: not a blog

18 dec 07

Ok it was a nice article about gurkha vs. sikhs however there can be no comparison between khukuri and a kirpan as a kirpan like you said is just a ceremonial and a representational dagger, sikhs do not use kirpans, yes some of them did when the hindus came charging in to kill whomever sikhs they could find in 1984. so gurkhas can't be the best going by the dagger comparison, Also during history sikhs have fought many wars and your article failed to bring it to the attention. for instance the battle of saragarhi (1897) where just 21 sikh soldiers fought an army of 10,000+ armed afghan tribesmen, this battle also goes down the books of UNESCO as one of the bravest battles mankind has witnessed, and prolly the bravest ever! then at another war while releasing chakdara fort about 250 sikhs fended off 14,000 pathan tribesmen!!! Also sikhs fought in both the world wars with immense bravery and so did gurkhas. So there can't be a comparison of who's the best going by just one gurkha-sikh war you describe in 1800s. Going by so many other factors and wars, if you do your research about the sikh martial race you'll know it, the sikhs win over any other martial race to have walked the face of earth

thanks for your submission, and thanks for bringing all of that to my attention.

it was an impossible question to answer in the first place (who is tougher, the sikhs or the gurkhas?). i decided to have a go at it anyway, and guessed at the definition of "tougher". based on the research i did, which may of course have been incomplete (i did it within the span of an hour), i determined that the gurkhas had beaten the sikhs in some battle (have the sikhs ever trounced the gurkhas? i don't know), that their ceremonial blade was practical as well as functional, and that their martial practice continues, while the sikhs' seems to have died out.

in your submission you mention the words "martial race". it turns out "martial race" was an invention of the brittish -- some ethnic groups in their colonies were observed to be more inclined to fight than others. these were labeled the martial races, and furthermore this was seen as a genetic condition. sikhs had endeared themselves to the brittish, and it's interesting to see that this "pride of ownership" endures, exemplified with terms like "martial race".

i remember a gambian i used to work with, and how he would proudly state that he wasn't american, but rather brittish (this was exemplified by his pronunciation of "bag"). i'm sure he meant "i speak brittish english rather than american english", but even his brittish english wasn't well-formed enough to make such a subtle distinction, at least in quickly-formulated casual speech (the principle native language of the gambia is wolof).

and yes, the gambia was on the brittish plate after the carving up of africa. divvying up africa into UN-style demarketed chunks might have been the worst thing ever to happen to the continent, or is at least up there with AIDS, famine, and warfare, the last of which is easily argued to be a consequence of the aforementioned carving. you could probably find (invent?) ways in which AIDS and famine are connected to it too. but has western imperialism been nothing but disastrous to the developing world? again, i dunno. maybe not, even though of course i'm loathe to call it a "civilizing influence", as was widely thought in the 19th century.

"civilization" was certainly the stated intent of the french, in lieu of an overt "expand the empire" justification. and of course the brittish were inclined to think of africans and indians as savages in need of the domesticating effects of tea biscuits and cricket games. but colonization brought modernization and technology, which were then able to later evolve on their own. but the fact remains that the brittish (and the french, dutch, italians, germans, etc) weren't so nice in their methodologies. and really, they should have stayed out to begin with. but, those were different times, and i don't believe many people thought "hey...maybe colonization isn't such a nice thing to do". or if they did, they were mostly ignored, much like the environmentalists and animal rights advocates of today.

i'm sensing the same sort of subervient pride-by-proxy that i observed in my gambian friend, here in this submission; in a sense, many indians still consider themselves to be british, just like some canadians. india is part of the commonwealth of nations, although it isn't part of the commonwealth realm. ie, elizabeth II isn't india's head of state, as she is canada's. but this doesn't mean there's a great deal of brittish cultural baggage to be found in india. it's unavoidable.

that said, india handled colonization fairly well. for one thing, there was that whole gandi business where the british lost their political power. i've heard people say that calling all of india a single country is very much like calling all of africa a single country. however, the alternative would have been to divide it up into little nations, like africa, and that's probably a worse approach. then you'd have little states like jharkhand responsible for their own defense and economy.

that's interesting about the sikhs using their kirpans in 1984 to fend off attacks, i'm assuming after the assassination of indira ghandi in that same year, by her sikh bodyguards.

so gurkhas can't be the best going by the dagger comparison

the gurkha knife is just cooler-looking than the sikh knife. sorry. that infamous entry ("who is tougher, the sikhs or the ghurkas?") has so-far spawned two enthusiastic replies because i made a value judgement (and because sikhs like to talk about their sikh-ness). essentially, when you ask that question, you're asking which ethnic group is better, since "toughness" is a value-laced word, just like bravery, beauty, intelligence, wisdom, strength, etc. imagine if someone asked "who are smarter, the jews or the scots?" i'd have to answer (even though i did ignore one recent question, because it wasn't serious, and probably principally because i didn't feel like writing).

but i do feel like i owe this guy a response, because he put a lot of effort and thought into his submission, and i want his voice to be heard. seen. downloaded. whatever. his data must be distributed!

Going by so many other factors and wars, if you do your research about the sikh martial race you'll know it, the sikhs win over any other martial race to have walked the face of earth

there's some considerable pride there -- sikh pride (in another entry i mentioned my neighbor's "Be Sikh!" t-shirt). i don't have a lot of white pride; maybe this is something i should cultivate. teutonic pride? i'm part german, french, english, and part unknown. so, really, i can't get any more specific than "white" in my self-identification. if i were celtic, teutonic (a possibility), mediterranean, basque, slavic, etc, then i might have a case. as it is, "yeah! i burn easily in the sun! rock on!!" isn't all that inspiring.