He established community centers and places of worship, wrote his own scriptural compositions and institutionalized a system of leadership (gurus) that would carry forward his vision. To promote this vision of divine oneness and social equality, Guru Nanak created institutions and religious practices. He therefore asserted that all people are equally divine and deserve to be treated as such.

In his belief, God was not separate from the world and watching from a distance, but fully present in every aspect of creation. He believed that a single divine force created the entire world and resided within it. A majority of the global Sikh population still resides in Punjab on the Indian side of the border.įrom a young age, Guru Nanak was disillusioned by the social inequities and religious hypocrisies he observed around him. To start at the beginning, the founder of the Sikh tradition, Guru Nanak was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and the northwestern area of India. The bottom line is there is little understanding of who exactly the Sikhs are and what the believe. I have also experienced racial slurs from a young age. As a scholar of the tradition and a practicing Sikh myself, I have studied the harsh realities of what it means to be a Sikh in America today. Nevertheless for many American Sikhs, such experiences are not uncommon. Scholars and government officials estimate the Sikh American population to number around 500,000. Grewal is a practicing Sikh who maintains a turban and beard. News outlets quickly picked up the story and the radio hosts were suspended. Listeners, activists and Sikhs around the country acted immediately by contacting the station to express their concerns. Two radio hosts commented on Grewal’s Sikh identity and repeatedly referred to him as “turban man.” When called out on the offensiveness of their comments, one of them stated, “Listen, and if that offends you, then don’t wear the turban and maybe I’ll remember your name.” New Jersey’s first Sikh attorney general, Gurbir Singh Grewal, was a target of disparaging remarks in 2018. An updated version of this article was published on April 17, 2021.

Percentage of sikh population in world