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Are Sikhs Hindus?

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The short answer

Politically contested

Sikhs' own institutions define Sikhism as a separate religion; India's Constitution names it as a religion of its own while counting Sikhs as Hindus for a few purposes, and British law treats Sikhs as an ethnic group. The Sikh Gurdwaras Act has required anyone whose status as a Sikh is disputed, since 1930, to declare that he has 'no other religion', and the Sikh Rahit Maryādā of 1950 says the same. But the boundary has a history. The scripture contains the line 'I am neither Hindu nor Muslim', and an enemy chronicler wrote in 1765 that the Sikhs were 'not from amongst the Hindus'; yet into the nineteenth century many people who revered the Gurus kept Hindu rites and shared Hindu shrines. The line was drawn hard by the Singh Sabhā reformers, in Kāhn Singh Nābhā's Ham Hindū Nahīṅ ('We are not Hindus', 1898). Since 1950 Explanation II to Article 25 of India's Constitution has counted Sikhs as Hindus for laws on temple entry and religious endowments, and the Hindu Code Acts of 1955–56 do so for marriage and inheritance. Sikh leaders have objected from the start.

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Sikh and Hindu: how the boundary was drawn
DateEvidenceWhat it says about the boundary
1604Guru Arjan's hymn in Rāg Bhairau, in the Ādi Granth: 'I am neither Hindu nor Muslim'A refusal of both labels in the scripture itself; read both ways today[7]
1765Qāẓī Nūr Muḥammad's JangnāmaAn enemy of the Khālsā: 'They are not from amongst the Hindus'[11]
1839Ranjit Singh's cremation, as Honigberger saw itBrahmins and Sikh priests recite together at a Sikh king's funeral[15]
1896Falcon's Handbook on Sikhs for army officersThe British fear Sikhism is slipping back into Hinduism[25]
1897–1899Khem Singh Bedī's address; the tract Sikh Hindū HainSikhs who held that Sikhs are part of the Hindu community[3][22]
1898Kāhn Singh Nābhā, Ham Hindū Nahīṅ'We are not Hindus', argued from scripture[26]
1905, 1909Images removed from the Harmandir's precincts; the Anand Marriage ActA Sikh shrine without Hindu images; a Sikh wedding rite valid in law[3][27]
1930The Sikh Gurdwaras Act, as amendedA Sikh declares 'I have no other religion'[2]
1950Article 25 of the Constitution of India, Explanation II'Hindus' includes Sikhs, for laws on temple entry and endowments[4]
1955–1956The Hindu Code Acts'Hindu' includes Sikhs for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance[32]
1983Mandla v Dowell Lee, House of LordsIn British law Sikhs are an ethnic group[34]
2002National Commission to Review the Working of the ConstitutionRecommends omitting Explanation II; not enacted[33]
The red-sandstone main building of the Khalsa College, Amritsar, with domes and a central clock tower, seen through trees and railings
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The short version: Sikh institutions define Sikhism as a separate religion, and India’s Constitution names it as one (Explanation I to Article 25) while counting Sikhs as Hindus for a few purposes (Explanation II). Their institutions define a Sikh by belief in the Gurus and the Guru Granth Sāhib and by allegiance to no other religion.[1]​[2] Consensus on the texts. The question survives because the boundary was drawn at a datable moment, in the late nineteenth century, out of a past in which many people who revered the Gurus also shared Hindu rites, and because Indian law still counts Sikhs as Hindus for a few purposes.[3]​[4] Political What follows is the evidence century by century, and where historians disagree.

The scripture: neither label

Guru Nānak’s hymns use Hindu and Muslim names for God freely (Rām, Hari, Gobind, Khudā, Allāh) and reject idols, pilgrimage, ritual purity and the authority of Brahmin and qāzī as ways to reach God; the God of the hymns takes no incarnations (§2).[5]​[6] Consensus A hymn of Guru Arjan’s in the Ādi Granth of 1604 puts it in a line:

ਨਾ ਹਮ ਹਿੰਦੂ ਨ ਮੁਸਲਮਾਨ ॥ ਅਲਹ ਰਾਮ ਕੇ ਪਿੰਡੁ ਪਰਾਨ ॥੪॥

nā ham hindū na musalamān | alah rām ke piṇḍu parān ||4||

“I am neither Hindu nor Muslim; my body and breath belong to Allah and Rām.” (this series’ translation)[7]

