UPLIFTING A COMMUNITY

A Sikh organisation is helping restore the dignity of the Sikligars, a proud nomadic community of Sikh weaponsmiths, tending to their health, housing and education needs 

- SONALI ACHARJEE

Sikhs in the South have a history going back 300-odd years. The first of them came with Guru Gobind Singh, on his Deccan expedition in the early 18th century. Around 1832 came the Lahori Fauj, a Sikh contingent that was sent as a peacekeeping force by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to help the Nizam. In between fell the nomadic Sikhs, among them the Sikligars, weaponsmiths who, too, were part of the contingent that accompanied Guru Gobind Singh.

From these proud martial beginnings, the Sikhs in Telangana fell on bad days post-Independence. While the descendants of the Huzoori Sikhs went on to receive education and employment, the Sikligars survived on the margins, turning scrap into knives or utensils, repairing locks and keys, and selling them as they moved from village to village, unable to shake off their nomadic existence.