the land.
Did you know? His men razed Sirhind in revenge and killed Sayyids and Shaikhs at Sadhaura, whose governor had executed Pir Budhu Shah, a Muslim saint who fought for Guru Gobind Singh. Yet a report to Emperor Bahadur Shah in 1711 said about 5,000 Muslims near Kalanaur had joined Banda, free to give the azan and pray.
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How do you see Banda Singh Bahadur's sack of Sirhind?
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After a siege at Gurdas Nangal, the Mughals broke into the starving garrison in December 1715 and captured Banda Singh and his companions. They were taken to Delhi, where Banda was executed in June 1716.
Did you know? Banda had abolished the zamindari (feudal landlord) system in the lands he controlled.
Bhai Mani Singh, the scholar who had written down the scripture at Damdama, was head granthi at Amritsar when he asked Lahore's governor Zakariya Khan to let Sikhs gather for Diwali, for a fee of 5,000 rupees. Warned that troops planned to fall on the crowd, he told Sikhs to stay away, so the money never came. Taken to Lahore and told to accept Islam, the old man refused and was put to death limb by limb.
Did you know? The daily Sikh prayer, the Ardas, honours those who were 'cut joint by joint' for their faith; his samadhi stands in Lahore.
Mughal forces under Lahore's governor Yahya Khan and his minister Lakhpat Rai hunted Sikhs from Lahore and Amritsar into the marshes of Kahnuwan near the Beas. An estimated 7,000 Sikhs were killed, and 3,000 more were captured and later executed.
Did you know? Lakhpat Rai, a Hindu diwan, had vowed to wipe out the Sikhs after his brother Jaspat Rai was killed fighting them; troops of the hill states joined the hunt in the marshes.
Nawab Kapur Singh united scattered Sikh bands into the Dal Khalsa, with a veterans' wing (Budha Dal) and a young fighting wing (Taruna Dal). After the Sarbat Khalsa of 1748 the bands were reorganised into misls, which grew into a confederacy of twelve Sikh states.
Did you know? The word 'misl' comes from an Arabic word meaning 'equal'.
After beating off an Afghan invasion, Lahore's governor Mir Mannu turned on the Sikhs again. Sikh tradition says hundreds of Sikh women were held in his prison, made to grind heavy loads of grain every day on starvation rations, and that their children were killed in front of them when they refused to give up their faith. Contemporary records are thin and some details come from tradition, but the women's courage became one of the Panth's most honoured memories.
Did you know? Gurdwara Shahid Ganj Singhnian, 'of the women martyrs', marks the place in Lahore. Mir Mannu himself died in November 1753 after a fall from his horse.
When Ahmad Shah Durrani's forces blew up the Harmandir Sahib, 75-year-old Baba Deep Singh vowed to rebuild it and marched from Damdama Sahib with thousands of followers. He fell fighting near the shrine, and popular tradition says he fought on holding his head in one hand.
Did you know? Before setting out he prayed: 'May my head fall at the Darbar Sahib.'
Ahmad Shah Durrani's army caught a huge Sikh column, mostly families and non-combatants, near Kup Rahira in today's Ludhiana district. Estimates of the dead over those two days range from 5,000 to 50,000.
Did you know? Durrani came at the call of local allies, the Nawab of Malerkotla and Aqil Das of Jandiala, head of the breakaway Niranjani sect, after Sikh bands had plundered Malerkotla and besieged Jandiala. That same year Durrani had the Golden Temple blown up with gunpowder; Sikhs began rebuilding it in 1764.
Phulkian chief Ala Singh built the Qila Mubarak fort and founded the city and state of Patiala in 1763. Ahmad Shah Durrani granted him the title of Raja, making him the first Sikh monarch.
Did you know? Patiala gave us the Patiala shahi turban, the Patiala salwar and the famously generous Patiala peg.
Three years after the Great Massacre, the Sikhs were back. In April 1765 the Bhangi chiefs Lehna Singh and Gujjar Singh, soon joined by Sobha Singh Kanhaiya, took Lahore from its Afghan-appointed governor. The Sikh confederacy struck a silver rupee there in the names of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, not of any chief: power, the coin said, belonged to the Gurus and the Panth. The three chiefs held Lahore for 34 years.
Did you know? Banda Singh Bahadur had struck the first Sikh coins after taking Sirhind in 1710. An earlier Lahore coin bearing Jassa Singh Ahluwalia's name was withdrawn, one account says, because it named a man instead of the Gurus.
Led by Baghel Singh and Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, Sikh forces entered Delhi in March 1783 and reached the Red Fort, where Ahluwalia was seated on the throne. A deal with Emperor Shah Alam II then let the Sikhs build gurdwaras at their holy sites in the city.
