Festivals in Sikhism

There were objections to my post on Holla Mahalla. In response to those objections by this post I would like to clarify that Gurus had objections to celebrate festivals the way they were because most festivals cotemporary to Gurus were caste based for example Lohri was celebrated by Brahmins though it was a thanks giving festival as some crops of winter come in and farmers become free after sowing wheat so they could indulge in festivity and making offerings, and in all homes where new born babies have appeared, it was nice occasion to extract offering from them, in all homes where new weddings have taken place was also a nice occasion to extract offerings. So it was a typical caste based festival evolved by the Brahmin. Diwali festival was attributed to another high caste – vaishnavs or banias and Goddess Laxmi was paid obeisance and offerings by Banias were made and the puja was performed by the Brahmin and all the offerings were collected by him. Similarly Dussera was attributed to the Kshatriyas and importance of their weapons and tools was suggested to them and puja was performed of these articles by Brahmin and offerings were collected by him. Holi was left for shudras and religious sanctions were given to them to celebrate with spraying of colours and cow dung and indulge in intoxicants like bhang and charas so that they don’t realize their humiliating conditions. It was to remove this caste adherence that Guru Gobind Singhji gave new ways of celebrating age old festivals of India that were sacrificed on the altar of Hindu religion. The time period of each festival was according to the cycle of yearly weather change and availability of time to the farmer as the Indian society was based on agriculture. The Brahmin made these festivals religion based and Gurus only tried to remove this caste based division of festivals. Diwali was celebrated by Sikhs since the sixth Gurus time as Bandi chhode diwas because for Sikhs it was a challenge to fight for freedom from foreign rulers, suppression from caste system, freedom to preach and practice your own beliefs, freedom to protect your religious places which Muslims were demolishing. So diwali was given a new Avtar and a new meaning. All other festivals are also celebrated in the same time period to consolidate Sikhism and its tenets so that we don’t fall back on beliefs of caste importance any more.