Vaisakhi

Two occasions in one

Vaisakhi was already a harvest festival and a solar new year observed across the Punjab and much of northern India when Guru Amar Das fixed it as one of the dates on which Sikhs would assemble before the Guru. It was at the Vaisakhi assembly at Anandpur in 1699 that Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa.

The festival therefore carries both layers: the harvest, celebrated with bhangra and gidda and fairs across the Punjab by people of every community, and the founding of the Khalsa, marked with processions, kirtan, and amrit ceremonies at which new initiates are admitted.

Observance

Gurdwaras hold an unbroken reading of the scripture concluding on the day. Nagar kirtans, processions in which the Guru Granth Sahib is carried through the streets led by five Sikhs standing for the Panj Pyare, are held in Punjab and in diaspora cities, where they have become among the largest public religious events in Britain, Canada and the United States.

The nishan sahib at gurdwaras is lowered, its cloth replaced and the pole washed.

Jallianwala Bagh

Vaisakhi carries a further association. The crowd fired on at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on 13 April 1919 had gathered in part for the festival, and the massacre took place on the day. The anniversary is consequently observed in the Punjab as a day of commemoration as well as celebration.