Are Sikhs a separate religion? 'Ham Hindu Nahin' and the argument since

The claim: Sikhs are one strand of a wider Hindu whole. The RSS says so most plainly. In October 2019 its chief, Mohan Bhagwat, said "Bharat is Hindustan, a Hindu Rashtra" and that "all Bharatiyas are Hindus" (The Caravan). A booklet of its Sikh wing, the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, claimed Sikhs "considered themselves Hindus". The law is cited: Explanation II to Article 25 reads "Hindus" as including persons professing the Sikh religion, and in Bal Patil v. Union of India (8 August 2005) the Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered by Justice D. M. Dharmadhikari, said Sikhs and Jains "have throughout been treated as part of the wider Hindu community". The argument is old: in 1897 Bava Sir Khem Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak, held Sikhs to be Hindus, with the Arya Samajists behind the conservatives (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism). The historian Harjot Oberoi argues that Sikh tradition was fluid and borrowed from Hinduism and Islam (ABC Bookworld).

The sourced facts:

• The statutes also name Sikhs apart. Article 25 places the kirpan inside "the profession of the Sikh religion" (Explanation I), and Explanation II reaches only clause 2(b), the opening of Hindu religious institutions to all sections of Hindus. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 lists "Hindu by religion" in section 2(1)(a) and "a Buddhist, Jaina or Sikh by religion" in section 2(1)(b); section 2(3) then lets "Hindu" cover whoever the Act applies to.
• Bal Patil asked whether Jains could be notified a minority and ended with no relief. The Ministry of Welfare had already notified Sikhs, with Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians, as minorities on 23 October 1993 (Arthapedia, ies.gov.in).
• The Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, section 2(9), has a person whose status is questioned declare "that I believe in the Guru Granth Sahib, that I believe in the Ten Gurus, and that I have no other religion" (Legitquest). The Rahit Maryada, approved by the SGPC on 3 February 1945, defines a Sikh as one who "does not follow any other religion" (Encyclopaedia).
• Akali politics has fought Explanation II. Parkash Singh Badal said in 2002 that he burnt a copy of Article 25 in Delhi on 27 February 1984, under pressure from Sant Longowal (The Tribune). The Venkatachaliah Commission (2002) is reported to have found that Explanation II could be omitted (Asia Samachar), and in 2012 the Lok Sabha Speaker allowed the Akali MP Rattan Singh Ajnala's private Bill to drop it (The Tribune). Not every Sikh sees an erasure: Gursimran Singh writes in Round Table India that it "in no way takes away the separate and distinct identity of Sikh religion".

The Panthic answer: Sri Akal Takht Sahib, the SGPC and the Singh Sabha scholars answer that Sikhs are distinct in belief, rite and code, and that "Hindu" in state law is only a classification. Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha's Ham Hindu Nahin (1898), a dialogue between a Hindu and a Sikh built on scripture, was registered on 30 June 1899; the Encyclopaedia calls it "the most reasoned and convincing" tract of its time, and the slogan became the battle cry of the Tat Khalsa. The Akal Takht's edict of 23 July 2004 called RSS activities a "deep-rooted conspiracy against the Sikhs", and in October 2017 Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh told Sikhs to follow it. In October 2019 Giani Harpreet Singh said of the RSS "Yes, it should be banned" (SabrangIndia).

Bhai Ajmer Singh argues, in chapter 1 of Vihveen Sadi Di Sikh Rajneeti, titled "Ham Hindu Nahin", that the Panth has stood apart from Hindu society since Guru Nanak. He points to the rejection of the janeu, caste, idol worship and the authority of the Puranas, and to Khande-Batte da Amrit as a separate initiation. After 1849, he writes, the British tried to fold the Sikhs into the Hindu community; the Singh Sabha was the Panth's answer, Nabha's book its decisive statement, and the base of the Akali movement and the Act of 1925. In chapter 15 he argues that the RSS, VHP, ABVP and BJP drew Punjab's Hindus into an all-India Hindu identity, one project to absorb Sikh distinctness, which made the Sikh response of the early 1980s unavoidable.