Kesh, one of the five gift bestowed by Guru Gobind Singh to Sikhs. Though hairs are the gift of god to everyone but to keep it intact and not to cut it, is given by the Tenth guru to Sikhs. According to the Sikhs, this is the primary and the most important gift of dashmesh to them. These five gifts are called "Panj Kakaar" and due to this Sikhs possess unique identity, so one can easily identify that this person is a Guru's Sikh.
But my concern here is not to discuss this gift of Dashmesh as mere indicator of Guru's singh or giving a unique identity. This gift is indicator of several things and because of this all Sikhs have to accept this gift of Guru Gobind Singh. Keeping kesh makes you different and if Sikhs keep that, this means that they accept to look different from other people, and to be different from other needs certain amount of self-confidence and courage. Thus it shows, it indicates bravery. Furthermore by accepting the Guru ji's Gift, One shows love to Guru sahib, thus it also shows Sikh's love for Dashmesh Pita.
Turn the pages of history, you will find various bravery sagas of Sikhs and This was created a sense of anxieties in the mind of Mughals, and other invaders and thus they started to kill Sikhs wherever they find them and Sikhs were easily found by their distinctive appearances. Despite of that, Sikhs didn't cut their hairs to change their identity, but they face the challenges with courage and dignity. We must say that the indicator of fearlessness is kesh of Sikhs. Once a very close friend of mine, who is also a sikh, asked me why we should keep hairs now a days, as there is no need of this now, gone are the times when Guru Gobind Singh ji ordered us to keep that because in those times people were scared of the crime done by the Mughals and other afghan invaders and guru ji gave Sikhs a different look to face the challenge and fought like a tiger, it was just a part of uniform. I smiled at the question asked by him, actually this is the mind-sets of most of the Sikhs youth that there is no need to keep kesh nowadays.
But the kesh was not gifted by the guru for that time only, but it is given to the Sikhs for the eternity, it is the indicator of uncompromising courage at every situation. It is the indicator of rigidity that Sikhs are really inflexible towards wrong things and any sort of corruption. The kesh of the Sikhs are the indicator of honesty. And I have a proof of that from our history and present, not all from that part of history when Sikhs fought with the Mughals and the time of khalsa raj, but after that period, when democracy started flourishing in the country, when India was finally free from all the foreign power, the historic year of 1947.
The mid-year of 1947 brought the freedom and cheers to the country but on the flipside of coin, it brought dreadful devastation because of the partition of the country. The dividing line was built with the millions of people losing their life and home. In 1947 when India got partition, the Sikhs from the west Punjab migrated to east Punjab and in doing this, various Sikhs got killed. The Sikhs can save their lives if they cut their hairs and hide their identity but they did not do so because they have no fear of death, they love their gurus more than their life, they want to follow the guru's path in this wonderful life to make it more wonderful. And the tales of fearlessness doesn't end here. It was the year of 1984, when the riots against Sikhs happened across the country then also Sikhs did not hide their identity to save their lives. And when we look at the present, various Sikhs around the world like in USA are the unnecessarily victim of the crime because of their unique identity and that is primarily due to hairs. But in spite of saving their lives, they sacrifice their lives but don't cut their hairs, they remain "saabat soorat", because the Sikhs live with pride, they live with dignity, they know that the "Indicator of their pride and dignity is kesh".
But if I talk about present scenario, there are various Sikhs just like my friend who do not want to keep kesh and want to cut it as by cutting the kesh, makes them some kind of hero or model. But the real model, real hero of this life is Baba Deep Singh ji, Bhai Taru singh ji, Baba banda singh bahadur ji. Why don't we look at their lives, why don't we learn lessons from their lives, why don't we follow them? I think the sikh youth thinks that they are old ones and now this is unnecessary thing to follow them and keep kesh. But they don't know that Guru Gobind Singh ji gifted five K's to the sikhs for some reason. He gifted the pride of Sikhs in the form of kesh because the kesh means you agree to live the life of khalsa. Khalsa means the pure and the total answer lies in the name itself that why Guru Gobind Singh ji gifted kesh to Sikhs. Guru Gobind singh ji wanted to create an army of pure human ,and an army has a uniform for identify, a flag to take pride with it, a weapon to fight, a guru's path to remain stick to the purity. Guru Gobind Singh ji made us a pure human by bestowing all necessary gifts , he made us pure human who help other humans, who do not tolerate crime, who do not let crime happen, who spread unity, who stand by the rights of themselves and the other, who act as the army of the mankind. By giving uniform to them , Guru ji showed to the whole world that he created the army of humans which have all the characters of pure human and you all should trust them, they would not let your trust down because this Khalsa panth is the army of whole mankind.
We, the singhs of Guru Gobind Singh must act according to what guru ji taught us, we are now forgetting what we actually are, we are now forgetting the seva (voluntarily offering help), we are now forgetting the honesty. We have to remain khalsa what guru gobind singh ji made us. We have to be a pure and perfect human. If we are not confronting and transforming our own misgivings and becoming more pure ourselves, how will we embody the spirit of the Guru's Khalsa. As I already said that the kesh of sikhs is the indicator of pride, it is the indicator of pride and honour for Sikhs too, the kesh of the Sikhs always point the Sikhs to do right and genuine things. I wanted the Sikhs to understand the message of these five gifts given by the Guru Gobind singh to make the singhs khaalas "The pure". These all five kakaars are our gifts, our honour, let us enthusiastically embrace them with love just as a child runs to hug their father. Today it seems that there is police and when someone asks them to help with a crime the police don't do anything, saying they are just normal people. The Sikhs are forgetting what it means to answer the Guru's call.
Gurdeep Singh