*HAPPY BAISAKHI TO ALL*

*WHY INDIA MUST KNOW ABOUT BAISAKHI* While the Sikhs celebrate *Vaisakhi across India;* Rest of India wonders if it is about doing Bhangra and dancing. No, it is not; *Baisakhi holds a lesson for all Indians*...... *Specially in this day and age*... So *this day in 1699*, in a congregation of people from all across India...standing there listening to their Guru the then, Gobind Rai. *Gobind Rai asked for human sacrifice of five men one after the other.* *_Five men from different castes from different parts of India stood up from the crowd of thousands._* 1) - *A shopkeeper, Baniya called Daya Ram from Lahore* 2) - *A farmer, Jat called Dharam Das from Meerut* 3) - *A so called low-caste water carrier, called Himmat Rai from Jagannath Puri, Odisha* 4) - *A tailor,of Cheemba caste called Mokam Chand from Dwarka, Gujarat* 5) - *A barber, of Naai caste called Sahib Chand from Bidar, Karnataka* With his choice of disciples from five different corners of India, *Gobind Rai ji visualised the national dream... from the coast of Gujarat along Western Arabian Sea to coasts of Odisha along the Bay of Bengal; from the great Plains of Punjab to the the Gangetic Plain and then onto the Deccan peninsula covering Karnataka.* *_Do not forget_* that at that time, all these were separate states; *it was Guru Gobind Singh ji that thought of all of them as one...* *_This Baisakhi day of 1699._* With the choice of disciples from five different caste-groups, *He visualised an integrated class-less society.* *The five were christened as the First Five Khalsa Sikhs, and the five in turn christened their Guru as the sixth. Gobind Rai was now Gobind Singh ji.*. *All caste names and surnames were dropped, & a common surname SINGH* was proposed for all Indians across India; SIKH _ A surname that denoted a caste-less, class-less creed of men willing to sacrifice themselves for the nation and against injustice. *This motley group of people uprooted Afghan and Mughal rule from entire North India from the Yamuna to the Khyber pass, such was the power of this vision.* And *this was the Indian that he envisioned from the five corners of HIS nation.* *Guru Gobind Singh ji was a visionary par excellence.* .*His vision has been diluted and limited to Sikhism, that is a travesty.* *Awake India, awake to his vision. Leave those caste barriers, acquire knowledge, be strong in body and be a Khalsa in spirit. Khalsa is a state of mind, not just a religion.* *HAPPY BAISAKHI TO ALL*