WI: a surviving Sikh Empire

Well, technically, there were a few. For instance, the Sikh Empire effectively offered social security and public education to the masses via Sikh religious institutions. Every Sikh Gurdwara provides a free community kitchen, offering Langar to all visitors, regardless of religious, regional, cultural, racial, caste, or class affiliations. And in this era, the Sikh Gurdwaras were also public libraries of Sikh literature, and public schools in which children were taught how to become literate in the Gurmukhi script of Punjabi. Under Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Gurdwaras across the Empire were directly financed via the royal treasury, in a vaguely similar manner to the major Shinto shrines across Imperial Japan during the State Shinto period.

Unlike with the Shinto shrines though, funding the Sikh Gurdwaras also served to finance a system of basic state socialism, in which state welfare, emergency housing and public education were all offered to the public directly through the Sikh Temples. Accordingly, one had to show proper respect to the customs of the Sikh faith in order to freely access these services. These all seem like they'd have been substantial incentives to join the Sikh faith. It's not forced conversion by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly still state-sponsored active proletarianism.

And it's also worth that Sikhism itself ITTL may well be markedly different to Sikhism IOTL. For instance, since Hinduism emphasised the sanctity of cows, the Sikh Empire also universally imposed a ban on cow slaughter. Ranjit Singh willed the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was under his possession, to Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha while on his deathbed in 1839 (though it would never be delivered to them). Ranjit Singh also did a great deal to finance the construction of Hindu temples, not only in his state, but also across British India.

It was noted that the Sikhs made an effort not to offend the prejudices of Muslims, yet according to those Europeans who travelled through the Sikh Empire and gauged public opinion, "...though compared to the Afghans, the Sikhs were mild and exerted a protecting influence, yet no advantages could compensate to their Mohammedan subjects, the idea of subjection to infidels, and the prohibition to slay cows, and to repeat the azan, or 'summons to prayer'". So, ITTL, with a far larger Sikh population, and if these policies had been continued, could Sikhism be perceived as simply a Punjabi-nationalist form of Hinduism, in much the same manner that Shintoism is perceived as simply a Japanese-nationalist form of Buddhism?

A little side note. Who considers Shinto a nationalist form of Buddhism? I would have thought that as most people do not know its history, zen or Zen Buddhism would already have that covered?
 
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