REPRESENTATION OF SIKHS IN BOLLYWOOD CINEMA

Like other ethnic minorities, Sikhs have been conventionally represented in popular Hindi cinema either as brave warriors or as uncouth rustics. In the nationalist text in which the imagined subject was an urban North Indian, Hindu male, Sikh characters were displaced and made to provide comic relief. Since the mid-1990s, Hindi filmmakers have genuflected to the rising economic and political power of the Sikh diaspora through token inclusions of Sikhs. Although 1990s films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) included attractive images of Sikhs, Hindi cinema could introduce a Sikh protagonist only in the new millennium in Ghadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) and featured a turbaned Sikh as a protagonist only two decades later in the film Singh is Kinng (2009). Ever since the film became a superhit, top Bollywood stars such as Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and even Rani Mukherjee have played Sikh characters in films like Love Aaj Kal (2009), Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) and Dil Bole Hadippa (2009). Even though Bollywood stars have donned the turban to turn Sikh cool, Sikhs view the representation of the community in Hindi cinema as demeaning and have attempted to revive the Punjabi film industry as an attempt at authentic self-representation. This paper examines images of Sikhs in new Bollywood films to inquire if the romanticization of Sikhs as representing rustic authenticity is a clever marketing tactic used by the film industry to capitalize on the increasing power of the Sikh diaspora or if it is an indulgence in diasporic techno-nostalgia that converges on the Sikh body as the site for non-technologized rusticity. It argues that despite the exoticization of Sikhs in the new Bollywood film, the Sikh subject continues to be displaced in the Indian nation.     

The morning after: Trauma,memory and the Sikh predicament since 1984

This article examines the possibilities opened up by critical international theory for the articulation of a post-nationalist diasporic Sikh identity which seeks to go beyond Khalistan. Critical theories of international relations contest the hegemony of realism within international relations (IR) by examining the origins, development and potential transformation of the bounded territorial state and the Westphalian order of territorialized nation-states. It is argued that realism, based on a positivist methodology, ‘naturalizes’ the Westphalian order by recognizing the nation-state as the only significant actor in IR. This, consequently, serves to ‘territorialize’ Sikh identity and stimulates the demand for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan. However, the twin processes of globalization and fragmentation have made the notion of a bordered, self-contained community that is at the heart of international political theory difficult to sustain in the post-Cold War world. This has created space for the articulation of a deterritorialized Sikh identity which challenges the Westphalian order in its rejection of sovereign statehood and its assertion of the sovereignty of the Khalsa Panth.     

Rethinking Sikh Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century

This article seeks to draw attention to some of the core issues which beset the study of Sikh nationalism as a coherent phenomenon in an increasingly globalized and socially fragmented world. First, it highlights the importance of revisiting the debate about the community's religious boundaries, arguing that in contrast to the new conventional wisdom informed by poststructuralism, Sikh identity has exhibited a remarkable degree of continuity from the establishment of the Khalsa in comparison with other South Asian religio-political communities. The second key issue highlighted is the role of the Sikh diaspora in the development of Sikh nationalism and statehood. It critically examines the extent to which diaspora may be regarded as an instrument of ‘long-distance’ nationalism. Third, it argues that the existing literature on Sikh nationalism is remarkably community-centric and needs to engage with theories of nationalism. Finally, while acknowledging the cleavages which fragment the Sikh nation, it concludes that Sikh nationalism has been remarkably cohesive.     

‘So people know I'm a Sikh’: Narratives of Sikh masculinities in contemporary Britain

This article examines British-born Sikh men's identification to Sikhism. In particular, it focuses on the appropriation and use of Sikh symbols amongst men who define themselves as Sikh. This article suggests that whilst there are multiple ways of ‘being’ a Sikh man in contemporary post-colonial Britain, and marking belonging to the Sikh faith, there is also a collectively understood idea of what an ‘ideal’ Sikh man should be. Drawing upon Connell and Messerschmidt's discussion of locally specific hegemonic masculinities (2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender and Society 19 (6): 829–859), it is suggested that an ideal Sikh masculine identity is partly informed by a Khalsa discourse, which informs a particular performance of Sikh male identity, whilst also encouraging the surveillance of young men's activities both by themselves and by others. These Sikh masculinities are complex and multiple, rotating to reaffirm, challenge and redefine contextualised notions of hegemonic masculinity within the Sikh diaspora in post-colonial Britain. Such localised Sikh masculinities may both assert male privilege and reap patriarchal dividends (Connell, W. 1995. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press), resulting in particular British Sikh hegemonic masculinities which seek to shape the performance of masculinity, yet in another context these very same performances of masculinity may also signify a more marginalised masculinity vis-à-vis other dominant hegemonic forms.     