Read one way, the Guru’s path is neither religion; read another, the one God is the God of both. The hymn closes with Kabīr’s name, and the scripture includes Kabīr, Ravidās, Nāmdev and the Sufi Farīd beside the Gurus (§3).[6]​[3] Consensus on the text; Political on its bearing on the modern boundary. The famous words “there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim”, which Guru Nānak is said to have spoken at Sultānpur, are the janamsākhīs’, not the scripture’s.[8] Majority

The eighteenth century: a Khālsā apart, shrines in common

The Khālsā had its own initiation, its own name and its own code from the eighteenth century (§5).[9]​[10] Majority An outsider saw a separate people. Qāẓī Nūr Muḥammad, who rode with Ahmad Shāh Abdālī’s army and wrote to celebrate a holy war against the Sikhs, told his readers in 1765:

“His [last] successor was Gobind Singh, from whom they received the title ‘Singh’. They are not from amongst the Hindus. These miscreants have a distinct religion of their own.”[11]

Consensus on the text; Political in modern use, where the line is quoted on one side of this question (§6).

Yet the shrines of the Gurus were often kept by Udāsī and Nirmalā holy men who did not keep the Khālsā form, and worship there took forms shared with the Hindu traditions around them, images among them.[3]​[12] Majority on the custodianship; Contested on whether it was a different Sikhism or a compromise of hard times. The Bachitar Nāṭak, the poem in which the tenth Guru tells his story in his own voice, says of his father’s execution that Guru Tegh Bahādur “protected their tilak and sacred thread”, the marks of the Hindu twice-born, a line now read on both sides of the argument.[13]​[14] Majority that the text is the Guru’s or his court’s; Political on what it implies.

Ranjit Singh’s Punjab: the Sanātan argument

The Sikh kingdom of 1799–1849 shows both pictures at once (§7). It ruled as the Sarkār-i Khālsā and gilded the Harmandir; at Ranjit Singh’s cremation in 1839 Brahmins recited from the Sanskrit books and Sikh priests from the Granth, and four of his wives died as satīs on his pyre, a rite the Gurus had rejected.[15]​[16] Consensus on the events.

Harjot Oberoi argued that before the 1870s most people who revered the Gurus belonged to a plural, loosely bounded “Sanātan” tradition, sharing shrines, saints and Brahmin rites with Hindus, and that a single, exclusive Sikh identity was the work of the Singh Sabhā.[3] J. S. Grewal replied from the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature that the Khālsā Singhs were by far the most important Sikh identity, and that what was new later was “rational argument for a distinctive Sikh identity with its political implications, and not Sikh identity itself”, as Indu Banga summarises him.[17]​[18] Contested; Political Most historians now accept both: a self-conscious Khālsā existed, and many people counted as Sikhs shared rites with their Hindu neighbours. The argument is over the weighting.[19]​[10]​[20] Majority

1873–1909: “We are not Hindus”

Under British rule the question was argued among Sikhs, in print (§8):[3]​[21] Majority

  • The two wings. The Singh Sabhā, founded at Amritsar in 1873 and Lahore in 1879, split over it. The Sanātan side, led by Khem Singh Bedī, a descendant of Guru Nānak, held that Sikhs were part of the Hindu community; the Tat Khālsā, the more thoroughgoing reformist wing, held that the Khālsā was the norm and the Sikhs a separate religion.[3]​[21] Majority
  • The Arya Samāj. Some Sikh reformers first joined the Hindu reform movement, which shared their hostility to images and caste ritual, and broke with it in the later 1880s over its leaders’ attacks on the Gurus. In 1900 an Arya śuddhi rite cut the hair of a group of Rahtiā Sikhs it received into Hinduism.[22]​[23]​[24] Majority
  • The army. The British recruited the initiated Singh, and their officers’ handbook took a side: “Hinduism has been ever hostile to Sikhism”, Captain R. W. Falcon wrote in 1896, and its influence was “indirectly withdrawing professed Sikhs from the faith”. It is evidence for British categories, not for how Sikhs saw themselves.[25] Consensus on the text.
  • The books. In 1897 Bedī argued in public that the Sikhs were not separate from the Hindus, and tracts such as Sikh Hindū Hain (“Sikhs are Hindus”) said the same. In 1898 Kāhn Singh of Nābhā answered with Ham Hindū Nahīṅ, a dialogue arguing from the Guru Granth Sāhib and the codes that Sikh doctrine on caste, incarnation, images and ritual differed from Hindu doctrine on every point that mattered.[3]​[22]​[26] Consensus on the books.
  • The shrine and the wedding. In 1905 the Harmandir’s manager had the images of Hindu gods removed from its precincts, and in 1909 the Anand Marriage Act validated the Sikh rite of circling the scripture, while leaving every other Sikh marriage custom valid too.[3]​[27] Consensus

