Jatha
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Sikhs on the march, ca.1850 A Jatha (Punjabi: ਜੱਥਾ [sg]; ਜਥੇ [pl] ) is an armed body of Sikhs that has existed in Sikh tradition since 1699, the beginning of the Khalsa (Sikh martial order). Jatthā in the Punjabi language means "a group of people."
Sikhs on the march, ca.1850]] A Jatha (Punjabi: ਜੱਥਾ [sg]; ਜਥੇ [pl] ) is an armed body of Sikhs that has existed in Sikh tradition since 1699, the beginning of the Khalsa (Sikh martial order). Jatthā in the Punjabi language means "a group of people."
Revival
The terms "jatha" and "jathedar" were revived during the Singh Sabha movement to refer to "bands of preachers and choirs", an association which survives until the present-day. However, during the later Gurdwara reform movement, the terms began to take on a martial tone once again, resuscitating and harking back to the 18th century's context for the word. The group of Sikhs protesting and fighting for the freedom of Sikh shrines and places of worship from the control of hereditary mahants were termed Akali Jathas. The term Jatha began to refer to a "band of [Sikh] volunteers going forward to press a demand or to defy an unjust fiat of the government". This semantic of the word is still used.
References
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1348129750 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.