GURBANI KIRTAN RENAISSANCE: REVIVING MUSICAL MEMORY,REFORMING SIKH IDENTITY

This article examines the modes of revival within the contemporary renaissance of traditional Gurbani Kirtan (Sikh devotional music) in an effort to differentiate historically operative practices from modern products being sold as tradition. Modern reformist tendencies have attempted to institutionalize a normative Sikh musical identity into one homogeneous ‘Gurmat Sangeet’ genre through codifying Sikh raga forms and promoting a particular Sikh musical orthopraxy and history. The process of institutionalization privileges written sources as authoritative, erasing the memory of operative practices passed down orally since the time of the Sikh Gurus through the Gurbani Kirtan parampara (tradition). In questioning how Sikh musical knowledge has been propagated and authenticated since modernity, I propose a reassessment of what values and musical modes are indelible to the fabric of Gurbani Kirtan, what aspects are modern derivatives, and what aspects are negotiable. I believe such an approach will not limit Sikh musical expression to a past identity subsumed by orthodox rigidity. Instead it will move toward a phenomenological epistemology that recognizes how orality and embodied experience are intrinsic to the Gurbani Kirtan parampara that remembers, practices, and teaches a particular methodology to embody the Bani as Guru for newly creative Sikh subjectivities.     

Deconstructing the Punjab crisis of 1984: Deer,hawks, and siqdārs (‘officials’) as agents of state-sponsored violence

Acts of violence or non-violence are social phenomena that take place at particular historical junctures. They cannot be described as essential features of any community. The Punjab crisis of yesteryear reflected the multidimensionality of violence. On the one hand, involvement of the agents of ‘Third Agency’ in the garb of Sikh militants in random acts of violence and guerrilla warfare was totally unwarranted and counterproductive; on the other, one cannot overlook the sheer egregious and unjust acts of state, killing in the name of order, security, and sheer power. This paper looks at this dark period in recent Sikh history through the lens of Gurū Nānak’s Malār hymn. This is an insightful composition in which the Guru employs the metaphors of deer (hara?), hawks (bāj) and state officials (siqdār) who act as trained agents provocateurs to push a community in a particular direction – especially on the path of self-destruction – to justify state violence.     

Locating the sikh pagh 1

The importance of the turban to Sikh identity has come into sharp focus since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001. In particular the conflation of all turban wearers with terrorists has marked Sikhs out as targets for racist attack. This article offers a broad overview of the many ways in which the symbolic value of the turban renders it forever associated with tradition, across multiple contexts. For Sikhs, whether it be in India or America, the turban is over-signified and imbued with the potential to arouse violence. The specific relationship of Sikhs to the turban is examined in both theological and social terms. Returning to the relationship of the turban to tradition and modernity the article proposes that because the turban remains the paramount signifier of male Sikh identity, then the project of being modern remains impossible for Sikhs.     

THE FIVE SYMBOLS OF SIKHISM

The paper addresses three contemporary issues pertaining to the five Sikh symbols known as the Five Ks, specifically the decline in their observance in the Sikh homeland, that is, the State of Punjab in India; the difficulties being experienced by Sikh immigrants in Europe and North America in preserving their formal identity; and the academic controversies over the genesis, meaning and significance of the Five Ks. The first brief section describes the scale at which the Sikh youth are abandoning the two main markers of their traditional identity – unshorn hair and the turban - and stresses the need for a deeper investigation of this phenomenon in the light of sociological theory and research. The second section exposes the problems that the baptized, or traditional, Sikhs face in preserving their identity and symbolism in North America and Europe. Although the discussion primarily references restrictions placed on the wearing of Sikh symbols in public schools in America and France, the problem is more general. It is suggested that the Sikhs need to non-violently resist discriminatory or exclusionary practices in western countries guided by the ethos of their own faith. The third and last section, which forms the main body of the essay, deals with academic controversies surrounding the origin and significance of the Sikh symbols. On the basis of close textual analysis, the paper critically examines a host of interpretations – commonsensical, mystical, cosmological, structural, empiricist, psychoanalytical and feminist – of the Five Ks, and presents conclusions. The Sikh symbols signify and affirm that the spiritual concerns of human beings cannot be separated from their temporal and material concerns.     

Creating a Pindh: Place-Making within a Sikh Diasporic Community in Malaya

This paper examines a diaspora group's claiming and contesting of physical space and actively engaging in host country multiracial spaces, I co-opted the Pindh, a Sikh concept incorporating relationships with the landscape and social structure, re-defining its original meaning to encompass this unique consolidation of identity, home and belonging. Addressing the use and meaning of space and the transformation of Peraktown, the geographical location, I explore this transformation to a place of meaning through the practices of everyday life within the Sikh community. It describes the concepts of spatial relationships and their impact on the construction and solidification of the Peraktown Sikh community in contrast to their inherited connection to the land and inherent romantic nostalgia for Punjab, as they recreated the meanings it contained and inscribed these on the physical map of the town. In the four spaces addressed, the home, the Gurdwara, the school and the gendered work spaces, I demonstrate the ways that space altered, through claiming, adoption and subversion. The lens of the Pindh offers a uniquely Sikh way to view and analyse the constitution of common identity and a place to belong. The Peraktown Sikhs extend the discourse of diaspora beyond postcolonial and Western modes of thought of being ‘other’ yet simultaneously belonging ‘here', ‘back there’ and to multiple places of home.     