The book was written to answer Sikhs who held the opposite view, Khem Singh Bedī among them. The Tat Khālsā’s view prevailed over the next thirty years.[3]​[12] Majority Whether that was invention or restoration is the most argued question about the period: Oberoi says the boundary was constructed, much Sikh scholarship that it was restored, Grewal that an old norm was newly enforced, and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair that both sides think in a colonial category of “religion” that requires sharp borders.[3]​[28]​[20]​[29] Contested; Political

In law: separate, with exceptions

The law then wrote the boundary down (§9):

  • 1925–1930. The Sikh Gurdwaras Act, which handed the historic shrines to an elected Sikh body, defined a Sikh by declaration: “I solemnly affirm that I am a Sikh, that I believe in the Guru Granth Sahib, that I believe in the Ten Gurus, and that I have no other religion.” The last clause was added in 1930.[2] Consensus
  • 1950. The Constitution of India protects the Sikh kirpān in Explanation I to Article 25. Explanation II says that in the clause allowing laws to open “Hindu religious institutions” to all classes of Hindus, “Hindus” includes Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. It was added in 1949 so that temple-entry and endowment laws would reach their institutions too.[4]​[30] Majority on the purpose. The Akālī members Hukam Singh and Bhūpinder Singh Mān refused to sign the Constitution.[12]​[31] Majority
  • 1955–1956. The Hindu Code Acts defined “Hindu” for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance to include Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists (Hinduism §12).[32] Consensus
  • 2002. A national commission recommended omitting Explanation II and naming Sikh, Jaina and Buddhist institutions in the clause itself; it has not been enacted.[33] Consensus

Defenders of Explanation II call it a technical device about temple entry that says nothing about whether Sikhism is a separate religion; its critics say the state’s choice of words is itself the point.[19] Political In Britain the question came out differently: in 1983 the House of Lords held that Sikhs are an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act, with a long shared history and a cultural tradition of their own (§11).[34] Consensus

Common misconceptions

  • “Indian law says Sikhs are Hindus.” For temple-entry and endowment laws and for personal law, it counts them so; the Constitution names Sikhism as a religion of its own in the same article, and protects the kirpān as part of it. Consensus
  • “The boundary was invented by the British.” The Khālsā’s separate code is far older than 1873; what came under British rule was a harder, written and enforced line, drawn mostly by Sikhs arguing with other Sikhs. Majority
  • “Sikhs always agreed they were not Hindus.” In the 1890s leading Sikhs argued that they were; Ham Hindū Nahīṅ was written to answer them. Consensus
  • “Sikhism is a sect of Hinduism because it shares words and ideas.” The Gurus used Hindu and Muslim vocabulary alike and rejected incarnation, images and the authority of Brahmins; whether shared language makes a sect is a judgement, not a finding. Political

What the evidence cannot settle

Historians can date when the boundary was argued, by whom, and when it entered law. Whether the Gurus founded a new religion, or reformed an old one, is a question of what counts as a religion, and each side answers it from its own premises. Political