Did you know? Iconic Delhi gurdwaras such as Sis Ganj, Rakab Ganj and Bangla Sahib trace their start to this agreement.
When her father-in-law Jai Singh Kanhaiya died in 1789, Sada Kaur, already widowed, took charge of one of the strongest misls. She had married her daughter Mehtab Kaur to the young Ranjit Singh of the Sukerchakia Misl, and in July 1799 her troops marched with his on Lahore, whose people opened the gates to them. Many historians see her as the shrewd mind behind his early rise.
Did you know? The alliance soured: in 1821 Ranjit Singh imprisoned his mother-in-law and took her lands, and she died in Lahore in 1832.
Guru Nanak is born at Talwandi
Maharaja Ranjit Singh's kingdom from the Khyber to the Sutlej, and its fall
Aged just 18, Ranjit Singh of the Sukerchakia Misl took Lahore from the Sikh triumvirate that had ruled it since 1765. It was the start of the Sikh Empire, which would stretch from the Khyber Pass to the Sutlej.
Did you know? Born in Gujranwala in 1780, he lost the sight of his left eye to smallpox as an infant.
At a formal ceremony in Lahore Fort, Baba Sahib Singh Bedi invested Ranjit Singh as Maharaja. The next year he took Amritsar from the Bhangi Misl.
Did you know? His court had a Muslim foreign minister, Fakir Azizuddin, and he gave gold for the dome of Varanasi's Kashi Vishwanath temple; yet his army used Lahore's Badshahi Mosque as a stable and arsenal, and killing a cow was punishable by death.
Ranjit Singh wanted the Sikh states south of the Sutlej too, but the East India Company had other plans. After months of tense talks with the young British envoy Charles Metcalfe, he signed a treaty of 'perpetual friendship'. The Sutlej became the boundary, the Malwa chiefs such as Patiala, Nabha and Jind came under British protection, and Ranjit Singh turned his armies north and west instead.
Did you know? The deal split the Sikh world: the cis-Sutlej states stayed under British protection for the rest of the Raj, and Patiala sided with the Company when it went to war with Lahore in 1845.
The deposed Afghan king Shah Shuja had fled to Lahore with the Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world. In 1813 Ranjit Singh took possession of it, and it stayed in Lahore until the British took it in 1849.
Did you know? Shah Shuja's memoir says Ranjit Singh extorted the diamond by having his son tortured; another account says the Maharaja asked for it in return for his hospitality. India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have all asked Britain for it; Britain says it was acquired legally under the 1849 Treaty of Lahore.
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Where should the Koh-i-Noor be today?
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In 1818 Ranjit Singh's army stormed Multan, the old Afghan stronghold of the south-west. A year later, on 3 July 1819, Misr Diwan Chand and Akali Phula Singh routed the Afghan governor's army at Shopian, and the Sikhs marched into Srinagar, ending Afghan rule in the Kashmir Valley. Prince Kharak Singh promised Srinagar's people their safety, and the city was not plundered.
Did you know? Sikh rule in Kashmir had a harsh side too: Srinagar's great Jamia Masjid was closed to prayers from 1819 and reopened only in 1843.
After taking Amritsar in 1802, Ranjit Singh rebuilt the Harmandir Sahib in marble and gilded copper. In 1830 he donated gold to cover the sanctum in gold leaf, and the world began calling it the Golden Temple.
Did you know? Today its langar serves over 100,000 free vegetarian meals every single day.
General Hari Singh Nalwa pushed the Sikh frontier beyond the Indus to the mouth of the Khyber Pass, taking Peshawar along the way. Defending Jamrud against an Afghan army in 1837, he was killed, but the garrison held until help arrived from Lahore.
Did you know? He also served as governor of Kashmir, Peshawar and Hazara, and set up a mint for the empire.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in his sleep in Lahore in 1839, after four decades in power. His samadhi stands next to the Badshahi Mosque, and within ten years his empire was gone.
Did you know? In 1839 he left the Koh-i-Noor to the Jagannath Temple in Puri.
After hard-fought battles at Mudki and Ferozeshah in December 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War was decided at Sobraon on the Sutlej. Around 10,000 Sikh soldiers died, including general Sham Singh Attariwala.
Did you know? Many Sikh historians blame the Khalsa's own commanders, Lal Singh and Tej Singh, who were in touch with British officers; Sikh accounts say the pontoon bridge was weakened on purpose, British ones that it broke under the retreat. After the war, Jammu and Kashmir became a separate princely state under British suzerainty.
