The Kuka movement was probably founded in western Punjab by Bhagat Jawahar Mal, generally known as Sian Sahib, in the forties of the nineteenth century, shortly before the British conquest of the Punjab. Its aim was to purify the Sikh religion by removing the abuses and superstitions that had crept into it, such as caste distinctions, the rigours imposed upon widows like those among the Hindus, and the worship of idols, tombs and ascetics.