References

  1. ^ Sikh Rahit Maryādā — Code of conduct of the Shiromaṇī Gurdwārā Prabandhak Committee. approved 1945 CE; published 1950 CE. Punjabi. The code most Sikh institutions follow: who is a Sikh, the amrit ceremony, the Five Ks and the four cardinal prohibitions. about
  2. ^ a b Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, section 2(9) — Punjab Act VIII of 1925, as amended (clause 9 substituted by Punjab Act 3 of 1930). 1925 CE; clause substituted 1930. English. Defines a Sikh as one who professes the Sikh religion; a disputed living person is a Sikh if he declares belief in the Guru Granth Sahib and the Ten Gurus and that he has no other religion. Chapters 7, 8 and 16(2) set the petition, objection and tribunal procedure for shrines not in Schedule I. about
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harjot Oberoi The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. University of Chicago Press, 1994. The "Sanātan" Sikhism of the early nineteenth century and the Singh Sabhā's sharper boundaries.
  4. ^ a b Constitution of India, Arts. 17 & 25 — Republic of India. 1950 CE. English. Untouchability abolished; religious freedom guaranteed; temples opened to all classes of Hindus by constitutional mandate. about
  5. ^ W. H. McLeod Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968. The critical study of Nānak's life and theology, separating the janamsākhī tradition from the hymns.
  6. ^ a b Pashaura Singh The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority. Oxford University Press, 2000. doi The formation of the Sikh canon, from the 1604 Ādi Granth to its installation as Guru.
  7. ^ Guru Granth Sāhib, ang 1136 — Guru Arjan, Rāg Bhairau. 1581–1606 CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. "I am neither Hindu nor Muslim" (nā ham hindū na musalamān): a hymn of Guru Arjan on a theme of Kabīr's, quoted in the modern argument over whether Sikhs are Hindus. read the text
  8. ^ Janamsākhīs — Sikh hagiographies. 17th c. CE onward. Punjabi. Where "na koī hindū na koī musalmān" comes from — the traditional life of Nānak, not the Guru Granth Sāhib itself.
  9. ^ W. H. McLeod Sikhs of the Khalsa: A History of the Khalsa Rahit. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2003. The code of conduct from the rahitnāmās to the Sikh Rahit Maryādā; the main source for dating the Five Ks.
  10. ^ a b Purnima Dhavan When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799. Oxford University Press, New York, 2011.
  11. ^ Qāẓī Nūr Muḥammad, Jangnāma — Persian verse account of Ahmad Shāh Abdālī's seventh campaign, 1764–65. 1765 CE. Persian. An eyewitness hostile to the Sikhs praises their conduct in war (they do not kill one who is not a man, obstruct fugitives or plunder women) and says: "They are not from amongst the Hindus. These miscreants have a distinct religion of their own." Edited by Ganda Singh (1939); translated by Iqtidar Alam Khan in Grewal and Habib (2001), Text 18, pp. 208–209, who render the author's pun on sag ('dog') as 'Sikhs'.
  12. ^ a b c J. S. Grewal The Sikhs of the Punjab. The New Cambridge History of India II.3, Cambridge University Press, 1990. The standard narrative history; revised edition 1998.
  13. ^ Bachitar Nāṭak 5.13–14 — Dasam Granth. late 17th c. CE. Braj in Gurmukhi. The tenth Guru's account of his father's death: Tegh Bahādur "protected their tilak and sacred thread" and "gave his head, but not his resolve".
  14. ^ Louis E. Fenech Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the "Game of Love". Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000.
  15. ^ Honigberger, Thirty-Five Years in the East, vol. 1 — Johann Martin Honigberger, Thirty-Five Years in the East (London, 1852), vol. 1, pp. 96–100. 1839 CE (events); 1852 CE (published). English (from the German). The court physician's eyewitness account of Ranjit Singh's cremation: "four ranees (legal wives), and seven female slaves" burned; Brahmins, Sikh priests reading the Granth and Muslims all took part. about
  16. ^ Guru Granth Sāhib, ang 787 — Guru Amar Dās, saloks in the Vār of Rāg Sūhī. 1552–1574 CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. "They are not called satīs who burn themselves on the pyres of the dead": the true satī dies of the pain of separation, or lives in modesty and contentment. read the text
  17. ^ J. S. Grewal Recent Debates in Sikh Studies: An Assessment. Manohar, New Delhi, 2011. Assesses the McLeod and Oberoi debates; on the Sanātan thesis and the Singh Sabhā, pp. 124–31, 186.
  18. ^ Indu Banga "J. S. Grewal on Sikh History, Historiography and Recent Debates". Journal of Punjab Studies 20.1–2, 301–326, 2013. open library A survey of Grewal's positions, with his replies to McLeod and Oberoi.
