(2009)
TRUCKIN' SIKH
A decal of a Sikh warrior sparks a journey from Central California to the history of the Sikh Empire to the Dallas Cowboys. Simran Jeet Singh makes the connection.
On the vast, white door of an eighteen-wheeler truck, there is a large decal featuring the image of a turbaned warrior and text in multiple languages, including the English phrase: “Seize Everything.” Who is this figure, what do the words and images represent, and how did they end up on a long-haul truck? For this, we had to investigate…
Having lived in New York City for the past two decades, I’m pretty comfortable climbing into bright, yellow cabs. Often, the driver is a fellow Sikh, and we greet one another in Punjabi. Vahiguru Ji Ka Khalsa! Vahiguru Ji Ki Fateh!
But in Fall of 2025, on a visit to Central California, I found myself climbing into a different kind of bright, yellow cab: the front compartment of an 18-wheeler truck, or as we called it as kids growing up in Texas, a “Big Rig.”
I’d never been inside a big rig before. The steps were steeper than I anticipated. I pulled myself up and into the passenger side. Before I could even look up, I heard a welcoming voice: Vahiguru Ji Ka Khalsa! Vahiguru Ji Ki Fateh!
Different location. Different landscape. Different vehicle. Different industry.
Same warm greeting.
I introduced myself to the driver and shook hands. He returned the favor, telling me his name, Ajab Singh, and his relationship to the truck. He didn’t drive it much anymore, but he owned it. In fact, he owned and operated all of the trucks in the lot, nearly two dozen of them. This was his business.
I looked out the window and noticed that every truck in the lot had the same sticker on it, a black and white rendering of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a celebrated freedom fighter who helped overthrow British colonialism in India.
I was there to interview Ajab about the trucking industry and the massive role that Sikhs play within it. We were featuring him in an episode for our new docuseries, UNDIVIDED, which aims to share undertold stories about America’s diverse religious communities.
Big rig driver Ajab Singh (left) and author Simran Jeet Singh (right)
photograph by the author
But before the cameras started rolling, and before the truck started rolling, I wanted to get to know the person I’d be spending the next several hours with. So Ajab and I sat in the front seat of the big rig, conversing in Punjabi. We talked about life and family and politics, and I eventually asked about his immigration story. He shared what led him to leave Punjab, which I would summarize as the disenfranchisement of Sikhs, continued mistrust in government, and a lack of economic opportunities.
Ajab also shared what drew him to California’s Central Valley: he loved being in a place with so many people who shared his language and culture, and he especially loved the landscape. “It’s just like Punjab,” he would point out repeatedly on our drives. Abundant rivers. Open fields. Fertile land, ripe for agriculture.
But what kept him here in Yuba City, California, more than anything else? What drove Ajab to settle in the United States, and to a career in the trucking industry? In his words: Azaadi. Freedom.
Ajab Singh is not the only Sikh to place central importance on self-determination. His views mirror Sikh teachings on sovereignty. Liberation is not an escape from social realities. Nor is it simply a spiritual objective. In Sikh philosophy, the spiritual is always tied to the material. Liberation is spiritual, and it’s also embodied, and therefore, political. Self-determination is not just an interior practice; it requires freedom from oppression and persecution.
The eighteen-wheeler truck door with the decal featuring Sikh imagery is also perhaps best understood through the lens of this core Sikh impulse: sovereignty.
Interviewing Sikh Driver
Documentary filmmakers interview Sikh truck driver Ajab Singh
photograph by the author
In 2018, the North American Punjabi Trucking Association estimated that approximately 150,000 Sikhs worked in trucking, about 90% of whom were drivers. They also estimated that Sikhs operate about 40% of trucking in California.
Cities like Yuba City and Bakersfield have become central hubs of the trucking industry and central hubs for Punjabi Sikh communities. While estimates suggest that Sikhs comprise less than 0.2% of the US population, Sikhs are the third-largest ethnic group in Yuba City, making up nearly 15% of the city’s citizenry.
Trucking has become one of the most popular professions among Punjabi Sikhs. There are a number of reasons for this. There is a simple path to entry, because people in the community get to know one another. It’s easy to be entrepreneurial, because it takes only a small loan to become a small business owner. It’s a relatively safer job for people who look visibly distinct and are elsewhere often subject to employment discrimination and hate violence.
Each of these aspects of trucking that appeal to Punjabi Sikhs is valuable in its own right. Together, they show how long-haul trucking offers a level of freedom that can be otherwise difficult for marginalized groups and recent immigrants to find in the US.
"Seize Everything" Sweatshirt
Dallas Cowboys' fan merch featuring the Sikh military leader Hari Singh Nalwa
Left: modeled by Mokhm Singh
Right: photographed by Gurdas Kakar
What makes this truck door distinctively Sikh is the decal pasted on top of it. The decal has five main elements, each of which carries its own meaning.