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Why did the Khalsa army lose the first Anglo-Sikh war?
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After the bloody stalemate at Chillianwala and defeat at Gujrat in early 1849, the Sikh Empire fell. The Treaty of Lahore annexed Punjab to British India and handed the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria.
Did you know? The last Maharaja, Duleep Singh, was 10. Separated from his mother, he became a Christian at 14 and was exiled to Britain, where Queen Victoria made a favourite of him; in 1886 he returned to Sikhism and tried in vain to win back his kingdom.
Maharani Jind Kaur, Ranjit Singh's youngest widow, ruled as regent for her small son Duleep Singh and pushed back hard against British control. The British stripped her of power in 1846, locked her up in Lahore Fort and Sheikhupura, then exiled her to Chunar Fort on the Ganges, far from her son. In April 1849, just after Punjab was annexed, she slipped out disguised as a servant and travelled some 800 km to Kathmandu, where Nepal gave her refuge.
Did you know? She saw her son again only in 1861, in Calcutta, and went with him to England, where she died in 1863. In 1886 Duleep Singh returned to the Sikh faith.
Soldiers for the Empire, reformers at home and rebels abroad
Eight years after the Sikh Empire fell, the Bengal Army rose against the East India Company and proclaimed the old Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar its leader. Most Sikh soldiers, and the rulers of Patiala, Nabha, Jind and Kapurthala, sided with the British, and Punjabi troops were at the storming of Delhi in September. Many Sikhs feared a return of Mughal rule, and resented the Hindustani sepoys who had helped defeat them in the Anglo-Sikh wars.
Did you know? Indian nationalists later held 1857 against the Sikhs; Sikh writers reply that it was a war to restore the dynasty that had executed two of their Gurus. The British rewarded them by recruiting Sikhs as a favoured 'martial race'.
The Namdhari or Kuka Sikhs of Satguru Ram Singh, based at Bhaini Sahib near Ludhiana, boycotted British courts, schools and goods. Angered by cow slaughter, Kuka bands attacked butchers and slaughterhouses in Amritsar and Raikot in 1871 and raided Malerkotla in January 1872. The British blew 66 Kukas from cannons without trial and exiled Ram Singh to Rangoon.
Did you know? Ram Singh is regarded as the first Indian to use non-cooperation and boycott against British rule. The officer who ordered the cannon executions, J.L. Cowan, was dismissed.
When four Sikh students at Amritsar's mission school said they would become Christians, community leaders took fright: missionaries, the Arya Samaj and plain neglect seemed to be eating away at the Panth. On 1 October 1873 the first Singh Sabha met in front of the Akal Takht. Soon dozens of sabhas were opening schools, printing presses and newspapers in Gurmukhi, and arguing fiercely over what made a Sikh a Sikh.
Did you know? The reformist Lahore Singh Sabha of 1879 largely won that argument: in 1905 idols and Brahmin priests were removed from the Golden Temple's precincts. Khalsa College, Amritsar, opened in 1892.
At a small signalling post in the north-west hills, Havildar Ishar Singh and 20 fellow Sikh soldiers were attacked by Afridi and Orakzai tribesmen, thousands strong across the Samana ridge; the military historian Lt Gen H.S. Panag puts the force at the post itself at 1,000 to 1,500. They refused to surrender and fought to the last man.
Did you know? All 21 were awarded the Indian Order of Merit; a non-combatant follower, Daad, also died. To the tribes, the 1897 rising was resistance to British forts built on their land after the Durand Line of 1893.
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Saragarhi was fought for the British Empire. How should India remember it?
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In an age when few Punjabi girls were taught to read, Bhai Takht Singh ran a Gurmukhi school at Ferozepur, and his wife Harnam Kaur made it her life's work. She ran the kitchen and the lodgings for the girls who came from far away and gathered the town's women into a religious society. In 1904 a boarding house was added, the start of the Sikh Kanya Mahavidyala. Harnam Kaur died in 1906, but the school grew into a pioneering college for women.
Did you know? In 1907 her husband launched a magazine for women, Panjabi Bhain, 'Punjabi Sister'.
In the early 1900s Sikh men from Punjab's villages, many of them ex-soldiers, came to British Columbia to work in sawmills and on the railways, and met open racism. In 1906 they formed the Khalsa Diwan Society, and on 19 January 1908 they opened a gurdwara on West 2nd Avenue in Vancouver, believed to be the first in North America. It was temple, community hall and political headquarters in one.
Did you know? Canada soon all but shut the door: a 1908 rule demanded a 'continuous journey' from India, which no shipping line offered. California's first gurdwara opened at Stockton in 1912.
