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Good morning.

Sikhs are marking the festival of Vaisakhi this weekend. For centuries, it’s been a time for celebrating the spring harvest and a time of great joy throughout much of South Asia. However, in 1699, the festival took on a much deeper meaning for Sikhs.

The 10th Sikh Guru had been thinking about how to give strength to his followers. His father, the 9th Guru, had been executed on the orders of the Mughal Emperor almost 25 years earlier, and his followers had been afraid of recovering the Guru’s body in case they too ended up being killed. The 10th Guru wanted to make his Sikhs instantly recognisable in a group of thousands, and give his sparrows the confidence and power to take on the mightiest of hawks.

On a fresh spring morning in the foothills of the Himalayas, the 10th Guru emerged from his tent to an expectant congregation who had travelled from across the subcontinent to be with him. He raised his sword in the air and asked for someone to make the ultimate sacrifice. Eventually one person stood up and went with the Guru into his tent.

Five times the Guru made this request, and five times someone answered it. Each time, the sword swished audibly through the air inside the tent. Some Sikhs believed that the Guru had become deranged. Others ran to his family to ask them to stop this barbarity.

And then, the Guru calmly emerged from the tent with the five people. They were wearing new clothes, dressed identically, and each now carrying their own sword. The Guru proclaimed them to be the Panj Pyare, the Five Beloved Ones, and the first members of the Khalsa, the band of the pure ones who were willing to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of their faith. He asked them to initiate him into the Khalsa, the Guru now becoming the disciple of the collective.

The Khalsa became the inner core of the faith, an order willing to protect and preserve the Sikh tradition, and especially its integrity and attitudes towards just living. Its creation was an act of defiance against the Mughal Empire, reminding those in charge that with power comes responsibility, and that oppression and injustice will be challenged at every stage.

Unfairness in society hasn’t disappeared in the last three and a quarter centuries, the spirit of defiance has remained alive.

This week, Channel 4 broadcast a series taking an unflinching look at how the rise of the far right was challenged by British South Asians in the 1970s. Many were Sikhs, influenced by the teachings of the 10th Guru, alongside people from other faiths and backgrounds. Their actions almost 50 years ago changed Britain for the better, and their passion remains strong. Defiantly standing up for justice – especially for the most disadvantaged – is a value people of all faiths and none can adhere to.

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