If an informed American drove by this truck, they would first notice a powerful Sikh warrior. He is dressed regally, holding a sword, and gazing directly at the viewer. Someone steeped in South Asian history might recognize the central figure. This is Hari Singh Nalwa, (1791–1837), an esteemed Sikh leader who served as commander-in-chief of the Khalsa Fauj during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s reign. Nalwa’s image in the decal is taken from a modern portrait by the Canada-based artist Bhagat Singh Bedi. To allay any confusion, Nalwa’s name is inscribed at the top of the decal in yellow, stylized Gurmukhi: hrI isMG nlvw.
Hari Singh Nalwa is widely regarded as one of the greatest military generals in Sikh and South Asian history. He is perhaps best known for his role in expanding the Sikh Empire during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was under his leadership that Maharaja Ranjit Singh conquered a number of regions and territories, including Kasur, Peshawar, Multan, Kashmir, and more. Sikhs celebrate Hari Singh Nalwa’s military prowess, and he also earned a legendary reputation in South and Central Asia as being a fearsome warrior. Oral traditions famously recount that Afghan and Pashtun mothers would coax their children to stop crying by saying “Nalwa aa jaayegaa! (Nalwa will come!).”
The image here reflects how Nalwa has been remembered, as a fearsome and fearless warrior, a battlefield genius who spent his life kicking ass and taking names. This is perhaps why, in 2023, the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League also decided to adopt this image of Hari Singh Nalwa as inspiration for the season, along with the Latin phrase, “Carpe Omnia,” which means “Seize Everything.” The English phrase—Seize Everything—was inscribed in the Cowboys locker room, along with other images meant to inspire “America’s Team.” The phrase also appears on the truck’s decal in a large, medieval style font, just beneath Nalwa.
It’s easy to see how a professional football team would appropriate this phrase—Seize Everything—and this figure—Hari Singh Nalwa—as a motivational rallying cry for the season. The slogan resonates with American sports culture, which repeats analogous clichés, such as “Go all in!” “Give it 110%!” “Leave it all on the field!” And the warrior image screams masculinity: The musculature. The weaponry. The facial hair. And, of course, Nalwa himself, both the man of history and the man of legend.
The specific phrase, “seize everything,” is not grounded in Sikh theology or tradition, nor is it attributed to Hari Singh Nalwa. It is more likely a present-day interpretation of Nalwa’s military endeavors, a phrase taken from the Cowboys to become a romanticized read on Sikh sovereignty of a bygone era.
"Seize Everything" Decal
This decal on a big-rig truck features Sikh ideas on sovereignty. It includes an image of Hari Singh Nalwa, the famed 19th-century Sikh general of the Khalsa Army, and the phrase "Seize Everything," which were featured together by the Dallas Cowboys.
Whether on the football field or on the battlefield, the imperative to seize everything has a subtext: Do not be seized yourself. This is an implicit message about autonomy, individual and collective.
One can see the directive to seize everything as being in tension with the central Sikh concept of vand chakna (give, and then take). Yet one can also see how the impulse of autonomy underneath the slogan would appeal to Sikhs. “Seize Everything” may be a neologism, and it may even conflict with Sikh teachings on generosity, but when paired with the depiction of Nalwa, the phrase harkens back to the last period of Sikh self-rule, a reminder that it has been more than 175 years since Sikhs exercised political sovereignty.
The decal reinforces the concept of Sikh sovereignty with the brown silhouette behind Nalwa. Most people who notice it—including most South Asians—would likely view it as an amorphous blob. Its shape doesn’t approximate anything they would recognize. However, some Sikhs and some students of history would identify it immediately: this is Undivided Punjab.
The shape does not represent the current province of Punjab in modern-day Pakistan, nor the Punjab state in modern-day India. These two states have markedly different shapes. Rather, the shape depicts Punjab as it used to be, before it was partitioned by the British in 1947.
Depicting Undivided Punjab is a statement. It represents a sense of peoplehood and homeland, as well as core aspects of Sikh philosophy such as unity and freedom. It announces that the regional demarcations today are not as true as they once were; that Punjab is far more than its recently invented borders, whether in India or in Pakistan; that we don’t have to imagine a homeland for Sikhs because they once had it; and that we don’t even have to go back very far to see what it looked like. In this sense, Undivided Punjab depicts a vision of Sikh sovereignty rooted in the past, a memory of Punjab before colonial invasion and before its devastating partition.
Depicting Undivided Punjab does not just call upon a nostalgic past; it is also a way to express dissatisfaction with its present condition. During Partition, a large majority of Sikhs migrated from West Punjab (now Pakistan) to East Punjab (now India). This was the largest mass migration in human history, and the Sikhs who moved to the newly formed India didn’t just leave behind their homes and businesses; they also left behind the birthplace of their founder, Guru Nanak, and the site that memorialized his birth and childhood. In 1966, India further divided the state of Punjab to carve out two new states, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. In less than 20 years, Punjab was reduced to about 14% of its pre-Partition area.