The Komagata Maru, which its passengers called Guru Nanak Jahaz, carried 376 people from Punjab, mostly Sikhs, to Vancouver. Canada refused almost all of them entry, and when the ship returned, police at Budge Budge near Calcutta opened fire, killing 20 passengers.
Did you know? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologised for the incident in the House of Commons in 2016.
Sikhs were perhaps one Indian in fifty but about a fifth of the Indian Army in 1914, and they went to war as Sikhs: in the turban, with the gutka in their kit and the Ardas before battle. Within weeks they were in the mud of Flanders, and over four years they fought at Ypres and Neuve Chapelle, at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia and East Africa. Estimates of how many Sikhs served range from about 100,000 to 125,000.
Did you know? Sikh and Hindu soldiers who died in Brighton's war hospitals were cremated on the Downs by their own rites, where the Chattri memorial has stood since 1921. Sikh groups in Britain count 83,005 turbaned Sikhs killed in the two world wars, a community figure rather than an official one. Historians also note that by 1918 recruiters were pressing Punjab's villages hard, one of the grievances behind 1919.
Morchas for the gurdwaras, gallows for the revolutionaries
On Vaisakhi day a crowd gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to protest the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of local leaders. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer blocked the exit and ordered his troops to fire for about ten minutes; the official toll was 379 dead, while Congress estimated about 1,000.
Did you know? Rabindranath Tagore gave up his British knighthood in protest. Yet days after the massacre, Arur Singh, the British-appointed manager of the Golden Temple, honoured Dyer with a siropa, and Sikh anger at it fed the Akali movement.
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Who was most to blame for Jallianwala Bagh?
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In October 1920 reformers took over the Golden Temple and the Akal Takht from priests who had refused offerings from Sikhs of 'low' castes. In November a huge gathering at the Akal Takht set up the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee to run the shrines, and in December the Shiromani Akali Dal was founded as its volunteer army. For five years the Akalis would take back gurdwaras, mostly by non-violent protest.
Did you know? Its first president was Sundar Singh Majithia. Today the SGPC runs the gurdwaras of Punjab, Himachal and Chandigarh; critics accuse it of party politics, caste bias and keeping women out of kirtan in the sanctum.
Akali reformers were campaigning to free historic gurdwaras from hereditary mahants. At Nankana Sahib, guards of mahant Narain Das killed about 130 Sikhs, and the outcry helped bring the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925, which placed shrines under the elected SGPC.
Did you know? When the Golden Temple's keys were handed back in 1922, Gandhi called it the 'first decisive battle for India's freedom'.
When Akali volunteers cut firewood for the langar at Guru ka Bagh near Ajnala, the mahant had them arrested for theft. From then on, jathas of volunteers marched there every day, and police beat them down with lathis; by mid-October more than 2,400 had been arrested. They did not strike back. The English missionary C.F. Andrews, who watched, called it 'a new lesson in moral warfare'.
Did you know? In November the engineer Sir Ganga Ram bought the land from the mahant and handed it to the Akalis; more than 5,000 jailed volunteers were freed in March 1923.
Not every Akali believed in turning the other cheek. In August 1922 a band in the Doaba led by Kishan Singh Gargaj formed the Babbar Akali Jatha, 'the lions', and printed an underground paper calling for revenge on British officials and the informers they called jholi chuks, toadies. In 1923 they killed several of them, and the police hunted the group down. Six Babbars were hanged in February 1926.
Did you know? The SGPC leadership rejected their violence. In Doaba villages they are remembered as heroes; British officials called them murderers.
The British had forced Maharaja Ripudaman Singh of Nabha, a friend of the Akalis, off his throne. When police broke off a ceremonial reading of the scripture at Jaito in Nabha state, the protest became a fight for the right to pray. On 21 February 1924 a 'martyrs' jatha' of about 500 reached Jaito, and the British administrator ordered troops to fire. The official count was 19 dead; Akali accounts give far more.
Did you know? Jawaharlal Nehru, who came to Jaito to see the agitation in 1923, was arrested there and jailed in Nabha. The jathas kept coming until 101 unbroken readings were completed in August 1925.
After five years of morchas, about 30,000 arrests and hundreds of deaths, the Punjab government gave way. The Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925 handed the historic gurdwaras of Punjab to an elected Sikh body, the SGPC, and ended the rule of the hereditary mahants. Many jailed Akali leaders refused to accept release on the government's conditions, and the movement split over it.
Did you know? A century on, the SGPC is often called the 'mini-parliament' of the Sikhs, and its elections are fought hard by Sikh parties.
