Maharajah Ranjit Singh-maybe the most Machiavellian ruler of them all. His meteoric rise to power belied a very cunning and Machiavellian persona which unfortunately the Sikh leaders of today lack. What can we learn from Ranjit Singh and how is it relevant to today? Listen to hear more.  

The Heart Of A Warrior is a leadership principle. Akin to the Warrior stepping onto the field of battle, preparing to make sacrifices, so too does the Leader step onto their field of battle. The Warrior steels his heart and stiffens his spine; resolute in the face of death. The Leader too must steel their heart and stiffen their spines; resolute in the face of the unknown. In this episode we discuss how the Heart of a Warrior principle can alter our futures and even lives for the better and make us transformative Leaders-an ingredient found wanting in Sikhs today. 

We are joined by savvy historian/historiographer Anmol Singh Rode (Ranneeti Punjab) in debunking the outrightly fallacious claim of right wing propagandists that the Marathas entered the Punjab in the mid-18th century to save Sikhi and rebuild the sacrosanct Sikh Darbar Sahib. Relying primarily on Maratha historians (Besam, Kulkarni, Sardesai, Gordon and Sarkar) as well as contemporary material we evince that the Marathas had:

(a) No interest in being in the Punjab and only arrived when lured by the substantial booty promised by the wily Adina Beg.

(b) Left token garrisons in the region to quieten an otherwise contumacious Adina who feared their return to Pune.

(c) Were summarily annihilated by a returning Ahmad Shah Durrani.

(d) Were viewed by Sikhs and non-Sikh Punjabis as foreign oppressors. 

We also expose the genesis of the aforementioned myth; the times in which it was made and the historic facts which arm the Sikhs to battle it. 

There has been much unnecessary academic controversy ignited over the 5 K's. McLeodian allegations have included denying their origination with the tenth Guru and accusing the Singh-Sabha Lahore of concocting them. On the other hand the modern Upgrade school ludicrously proposes that the priestly class invented the K's and all evidence related to them within the span of one century and that All Sikhs fell for the bait hook, like and sinker.

The truth is somewhat different as we establish. The K's emphasize a very unique comprehensive perception of Sikhi based on the SGGS. A perception which we tend to evade today in a bid to make Sikhi more palpable to our own misassumptions. 

Gurbani identifies fear as a contagion; an illness which rapidly proliferates and takes over its host society. What exactly is fear and how does one Master it? We argue that the vilification of fear is a matter of perception and just as the occasional exposure to pathogens strengthens our immune system similarly exposure to fear emboldens us to live life wholly by transforming it from a handicap into a fuel.

Decadence and decay-the two most relevant adjectives to describe the state of society today. But why is society atrophying and what can Sikhs learn from it? Will Sikh society, if ever restored, too perish similarly? Listen to find out. 

How should we approach the question of Sikh history? How should we comprehend our Ithiaasic Granths? Through the framework of blind Sharda (faith)? Through the application of common sense? Or through careful sifting of fact from fiction and applying Gurbani as the ideological touchstone to understand each and every facet of our physical and written heritage?

Covering vast historiographical topics from the unique testaments of E.H. Carr to the categories of historians devised by G.R. Elton and applying the principles of studying historians before their written histories we focus on several narrations of Sikh history to discover and underscore the truth. 

Why is the SGGS subjected to atrocious intellectual and physical attacks? It is high time that each and every professed Sikh look within it and comprehend its words to understand that its stance on liberating Sikhs from bondage and making them true Khalsas is antithetical to political, religious and social agendas ergo its repeated targeting. 

The Ghadar Party was a majority Sikh based anti-imperialist militant nexus of globally based Sikhs aiming to forge a coalition of subcontinental provinces to overthrow the British in India and establish a subcontinent wide commonwealth. Its failure removed it from history by default with Marxists, Nationalists and Socialists misappropriating and revamping its history for their own insidious aims. In this episode we make a strong defense of Ghadar's Sikh values and Khalsa ideals arguing that Sikhi influenced it predominantly and no other ideology.