ਹੋਲਾ ਮਹੱਲਾਹੋਲਾ ਮਹੱਲਾ

Hola Mohalla is the Sikh festival of martial skill and readiness, held every year at Anandpur Sahib in Punjab on the day after Holi, in the month of Chet, usually in March. Founded by Guru Gobind Singh Ji in 1701, it turns the spring season into a display of horsemanship, mock battle and poetry, led by the Nihang Singhs in their blue robes, in the city where the Khalsa was born.

What is Hola Mohalla?

Hola Mohalla is a three day festival centred on Anandpur Sahib, and its name explains it. Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha, in the Mahan Kosh, the first Sikh encyclopedia, took Hola from halla, a military charge, and mohalla as an organised procession or army column, so the words together mean the charge of an army column; Sikh writers also render the phrase simply as mock fight. Through the festival, processions move in army formation, accompanied by war drums and standard bearers, proceeding from gurdwara to gurdwara, and the whole town becomes a camp of horses, weapons and song.

How did Hola Mohalla begin?

Guru Gobind Singh Ji founded the festival in the spring of 1701, two years after he had created the Khalsa at Anandpur on ਵੈਸਾਖੀ in 1699. The first Hola procession, accompanied by drums, was held at Anandpur on 22 February 1701, and the mock battles were staged on open ground near Holgarh, a fort across the Charan Ganga rivulet north west of the town, and supervised by the Guru himself. The Guru was preparing a small community ringed by hostile hill kings and watched by the Mughal empire: the festival gave his Sikhs a public and disciplined way to practise manoeuvres and combat, and to be seen doing it. Its standing was clear early. In 1889, when the Khalsa Diwan of Lahore asked the government for five Sikh public holidays, only two were approved: Hola Mohalla and the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

Three days at Anandpur Sahib

Pilgrims visit ਅਨੰਦਪੁਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ for a week, camping around the town, but the fair itself runs for three days. The days are filled with kirtan, religious discourses, music and poetry competitions, and displays of weapons and fighting skill. Visitors eat in the langars organised by the local villages, sitting together in pangats, rows on the ground, for vegetarian meals, as at every Sikh gathering. The festival concludes with a long, military style procession led by the Panj Pyare from Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib, one of the five takhts, passing the historic gurdwaras of the town, among them Qila Anandgarh Sahib, Lohgarh Sahib and Mata Jito Ji, before it returns to the Takht. The celebration has since spread from Anandpur to nearby ਕੀਰਤਪੁਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ and to gurdwaras around the world, but Anandpur remains its home, and it is recognised as a state festival by the Punjab government.

The Nihang Singhs and the martial displays

The stars of Hola Mohalla are the Nihang Singhs, the order that keeps the dress and discipline of the Khalsa army: deep blue robes and tall dumalla turbans ringed with steel quoits, carrying swords, spears and other traditional weapons. Organised in their two historic dals, Buddha Dal and Taruna Dal, they perform the feats the festival is famous for: gatka, mock encounters with real weapons; tent pegging at the gallop; bareback horse riding; and the showpiece of a rider standing upright astride two horses galloping side by side. These are not folk dances kept for visitors. They are the training culture of the Khalsa, preserved by the Nihangs for more than three centuries in the form the Guru established, a living reminder of valour and of defence preparedness.

How is Hola Mohalla different from Holi?

ਹੋਲੀ is played with colour on the first day of Chet; Hola follows it by a day, and the Guru deliberately gave the second day a different character. Where Holi sprinkles coloured powder in play, Hola Mohalla demonstrates martial skill in simulated battle. Colour is not absent. The Guru's court poet Bhai Nand Lal describes the participants throwing rose water, amber, musk and saffron coloured water after the mock battles were complete, and Nihangs still splash gulal, red powder, on each other and on the crowd, though writers differ on how far the colour throwing goes back to the Guru himself. The wordplay carries the contrast: in Sikh tradition Hola is the masculine counterpart of the feminine Holi, the same spring moment turned from play to discipline.

When is Hola Mohalla celebrated?

Hola Mohalla falls in the month of Chet, on the day after Holi, which in most years puts it in March. At Anandpur Sahib the fair runs for three days ending on Hola Mohalla itself, and many pilgrims stay the whole week. Because the date follows the calendar used for Holi, the exact March dates change from year to year, so anyone planning to attend should check the dates for the year and arrange travel and lodging early: for those days the small city fills completely, and the roads from Rupnagar carry a river of blue and saffron toward the Shivalik foothills.