Re: Arya Samajh
Hindu mystics in short. Mira Bai, Bhagat Kabir, Sain Baba to name few and then came Guru Nanak to introduce Sikh belief. Shudhi movement by Arya Samaj did tried to convert Sikhs in 1920s Punjab.
The first blow to the Hindu-Sikh unity was struck by Arya Samaj. In 1877 Swami Dayanand Saraswati visited Punjab (oddly enough at the invitation of Sikh organizations) and opened a branch of the Samaj at Lahore. He launched his shudhi(purification) movement to bring breakaway Hindus including Sikhs back into the Hindu fold. Swamiji was intemperate in his speech; he described Guru Nanak as a dambhi(hypocrite) and the Granth Sahib as a book of secondary importance. The Arya Samachar published from Lahore lampooned Sikhism in the following verse:
Nanak Shah Fakeer ne naya chalaaya panth Idhar udhar sejor karlikh mara ik granth;
Pehley cheley kar liye, pichhey badla bhes Sir par saafa bandh kar, rakh leeney sab kes.
Sikh organizations retaliated with anger. Singh sabhas were set up in Amritsar and Lahore to counteract Arya Samaj propaganda. They had the blessings of the British government. A spate of books on Sikhism were published in Gurmukhi and English including the definitive six volumes by M.A. Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion. Amongst these was Kahan Singh’s booklet, Ham Hindu Nahi Hain, ‘We are not Hindus.’
The process of separatism was carried a step further by the Akali movement launched in the 1920s to wrest control of Sikh gurdwaras from hereditary mahants (priests) who had for generations been with non-kesadhari Sikhs or Hindus. The most significant outcome of the four years of intense Akali agitation in which the Hindus had supported the mahants was equivocally stated by Mahtab Singh in a speech in Punjab Legislative Council in April 1921. **He said: ‘I, for one, say that if the Sikhs do not wish to remain in the fold of Hinduism, why should the Hindus seek to force them to do so? What benefit can they obtain by keeping on unwilling people as partners in their community? Why not let them go?’ **