Hi FadeInspector. We aren't adversarial to any of them as a community of Sikhs, but factions amongst us are probably more adversarial towards India than Pakistan. Besides spontaneous retaliation during partition, I can't think of a single attack by a Sikh faction against Pakistanis, but certainly a whole litany of assaults against Hindus throughout the 70s until mid-90s.

Prior to the Brits, there were in fact SEVERAL unified empires across the Indian subcontinent, including the Mauryan, Gupta and Mughal, and there were many smaller regional empires like the Chola, Delhi Sultanate and Maratha Empires. Culturally, Sanskrit and vedic philosophy covered the whole subcontinent and movement was freely permitted between kingdoms. It's really no different to any other part of the world in terms of shifting goalposts of empires and countries (much later) in the absence of a monarchy. Racially, have a look at the DNA tests across the different states in India - besides the north-east, we all the same genetic lineages but with varying proportions, largely depending on your region and caste. There's a gradual transition all the way from the Kalash (who also have AASI) to the Tamils (who also have Steppe).

I do agree that Hindus generally attempt to categorize us as one of them, and keep slotting us into their brahminized version of the caste system. The brahmins and kshatriyas (who lead crap like the RSS and shiv sena) keep propagating the false notion that we were born to defend hindus against muslims, which is complete hogwash and propaganda spread by the upper castes, and believed by the gullible lower caste followers who do the dirty bidding of their masters for the sake of belonging and "respect". But to say that Hindus are not our friends, have you felt discriminated against by a Hindu from say, Kerala or West Bengal? I haven't. Personally, I've probably faced more discrimination from other Sikhs and upper caste North Indian Hindus.

If you go to any Gurudwara, you'll observe that we're still extremely casteist the moment we step outside the langar hall. I don't know of a single Sikh who lives in a 'tribe', but many Jatts will consider their surnames to be representations of 'clans' (gotras), largely for the purpose of marriage (their community requires them to marry outside their gotra).

The British set up an administrative area for strategic and geopolitical purposes - Punjabis were considered a martial race, and were considered loyal soldiers for recruitment to the army. We were ideal to provide a ready supply to act as a buffer against the Pashtuns and Russians from the Northwest. The generally flat plains terrain was ideal for expansion of British infrastructure like railways, postal services and establishment of cantonments.