Despite its reduced size, Indian Punjab remains a heartland of the Sikh world. It is home to a majority of the religion’s estimated 30 million Sikhs globally. The region has been a crucible of social movements and political agitations for centuries. It was a central site for anti-colonial resistance, which helped to found India in 1947. In the country’s first decades, the Punjabi Suba Movement mounted a resistance to the disenfranchisement of Sikhs and Punjab. By the 1970s, a broader demand for political and economic equity across India culminated with the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1973.
The following two decades brought open conflict. Tensions between Sikhs and the Indian State reached a zenith, resulting in large-scale violence and mass casualties. It was during this period that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a military assault on Darbar Sahib of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ most significant religious site. Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her in response. State-organized anti-Sikh pogroms swept across Delhi and North India; armed militancy took hold in Punjab, disrupting civilian life for years; and state security forces carried out a systematic campaign of abduction and extrajudicial killings, targeting thousands of Sikhs across Punjab in what is now known as the Decade of Disappearances.
The experience of sustained disenfranchisement, marginalization, and violence revivified notions of Sikh political sovereignty. Calls for self-determination abounded, and they intensified in the 1970s and 1980s. In Punjab and across the global Diaspora, a fresh slogan emerged calling for a separate Sikh homeland: Khalistan Zindabaad. This phrase appears at the bottom of the decal, the fourth of its key elements.
The slogan Khalistan Zindabaad loosely translates to “Long live Khalistan.” Khalistan is a term coined in the twentieth century referring to a separate Sikh homeland. Zindabaad draws from Persian, in the grammatical optative, meaning “may it continue to live.”
Countless ink has been spilled on the question of Khalistan. Some who are less sympathetic see it as a separatist movement that poses an existential threat to India’s national stability. Some who are more sympathetic see it as a natural response to India’s grave abuses and human rights violations. What is undeniable is that this conversation is intertwined with Sikh traditions on sovereignty and freedom from oppression.
The fifth element, which appears at the bottom of the decal, is yellow, stylized Gurmukhi text of a phrase commonly attributed to the tenth guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh (d. 1708 CE). The text reads: svw lwK sy eyk lVwaU. This phrase is traditionally interpreted to mean that, with Guru Gobind Singh’s support, one Sikh can take on 25,000 combatants.
This text is smaller in size than the other elements, and it is slightly less visible. But its message coheres with the larger vision of Sikh sovereignty that the decal asserts. In a context of minoritization, whether in India or in the United States, this message is a reminder that no matter the odds, Sikhs will continue to persevere.
The text appears at the bottom of the decal, where it functions like a footnote. It subtly reminds the reader that while they may not be in the majority, numbers and metrics do not determine human agency. Sovereignty starts within us. That’s why we call it self-determination.
The five elements of the decal—the image of Hari Singh Nalwa, the Latin phrase Carpe Omnia, the silhouette of Undivided Punjab, the English text Khalistan Zindabaad, and Gurmukhi words Sava Lakh Se Ek Larau—each carry their own meaning. Together, they express a Sikh vision of sovereignty that is rooted in Sikh teachings on liberation, grounded in a historical experience of self-rule, and engaged with contemporary injustice.
As I reflect on what this decal on the 18-wheeler truck represents, I can’t help but recall my conversation with Ajab Singh in the cab of his truck. He spoke to me about being drawn to this world because of the freedom it affords. Freedom from the 9-to-5 structure of American worklife. Freedom from discrimination and violence he might have encountered in jobs that interfaced more with the general public. Freedom to practice his religiosity to a degree that didn’t feel possible when he lived in Punjab.
Ajab Singh had placed a different decal on his own trucks, featuring the freedom fighter Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Like the one featuring Hari Singh Nalwa, placing these images on an 18-wheeler truck are forms of public expression. It’s a choice that enables the owner to share their identity and communicate their core values.
What is the one message that these individuals wanted to share about who they are and how they see the world? In both cases here the answer is interlinked, and it goes back to the single word that Ajab Singh emphasized repeatedly as we drove in his big rig in Central California.
Azaadi. Freedom.
SOURCES & FURTHER READINGS
“An All American Industry Changes the All-American Way: Sikhs Are Taking Over Trucking,” The Economist, May 3, 2018. Kurtis Lee, “Long-Haul Trucking Was a Refuge for Sikh Immigrants. Until Now.” New York Times, December 21, 2025. “Resources for Sikh Truck Drivers,” The Sikh Coalition. Jaweed Kaleem, “Sikh drivers are transforming U.S. trucking. Take a ride along the Punjabi American highway,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2019. Jim Axelrod, “More than 30,000 Indian-American Sikhs have entered the trucking industry in 2 years,” CBS News, November 23, 2018. AUTHOR PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Lash
Simran Jeet Singh
is Assistant Professor of Interreligious Histories at Union Theological Seminary and author of multiple books, including the national bestseller, The Light We Give (Penguin Random House, 2022). He is Senior Advisor for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program, where he previously served as Executive Director. Simran hosts the Wisdom & Practice podcast produced by PRX and hosts Undivided, a new docuseries on religion and race in American history.