AT HOME IN MOTION

This paper was first delivered as the keynote address at the ‘Transnational Punjabis in the 21^st Century: Beginnings, Junctures and Responses’ Conference held in May 2011 at the University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. It argues that there are two dimensions to evolving Sikh diasporic identities that are firmly anchored in being at home whilst in motion. These two dimensions are rooted in culture and dharam. The ways in which Sikh culture travels and evolves is illustrative of post-colonial transformations and largely dependent on the host culture as well as the product of being part of either an ‘old’ or ‘new’ diaspora – that is, being a diaspora that has been forged in either the age of colonization or the age of globalization. While it remains to be seen how a Sikh diasporic identity will be shaped in the future, it is apparent that diasporic processes will be played out on a global stage as communications between Sikhs and others throughout the world are further revolutionized.     

MUSIC OF THE SIKH DIASPORA: DEVOTIONAL SOUNDS,MUSICAL MEMORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

This paper explores the role of devotional music in the construction of Sikh identity in diasporic contexts. In particular, it examines a heterodox Sikh community in the UK and an orthodox Sikh community in Hong Kong from a comparative perspective, showing how music helps to clarify continuities and discontinuities in Sikhism worldwide. I provide ethnographic accounts of musical performances in different locales within gurdwara-s. Following a summary of current conventions in Sikh music performance and pedagogy, two ethnographic accounts are provided. The first is a musical ethnography of the Namdhari Gurdwara in Leicester where Hindustani classical music is performed alongside traditional ritual genres. The second site is a similar ethnographic study of the Khalsa Diwan Gurdwara in Hong Kong where the issues of diasporic identity and musical memory are foregrounded.     

‘Second generation’ Sikh autobiographies and authobiographical novels in European languages: Turning towards and away from traditions

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes autobiographies and autobiographical novels by Sikh authors who were born and grew up in Europe and North America as sources for understanding developments of Sikh religion. It uses the concepts panjabiat (Punjabi-ness), Sikh religion and modernity/Western society to understand the tensions and conflicts described in these books. The authors had to work out the differences between panjabiat, Sikh religion and modernity/Western society. They had to figure out what place the Sikh religion should have in their new identity and for this they were looking for similarities between the Sikh religion and Western society. In the autobiographies Sikh religion emerges as an ideology employed to criticize Punjabi culture and society and Sikh religion is reinterpreted and often comes to refer to some general principles that are compatible and supportive of Western modernity.     

Sikh diasporic negotiations: Indian and Canadian history in Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?

The perceived interconnection of Sikh religion and extremism, and the mistaken association of Sikhism with Islam impacted Sikh consciousness and historically, these have presented challenges to Sikh identity, representation, and intercultural negotiations in Canada. With reference to Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (2010), this article investigates Canadian Sikh diaspora’s collective memories, specifically: (i) the return of the Komagata Maru ship from Vancouver (1914) (ii) partition of India (iii) the death of passengers in Air India 182 (23 June 1985) from Toronto to India; (iv) Operation Blue Star (1984) and (v) the 1984 Sikh carnage.     

‘Our periodic table of hate’: The archive of 1984 Punjab in Jaspreet Singh’s Helium

Highly critical of the Indian government's cover up of the 1984 Sikh pogroms, Indian-Canadian author Jaspreet Singh offers a scathing expose of the anti-Sikh violence in his 2013 novel Helium. Singh experienced first-hand the ‘holocaust’ of 1984 in Delhi, and as a diasporic Indian since 1990, he is also intimately familiar with the burdens of postmemory among Sikhs in the west, many of whom sought asylum abroad in the wake of 1984. Influenced by Primo Levi and W.G. Sebald, Singh constructs a multi-generic ‘archive’ of the crimes of 1984 in Helium, which articulates the lingering trauma of the Sikhs and challenges the image of a unified, multiculturalist, secular-humanist postcolonial Indian state. Drawing on exhaustive research, Helium is a hybrid of fiction, survivor and relief worker testimonials, photographs, drawings, documentary, thriller, and inter-textual narrative—because the horror of 1984 cannot be recounted through a single medium or genre or voice. In considering its archival form and political intent, my article establishes Helium as a bold, ethical attempt to record the anti-Sikh violence of 1984 in order to bring justice to both the dead and the survivors.     