At its Lahore session the Congress assured the Sikhs, Muslims and other minorities that no future constitution would be acceptable to it unless it gave them 'full satisfaction'. The Sikhs had rejected the Nehru Report, which the Congress then dropped, and Sikh leaders took the pledge as a promise to their community.
Did you know? Sikh leaders still cite this pledge, and the ones that followed it, as promises India broke after 1947.
Once again Sikh soldiers, in their turbans, were sent across the world for the Empire, to North Africa, Italy, Malaya and Burma. On the night of 11-12 March 1944, on a ridge in Burma's Arakan, Naik Nand Singh of the 1/11th Sikh Regiment led his section uphill under Japanese fire and, badly wounded, took three trenches. He won the Victoria Cross, and fell three years later near Uri, in India's first war with Pakistan.
Did you know? Other Sikh soldiers took the opposite road: in 1942 Captain Mohan Singh, captured in Malaya, formed the first Indian National Army from Indian prisoners to fight the British alongside Japan.
A year before independence, Jawaharlal Nehru said the 'brave Sikhs of Punjab' were entitled to special consideration, and that he saw nothing wrong in an area and a set-up in the north where the Sikhs could 'experience the glow of freedom'. Sikh leaders read it as a promise of self-rule inside India.
Did you know? No such area was ever created after 1947.
Half of Punjab lost, then a long fight for a Punjabi-speaking state
In early March 1947, after Punjab's coalition government fell and Master Tara Singh cried 'Pakistan Murdabad' outside the Assembly in Lahore, Muslim mobs attacked Sikh and Hindu villages across Rawalpindi district. At Thoha Khalsa, besieged and told to convert, Sikh families made a terrible choice: men killed some of their own women to save them from abduction, and more than 90 women and children jumped into the village well.
Did you know? The official toll for Rawalpindi district that month was about 2,300; the SGPC and later scholars put it at 7,000 or more. Few attackers were ever punished, and the impunity fed the far bigger killings on every side that August.
India and Pakistan became independent at midnight on 14-15 August 1947, and Punjab was divided along district-wise religious majorities. The boundary drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was only made public on 17 August, two days later.
Did you know? Radcliffe's line left Nankana Sahib, Guru Nanak's birthplace, Panja Sahib, Kartarpur and Lahore's Dera Sahib in Pakistan. Since then the daily Ardas has asked for open access to the gurdwaras the Panth was separated from, reached only by pilgrim jathas until the Kartarpur Corridor of 2019.
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Who bears the most blame for how Partition was done?
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Around 12 million people crossed the new Punjab border: about 6.5 million Muslims moved west and 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs moved east. Riots and massacres killed hundreds of thousands, with estimates for the whole subcontinent ranging from 200,000 to 2 million.
Did you know? Killers and rescuers came from every faith. On 22 August 1947 Nehru wrote to Gandhi that twice as many Muslims had been killed in East Punjab as Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab, and neighbours of every faith hid families from the mobs. By December 1948, East Punjab's 85 refugee camps held over 721,000 people.
The two Akali members of the Constituent Assembly, Hukam Singh and Bhupinder Singh Mann, would not sign the new Constitution because the safeguards promised to the Sikhs were not in it. 'My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document,' Hukam Singh told the Assembly.
Did you know? In May 1949 the Sikh members had asked for minority safeguards, or arbitration as the Congress had once assured them, if their proposals were refused.
Punjab's Congress government banned the slogan 'Punjabi Suba Zindabad', so the Akalis set out to shout it, and thousands courted arrest. On the night of 4 July 1955 police entered the Golden Temple complex, arresting granthis, volunteers and even langar cooks, and firing tear gas that damaged the edges of the sarovar. Chief Minister Bhim Sen Sachar later apologised in person at the Akal Takht, and the ban was lifted.
Did you know? Estimates of those jailed that summer range from about 12,000 to 21,000. Sachar soon lost his job amid criticism from his own party.
After the Punjabi Suba movement, in which tens of thousands of Sikhs led by Master Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh courted arrest, a Punjabi-speaking state was created, but a smaller one than they had asked for. Hindi-majority areas became Haryana, hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, built as Punjab's capital, became a union territory, and control of the Bhakra and Beas dams passed to the Centre.
Did you know? The bigger Punjab of 1956 had been formed by merging East Punjab with PEPSU, a union of eight princely states.
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Was Punjab treated fairly when it was reorganised in 1966?
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Demands, an army in the Golden Temple, massacres and a decade of guns
In November 1969 Sikhs around the world marked 500 years since Guru Nanak's birth. To honour him, Punjab founded Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, with a mission to study and spread his teachings, the Punjabi language and Sikh history. It was a confident moment for a community that had just won its Punjabi-speaking state.
