Sikh religious ceremony for new recruits to the Sikh Regiment, 1947

Photograph, India, 1947.

The Pahul was a Sikh baptismal ceremony that symbolised the full acceptance of the faith. Many Sikh Indian Army units insisted that all new recruits undertake the ceremony which harked back to the old Sikh army, the Khalsa, which consisted only of those soldiers who had taken the Pahul and embraced all the laws of Sikhism.