(EN)Gendered Sikhism: The iconolatry of manliness in the making of Sikh identity

Among the most insidious regimes of control inaugurated by the British in India was the identification of a fundamental affinity between themselves and manly ‘races’ such as the Sikhs. I will suggest that this apparent commensurability of colonial and native traditions depended upon the Sikhs readily accepting a masculine signature which restricted the ambiguous organization of the Khalsa Sikh body to the muscular piety prescribed by colonial discourse. Thus, far from inscribing ontological parity between the British and the Sikhs, this advocacy of ‘racial’ kinship actually communicated a censorious judgement about Sikh identity. The significance of interventions by Sikh reformers, such as Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha (1861–1938) and Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1958), will be highlighted as key influences in the disciplining of a native semiotics of the body. This reformist ideology encouraged the representation of Sikh corporeality as not-effeminate, signalling not only the insinuation of a colonial iconolatry of manliness at the heart of Sikh tradition, but also the disingenuousness of received opinion concerning the progressive nature of Sikh sexual politics.     

Educated millennial Sikhs: Higher education,social mobility and identity formation among British Sikh youth

ABSTRACT

Large scale Sikh male migration to Britain in the 1950s gave way to family re-unions, leading to the development of vibrant Sikh communities across major cities and emergence of a millennial second and third generation Sikh youth. This chapter specifically identifies and evaluates higher education and labour market experiences of these millennial Sikhs. It argues mass participation in higher education produced differential outcomes, with a small upper segment becoming high achievers but a large bottom segment unable to realise the full potential. Further, these experiences had varied effects on their identity formation, with some moving away from their parental religion whilst others (re)embracing their tradition and adopting Sikh articles of faith. Finally, these differential experiences have also contributed to the widening of socio-economic differentiation within the British Sikh community as a whole and on potential for upward social mobility.     

Sikhs and Sikhism in Bihar: Their distinctiveness and diversity

Medieval Bihar served as an important corridor for Sikh dispersal to other areas in eastern and north-eastern India. It stimulated the birth of native Sikh groups who significantly differ from their Punjabi-speaking counterparts in physical presentation and mother tongue. The essay examines why the native Sikhs’ perception of Sikhism differs from Singh Sabha’s (1873–1909) narrative of a monolithic Sikh identity, distinct from Hinduism. The study debates whether it is the perceived centrality of Sikhism’s self-representation in Punjab that stimulates fissures in the Punjabi-Bihari Sikh relationship – fissures that periodically surface and rupture an imagined, homogenized Sikh identity within the sacred precincts of twenty-first-century Patna city.     

VIOLENCE,MEMORY, AND THE DYNAMICS OF TRANSNATIONAL YOUTH FORMATIONS

This editorial introduces and contextualizes five scholarly papers on ‘Violence, Memory, and the Dynamics of Transnational Youth Formations.’ The topic of this special issue is conceptually organized around theories of postcolonial and diasporic citizenship and probes the extent to which these theories have shaped the discursive field of ‘youth formations’. We outline how an emerging scholarly field on youth cultures, youth activism and youth political organizations has responded to the new challenges of globalization and transnational mobilization. As experiences and memories of violence give shape to these mobilizations as well as the social imaginations characterizing youth movements, this special issue takes an interest in drawing connections between different youth formations. In establishing such a comparative lens, we contribute to ongoing discussions in Sikh Studies on youth issues in relation to violence, discrimination and transnational mobilization.     

Promoting Sikhi among Malaysian youth: A case study of the Sikh Naujawan Sabha Malaysia (SNSM)

ABSTRACT

The Sikh Naujawan Sabha Malaysia (SNSM) has been an important vehicle in keeping the tenets of the Sikh faith alive for the Malaysian Sikh community. It is primarily a Sikh youth organization, initiated with the blessings of the Malaysian Sikh community elders in the 1960s, who decided that starting the activity of prayer and contemplation on Sikhi was crucial from a young age. Over the decades, the SNSM has been adept in evolving its activities and organization to cater to the altering needs and self-conceptions of the various generations of Sikh youth. This paper documents the trajectory of SNSM activities and reinvention to cater to the generations of Sikhs post-Independence.     

Sikh middle class,Panjabi cinema and the politics of memory

The paper attempts to look at the relationship between memory and politics in Panjabi cinema and its implications for the construction of Sikh identity, specifically through the prism of the Sikh Middle Class. It seeks to understand the manner in which this middle-class grapples with the memory of Operation Bluestar and 1984 riots, how this memory is recreated in the present and how it continues to reside as contemporary in individual consciousness. To do so, it attempts to understand the popularity of recent films dealing with Sikh militancy and also to contextualize the present period in which these films have become very relevant to both the local and diasporic audiences, in particular, the way in which people connect to Operation Bluestar and Delhi riots almost 30 years after the event.