Did you know? Fifty years later, the 550th anniversary would open the Kartarpur Corridor.
The Shiromani Akali Dal set out Punjab's demands at Anandpur Sahib: a truly federal India in which the Centre kept only defence, foreign affairs, currency, communications and railways, and the states ran everything else. It also asked for Chandigarh as Punjab's capital, the Punjabi-speaking areas left outside the state, and a fair share of Punjab's own river waters.
Did you know? The Congress government called it a separatist document; the Akali Dal always said it sought autonomy within India.
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Should Indian states get the powers the Anandpur Sahib Resolution asked for?
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On Vaisakhi day the Sant Nirankari Mission, a sect many Sikhs saw as insulting their Gurus, held a convention in Amritsar. Sikhs of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale's Damdami Taksal marched to stop it. In the clash and the police firing that followed, 13 Sikhs, among them the Jatha's Fauja Singh, and 3 Nirankaris were killed. Many historians date the start of the Punjab crisis to this day.
Did you know? In January 1980 a court in Karnal acquitted all 62 accused Nirankaris on grounds of self-defence. That April the Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh was shot dead in Delhi; Ranjit Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha later admitted the killing and was jailed.
The Akali Dal under Harchand Singh Longowal, joined by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, launched a mass civil disobedience campaign to win the Anandpur Sahib Resolution's demands. More than 200,000 Sikhs courted arrest, and on 4 April 1983 police firing killed 24 protesters in a single day of the Rasta Roko agitation.
Did you know? Talks with Indira Gandhi's government broke down again and again; the morcha ended with Operation Blue Star in June 1984.
A Birmingham private school turned away a Sikh boy, Gurinder Singh Mandla, because he would not cut his hair or take off his turban. His father took the case all the way up, and on 24 March 1983 the House of Lords ruled that Sikhs are an ethnic group under Britain's Race Relations Act, so the school had broken the law. The judges' test of what makes an ethnic group is still cited across the Commonwealth.
Did you know? The Court of Appeal had ruled the other way, calling the Sikhs a religion rather than a race; the Commission for Racial Equality backed the family to the end.
In the days of Guru Arjan Dev's martyrdom anniversary, when the government knew the complex would be full of pilgrims, the Indian Army attacked Harmandir Sahib to remove Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and the Sikh fighters with him. Tanks fired on the Akal Takht, and Bhindranwale, General Shabeg Singh and Bhai Amrik Singh fell along with many trapped pilgrims. The government put the dead in the hundreds; independent estimates run into the thousands.
Did you know? The government's White Paper counted 83 soldiers and 493 others killed, and justified the attack by the arms stored inside and the killings in Punjab it blamed on the fighters; Sikh groups reject both its toll and its case. In 2003 the Akal Takht declared Bhindranwale a shaheed (martyr). The Sikh community pulled down the Akal Takht the government had repaired and rebuilt it themselves through kar seva.
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Could Operation Blue Star have been avoided?
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Five months after Blue Star, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh on 31 October 1984. For days afterwards organised mobs, many led by Congress party leaders while police stood by, hunted Sikhs in Delhi and other cities. Government figures put the dead at about 2,800 in Delhi and 3,350 nationwide; other estimates are much higher.
Did you know? Amid the killing, some Hindu and Muslim neighbours hid Sikh families. Justice came slowly: Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was convicted only in 2018 and 2025, and died in August 2026 while serving a life sentence.
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Has there been justice for the 1984 massacres?
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A bomb in a suitcase checked in at Vancouver tore Air India Flight 182 apart off the coast of Ireland. All 329 people aboard died, 268 of them Canadians, most of Indian origin, and more than 80 of them children. Less than an hour earlier a second bag bomb had exploded at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers. Canadian investigators blamed a Babbar Khalsa cell led by Talwinder Singh Parmar, which they said wanted revenge for 1984.
Did you know? Only the bomb-maker, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted, of manslaughter in 2003; Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005. A 2010 inquiry under John Major found a 'cascading series of errors' by Canada's police and spy agency.
A year after Blue Star, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Akali leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal signed a peace accord. Chandigarh was to go to Punjab on 26 January 1986, a tribunal would settle the river waters, and the Anandpur Sahib Resolution's demands for more state powers went to the Sarkaria Commission. Hardliners called it a betrayal, and on 20 August 1985 Longowal was shot dead at a gurdwara in Sangrur district.
Did you know? Chandigarh was never handed over and the river-water dispute is still unresolved; Akali leaders call the accord a broken promise.
