The kesh is uncut hair, the first of the articles of faith of the Khalsa, and it is unique among them in being not an object brought to the body but the body left as it is.
Accepting what is given
To leave the hair uncut is to accept the body in the form in which it is given rather than to alter it, and the kesh expresses a submission to the divine will and a respect for the natural form of the person, so the first of the five articles is a discipline of non-action, a refusal to cut, where the others are things worn or carried. The uncut hair of the head is kept covered and tied, the turban that covers it being the most visible sign of the Sikh, and the comb, the kangha, is one of the five precisely to keep the kesh clean and ordered.
The whole person marked
Because the kesh is the body itself and not an object, it makes the person entire a bearer of the commitment, and it cannot be set aside and taken up again as a garment can, which gives it a particular weight among the five: cutting the hair is the breach that most clearly marks a departure from the discipline of the initiated. The keeping of uncut hair distinguishes the Sikh sharply in appearance and has at times drawn discrimination, so the kesh has also been a point at which the community defence of its identity has been tested. It is the foundational article, the one that marks the whole body and around which the comb and the turban are arranged.