  19. ^ a b W. H. McLeod Who Is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989.
  20. ^ a b J. S. Grewal Contesting Interpretations of the Sikh Tradition. Manohar, New Delhi, 1998. Includes Grewal's critique of Oberoi's 'Sanātan' thesis.
  21. ^ a b N. Gerald Barrier The Sikhs and Their Literature: A Guide to Books, Tracts and Periodicals, 1849–1919. Manohar Book Service, Delhi, 1970. The Singh Sabhā press, with an introduction on the movement's factions.
  22. ^ a b Kenneth W. Jones "Ham Hindū Nahīn: Arya Sikh Relations, 1877–1905". Journal of Asian Studies 32, no. 3: 457–475, 1973. doi The alliance and the break between the Arya Samāj and the Sikh reformers.
  23. ^ Kenneth W. Jones Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th-Century Punjab. University of California Press, 1976. full text The Arya Samaj in the region where it mattered most.
  24. ^ Satyārth Prakāś — Dayānanda Sarasvatī. 1875 CE. Hindi. "Back to the Vedas" — reform by declaring image worship, the Purāṇas, avatāras and caste-by-birth all later corruption. about
  25. ^ Handbook on Sikhs for the Use of Regimental Officers — Captain R. W. Falcon (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 1896). 1896 CE. English. A recruiting officer's guide to the Khālsā rahit and the Sikh districts; praises the Singh as 'that splendid pattern of a native soldier' and warns that Hinduism keeps Sikhs' sons from taking the pahul. read the text
  26. ^ Ham Hindū Nahīṅ — Kāhn Singh Nābhā. 1898 CE. Punjabi in Gurmukhi. 'We are not Hindus': a dialogue between a Hindu and a Sikh arguing from scripture that Sikh doctrine on caste, incarnation, images and ritual makes the Sikhs a separate religion. The Tat Khālsā's manifesto. about
  27. ^ Anand Marriage Act, 1909 — Act VII of 1909, Imperial Legislative Council, 22 October 1909. 22 October 1909. English. Declares marriages by the Sikh Anand rite valid in law, past and future, while saving 'any other marriage ceremony customary among the Sikhs' (s. 4). about
  28. ^ Kharak Singh, G. S. Mansukhani and Jasbir Singh Mann, eds. Fundamental Issues in Sikh Studies. Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh, 1992. Essays against McLeod's school, from its Sikh critics.
  29. ^ Arvind-pal Singh Mandair Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury, 2013.
  30. ^ Constitution of India, Article 25, drafting history — Draft Constitution 1948 (draft Article 19) and Constituent Assembly debates. 1948–1950 CE. English. The 1948 draft had only the kirpān Explanation; an amendment to widen clause (2)(b) was rejected in December 1948, and the Drafting Committee later extended it to Sikhs, Jainas and Buddhists in Explanation II. about
  31. ^ Rajiv A. Kapur Sikh Separatism: The Politics of Faith. Allen & Unwin, London, 1986. Traces Sikh separatist politics from the gurdwara reform movement to 1947.
  32. ^ Hindu Code Bills — Parliament of India. 1955–56 CE. English. A secular legislature imposes monogamy, permits divorce, and grants daughters inheritance — the largest single change in Hindu practice in this history. about
  33. ^ National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, Report, 2002 — Report of the Venkatachaliah Commission. 31 March 2002. English. Recommends omitting Explanation II to Article 25 and naming Sikh, Jaina and Buddhist institutions directly in clause (2)(b). about
  34. ^ Mandla v Dowell Lee [1983] 2 AC 548 — House of Lords, [1982] UKHL 7, judgment of 24 March 1983. 24 March 1983. English. Sikhs are an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act 1976, so a school's 'no turban' rule was unlawful indirect discrimination; Lord Fraser's test of a long shared history and a cultural tradition of the group's own. read the text

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APA 
Paudel, A. (2026). Are Sikhs Hindus?. In How Sikhism Evolved. How It Evolved. https://howitevolved.com/sikhism/are-sikhs-hindus/
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Paudel, Amrit. “Are Sikhs Hindus?.” How Sikhism Evolved, How It Evolved, 6 November 2026, howitevolved.com/sikhism/are-sikhs-hindus/.
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Paudel, Amrit. “Are Sikhs Hindus?.” How Sikhism Evolved. How It Evolved. Last modified 6 November 2026. https://howitevolved.com/sikhism/are-sikhs-hindus/.
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@misc{howitevolved2026aresikhshindus,
  author = {Paudel, Amrit},
  title = {Are Sikhs Hindus?},
  howpublished = {\url{https://howitevolved.com/sikhism/are-sikhs-hindus/}},
  year = {2026},
  note = {How Sikhism Evolved. Last modified 2026-11-06}
}
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