After 1984 thousands of young Sikhs, called kharkus (fighters) in Punjab and honoured by many as shaheeds, took up arms for Khalistan, a Sikh homeland, after the peaceful agitation for Punjab's rights had gone unanswered. Police and security forces answered with fake encounters, torture and secret cremations, and thousands of young men disappeared. Ordinary families were caught in the crossfire, and by the mid-1990s the movement had been crushed.
Did you know? Armed groups also killed civilians, Hindus and Sikhs alike: 38 bus passengers, most of them Hindus, were shot dead at Lalru in 1987, and Akali leader Harchand Singh Longowal was assassinated in 1985. The government counts about 11,700 civilians killed by armed groups; rights groups such as Human Rights Watch document thousands more killed or 'disappeared' by police.
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How should Punjab remember the kharku years?
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Beant Singh, the Congress chief minister whose police under K.P.S. Gill had crushed the armed movement, was leaving the Punjab secretariat in Chandigarh when Dilawar Singh, a Punjab Police officer turned suicide bomber, blew himself up beside his car. Seventeen others died with him; the Babbar Khalsa was blamed. His supporters credit him with bringing peace back to Punjab; rights groups hold his government responsible for the disappearances and fake encounters of those years.
Did you know? A Chandigarh court sentenced the back-up bomber, Balwant Singh Rajoana, to death in 2007; the Centre said in 2019 it would commute the sentence but never did, and his mercy plea was still pending in 2026. Jagtar Singh Hawara is serving a life sentence.
Human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra found Amritsar municipal records of young men the police had killed and cremated as 'unidentified', and traced cases across Punjab; the CBI later confirmed 2,097 illegal police cremations in one district alone. On 6 September 1995 Punjab Police picked him up outside his home, and he was killed in their custody.
Did you know? Six policemen were convicted of his murder in 2005. Diljit Dosanjh's film on his life, first called Punjab '95, was asked for 127 cuts by the censor board; released online as Satluj in July 2026, it was pulled in India within days.
From Surrey to Oak Creek: Sikhs make their mark, and their case, around the world
Lakhs of pilgrims filled Anandpur Sahib, done up as a 'white city', for the 300th Vaisakhi of the Khalsa. The tercentenary year also saw Bibi Jagir Kaur become the first woman president of the SGPC, and the Government of India recognise Damdama Sahib as the fifth Takht. The Khalsa Heritage Complex, designed by Moshe Safdie, was begun for the occasion and opened in 2011 as Virasat-e-Khalsa.
Did you know? Jagir Kaur resigned in 2000 after her daughter's death; she was convicted in 2012 over the case, acquitted in 2018, and has since led the SGPC again.
Four days after the September 11 attacks, Balbir Singh Sodhi was outside his petrol station in Mesa, Arizona, when Frank Roque shot him dead from a pickup truck. Roque had told friends he would go out and shoot 'towel-heads', and took the turbaned, bearded Sodhi for an Arab Muslim. Sikh groups count him as the first person killed in revenge for 9/11, in a wave of hate attacks on Sikhs, Muslims and South Asians.
Did you know? Roque was sentenced to death in 2003, commuted to life in 2006. Less than a year after the murder, Sodhi's brother Sukhpal was killed by a stray bullet while driving his taxi in San Francisco.
In 2001 a Montreal schoolboy, Gurbaj Singh Multani, dropped the small kirpan he wore under his clothes in the schoolyard. The school board banned it as a weapon, and the family fought all the way up. On 2 March 2006 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a total ban broke his freedom of religion, when the kirpan could be sealed in its sheath and worn under his clothes.
Did you know? Other fights went differently: Canada's RCMP allowed turbans in 1990 despite petitions signed by more than 150,000 people, while France's 2004 ban on religious symbols in state schools shut turbaned Sikh boys out.
On a Sunday morning, as langar was being prepared at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, a white supremacist and US Army veteran, Wade Michael Page, walked in and opened fire. He killed six worshippers, among them the gurdwara's president, Satwant Singh Kaleka, who is said to have tried to fight him off. Lieutenant Brian Murphy, the first officer on the scene, was shot 15 times and survived; Page killed himself after another officer shot him.
Did you know? A seventh victim, Baba Punjab Singh, died of his wounds in 2020. After lobbying by Sikh groups, the FBI began counting hate crimes against Sikhs separately in 2015.
In June 2015 a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from a gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala. In October more than 100 torn pages were found strewn in nearby Bargari, and Punjab erupted. On 14 October police fired on Sikh protesters at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan, and two young men, Krishan Bhagwan Singh and Gurjit Singh, were killed at Behbal Kalan. Investigators later named followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda as accused in the sacrilege.
