It all started with my husband , who was adamant on me learning the punjabi language ! we ended up locating this punjabi TV channel called PTC and now we cant freaking stop watching their movies , they are awesome .. my husband loves to hear their language coz he feels like they are so similar to us in every way except their religion , which is ok , coz not all punjabi’s will be muslims anyways ..
He tells me all the time how their tiniest things that they are showing in their movies are such important part of the pakistani culture as well .. so i guess its just natural to feel the affinity ..
I dont there are many differences between Indian Punjabis and the ones on our side. As far as accents go Faisalabadi accent is closer to what Sikhs speak. Even in our Punjab the accent changes after every 100 kms or so.
and every brown person they see, think he/she is Punjabi either from Pakistan or India and starts speaking in it and happens with me quite often and when I say I don’t understand Punjabi , it surprises them. Sometimes I even get pissed. Anyways they’re open, big hearted people.
Hardcore. As far as I know most of them will not drop their turbans even if their life depends on it. In terms of culture, I would say they’re similar to pakistani punjabis. Most of them are family oriented.
But if I were to judge Sikhs off of Indo-Pak partition stories I’ve heard from my grandparents, I have some abrasive things to say about them but I’ll pass.
But apart from the past..i would say they are extremely loyal, hard working and very friendly..especially if they know you’re punjabi. They have got sense of “community” in them. They help their community a lot. Someone mentioned about their vaisakhi mela and food being available 247 at their gurdwara. And anybody is welcome..they don’t care who are you where you from. And absolutely nothing against them..have nothing but respect for them.
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wht abt those who migrated from indian punjab n embraced Islam n nw living in Pakistan but they speak punjabi like sikhs do, still hving their roots in indian punjab sikhs ?
In terms of personal encounters so far have been all good. I have a sikh friend in my alevel history class and shes sooo lovely. And plus back in school I knew a couple of them although didn’t really speak to them all that much.
I have not heard of any Pakistani Sikh converting to Islam. Most Punjabis who migrated from East to West were Muslims, the non Muslims migrated the other way.
Muslims were no saints or angels. They did got wells of Gurdwaras full of dead bodies of sardaranis who wanted save their honor. Partition was a bloody period, where everyone suffered. If we see things neutrally, Sikhs of Pindi area were first attacked leading to riots.
Sikhs were and are basically people of land connected to roots. Some historians say that many Sikh villages converted to Muslims at the time of partition as they didn’t want to leave their land.
Its basically common dialects. I read that Faisalabad’s Punjabi is quite same as to Punjabi spoken in Indian Punjab. Probably, because most of migrants from Pakistan to India belonged to Faisalabad (Lyallpur) region
2-3 generations before was pre partition time. One of my close friend’s used to joke that his great grandfather’s were Sikhs. Hoshiyarpur tou abhi bhi India main hay.
Hence proved that Sikh were not staunch when it comes to conversion. This conversion at the time of partition has also been described by Mustansar Hussain TaraR in his novel ‘Khas o Khashak Zamane’. Though that might not be a sizable majority, but it did happen. Cheeme, Chathe, Jaat were more close to each other because of their castes than religion and mind it religion was not in the form as we see it today.
All my siblings and I were born in the middle east, but after moving to Canada in the early 90s, my early teenage years we grew up with sikh people around us; my parents being from punjab (pakistan) themselves feel more affinity with sikhs as compared to living with the arabs for 14+ years, my mom often used to say how ‘our booli’ is the same just like it is in - Jalandhar India (where our families moved from to pakistan)
My dad even said that our forefathers were sikhs but were converted on gun-point
Anyways they’re open, big hearted people.