section_path: History/Political advancement/Singh Sabha movement
section_name: Singh Sabha movement
paragraph_text: Singh Sabha movement
  
  The Singh Sabha movement, a movement to revitalize Sikhism, also saw the resurgence of the Khalsa after their defeat in wars with the British – latterly in the Second Anglo-Sikh War – and the subsequent decline and corruption of Sikh institutions during colonial rule, and the proselytization of other faith groups in the Punjab. It was started in the 1870s, and after a period of interfactional rivalry, united under the Tat Khalsa to reinvigorate Sikh practice and institutions.
  
  The last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh, converted to Christianity in 1853, a controversial but influential event in Sikh history. Along with his conversion, and after Sikh Empire had been dissolved and the region made a part of the colonial British Empire, proselytising activities of Christians, Brahmo Samajis, Arya Samaj, Muslim Anjuman-i-Islamia and Ahmadiyah sought to convert the Sikhs in northwestern Indian subcontinent into their respective faiths. These developments launched the Singh Sabha Movement.
  
  The first meeting of the movement was in the Golden Temple, Amritsar in 1873, and it was largely launched by the Sanatan Sikhs, Gianis, priests, and granthis. Shortly thereafter, Nihang Sikhs began influencing the movement, followed by a sustained campaign by the Tat Khalsa, which had quickly gained dominance by the early 1880s. The movement became a struggle between Sanatan Sikhs and Tat Khalsa in defining and interpreting Sikhism.
  
  Sanatan Sikhs led by Khem Singh Bedi – who claimed to be a direct descendant of Guru Nanak, Avtar Singh Vahiria and others supported a more inclusive approach which considered Sikhism as a reformed tradition of Hinduism, while Tat Khalsa campaigned for an exclusive approach to the Sikh identity, disagreeing with Sanatan Sikhs and seeking to modernize Sikhism. The Sikh Sabha movement expanded in north and northwest Indian subcontinent, leading to more than 100 Singh Sabhas. By the early decades of the 20th century, the influence of Tat Khalsa increased in interpreting the nature of Sikhism and their control over the Sikh gurdwaras. The Tat Khalsa banished Brahmanical practices including the use of the yagna fire, replaced by the Anand Karaj marriage ceremony in accordance with Sikh scripture, and the idols and the images of Sikh gurus from the Golden Temple in 1905, traditions which had taken root during the administration of the mahants during the 1800s. They undertook a sustained campaign to standardize how Sikh gurdwaras looked and ran, while looking to Sikh scriptures and the early Sikh tradition to purify the Sikh identity.
  
  The spiritual successors of the Singh Sabha include the Akali movement of the 1920s, as well as the modern-day Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), a gurdwara administration body, and the Akali Dal political party.