Did you know? Police officers including former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini were named as accused in the firing case, still pending in 2026. In December 2024 the Akal Takht imposed religious penance on Sukhbir Badal, deputy chief minister in 2015, partly over his government's handling of the sacrilege.
For Guru Nanak's 550th birth anniversary, India and Pakistan opened a visa-free corridor from Dera Baba Nanak to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, just 4.7 km inside Pakistan. The first jatha of more than 550 pilgrims crossed on opening day.
Did you know? India suspended corridor services on 7 May 2025 during the India-Pakistan crisis.
Afghanistan's Sikhs and Hindus, once many thousands strong, had dwindled to a few hundred families after four decades of war. On 25 March 2020 gunmen of the Islamic State's Khorasan branch stormed Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Kabul's Shor Bazaar during morning prayers and killed 25 people, among them a child. Within two years most of the remaining Afghan Sikhs had left, many of them for Delhi.
Did you know? India's government cited such attacks to defend its 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, which speeds up citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh; critics say the law discriminates against Muslims.
When farmers, most of them from Punjab, camped at Delhi's Singhu and Tikri borders against three farm laws from November 2020, the camps ran on Sikh seva: gurdwara committees and Sikh groups ran langars that fed anyone who came, for a whole year, with chapati machines, geysers and a library beside them, and Khalsa Aid brought foot-massage machines for the elderly in the cold. The government announced the repeal on Guru Nanak's Prakash Purab, 19 November 2021, and the farmers went home on 11 December.
Did you know? Some ruling-party leaders and TV channels branded the Sikh protesters 'Khalistanis', a charge no court or agency has shown. The protest had its own wrongs too: in October 2021 Nihangs at Singhu killed Lakhbir Singh, a Dalit Sikh labourer, over an alleged sacrilege, and the farm unions condemned it. Farmer unions counted more than 700 deaths in the camps; the government told Parliament it had 'no record' of them.
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Were the three farm laws good for farmers?
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On Republic Day 2021 a breakaway section of the farmers' tractor parade left the agreed routes, drove into the Red Fort and raised the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh religious flag, and a farm-union flag on an empty flagpole on the ramparts. Fact-checkers found the national flag was never touched and the flag was not a Khalistan flag. TV channels and ministers called it an insult to the nation; to many Sikhs it recalled 1783, when Baghel Singh's Sikh armies rode into the same fort.
Did you know? The farm unions condemned the break-in and blamed the actor Deep Sidhu, who was there and called it a symbolic protest; he was arrested, got bail, and died in a road crash in 2022. Delhi Police said 394 of its personnel were hurt that day, and a young farmer, Navreet Singh, died when his tractor overturned near ITO.
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How do you see the Nishan Sahib at the Red Fort on 26 January 2021?
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Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey and a campaigner for a Khalistan referendum, was shot dead in its car park. In September Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canada's Parliament there were 'credible allegations' linking agents of the Indian government to the killing; India, which had declared Nijjar a terrorist, called the claim absurd.
Did you know? In October 2024 Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, over the case. In the US, prosecutors charged an Indian government employee over a plot to kill another Sikh activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
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On Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing, whose account do you believe?
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Three and a half centuries after Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded in Delhi, Sikhs marked the anniversary on a scale not seen since 1999. A nagar kirtan set out from Srinagar, recalling the Kashmiri Pandits who had sought the Guru's help, and on 24 November 2025 the Punjab Legislative Assembly held a rare sitting outside Chandigarh, at Anandpur Sahib. The Guru's sacrifice for another community's freedom of faith was the theme of the year.
Did you know? The Tribune reported that political rivalry and Panthic messaging ran alongside the pilgrims' devotion.
Three years after Justin Trudeau's accusation, Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to New Delhi on 27 February 2026 to rebuild trade ties, after a Canadian official briefed that India was 'no longer a threat'. Sikh Canadians protested: police had just warned Moninder Singh, a close associate of Nijjar, that his life was in danger. In July US prosecutors charged the jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi with ordering Nijjar's killing.
Did you know? The US indictment does not allege any Indian government role, which India's supporters stress; Sikh groups point to the coming trial in Canada of four Indian nationals accused of the murder, and to Nikhil Gupta's guilty plea in New York in February 2026 over the plot against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
History of the Sikhs in 94 moments across 8 eras, each written in our own words and checked against the page linked under it. Dates marked “c.” are approximate, and where historians disagree the date says so. Pins sit at the place a moment happened; a few national moments sit at Delhi, and wins abroad at the person’s hometown. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
