Sikh warrior culture is rooted in the spirit of “speaking truth to power,” the Sikh notion of sovereignty, the idea of defensive warfare and the institution of the Khalsa. Its two integral features are hymns of surrender to an ineffable One and tales of excruciating but somehow gratifying martyrdom.

This chapter shows how the judicial reforms of Governor Warren Hastings in 1772 attempted to recentre sovereign authority in the British settlement of Calcutta byco-opting and recasting late Mughal venues and practices of petitioning and dispute resolution. It explores how Hastings attempted to found the Company's legal system, not just on 'religious' forms of Muslim and Hindu law, but on Mughal practices of revenue administration. Even after 1772, the chief revenue office in Calcutta (khalisa sharifa or ‘khalsa’) – retained an important role as a site for investigating disputes over land and revenues, and for discovering a new form of ‘civil law’ based on the Company’s interpretations of late Mughal precedents.

This chapter is divided into five sections. Firstly, it situates the origins of Sikhism within the historical traditions of northern India. This is followed by an examination of how the new tradition was gradually institutionalised to accommodate its growing appeal in the century after Nanak’s birth. It then assesses the turn to militancy from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, the creation of the Khalsa and the related question of political sovereignty. This is followed by an outline of how the turn to militancy triggered the process of state formation in the eighteenth century which climaxed in the creation of Ranjit Singh’s empire. Finally, the chapter reflects on the impact of the British Raj on the rise of modern Sikh identity with reference to the colonial discourses of Sikhs as a ‘nation’ and Sikhism as a ‘world religion’.

The conclusion summarises the core argument of the volume. It maps the nature of Sikh nationalism today within South Asia and the diaspora on a continuum of groups that seek an independent homeland of Khalistan to those that pursue autonomy within the Indian Union and others that demand equality, recognition and non-discrimination within the Indian Union and the diaspora. It also reflects on the political and social integration of Sikhs within the Indian Union and the prospects of an independent Sikh state in light of state- and nation-building in India and Pakistan and China’s growing assertiveness in north-west South Asia. The Sikh case, it is argued, raises important methodological issues for the comparative study of ethnicity and nationalism – the need to include socially complex minorities like the Sikhs and the Jews, the role of such minorities in supporting consociationalism arrangements in colonial administrations, and their contribution to the cultural democratisation of the public sphere in Western liberal democracies. The Sikh case is also an example of the ‘nationalism of small peoples’, a ‘nation without a state’ and, more recently, of ‘nation-destroying’. The work concludes with a plea to take the study of Sikh nationalism seriously.