THE OTHER SIKHS

In the last 100 years, Sikhs have travelled to different countries in the West and beyond. There is a significant amount of scholarly writing about the presence of Sikhs across the globe. However, their experience in migration and settlement in different parts of India beyond Punjab remains a comparatively neglected area of Sikh studies. Its history goes back to the medieval days and includes a larger numbers of Sikhs than that exist in the Western diaspora. These Sikh sites are numerous and scattered across India. They communicate the message of home in poly-vocalic voices and point to the surfacing of another Sikh diaspora within India beyond Punjab. This article seeks to outline a small part of it with reference to the Sikh past in Manipur. Manipur is located along the Indo-Myanmar border and seeks to emphasize the local Sikh community's distinctiveness and plurality.     

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.     

Ritual Participation,Sense of Community,and Social Well-Being: A Study of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Seva</Emphasis> in the Sikh Community

The study examined the impact of frequency of ritual participation on sense of community and social well-being of a minority community in India, the Sikhs. We looked at a unique ritualistic practice of the Sikhs, seva. Rituals are known to contribute toward social solidarity and cohesion as well as physical and mental well-being. In particular for a minority community, rituals help group members establish and maintain strong community networks and a unique group identity. A total of 156 members of the Sikh community (85 males; 71 females) participated in the study. Frequency of ritual participation was positively related with social well-being and sense of community. Furthermore, sense of community was found to mediate the effect of frequency of ritual participation on social well-being. Results are discussed in the light of the importance of studying rituals in minority groups, the frequency of participation in a ritual activity and the importance of addressing social well-being in ritual research.     

(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.     

Sikh millennials of the ‘kirtan generation’ in the making of an ‘American Sikhism’

ABSTRACT

This essay focuses on the millennial generation of Sikhs in the United States. Based on extended ethnographic research in Sikh communities, the author explores the role of Sikh millennials in the making of an ‘American Sikhism’, the contours of which are taking shape having followed after the explosive growth of gurdwara communities – and the educational, social, and other resources they provide – which were largely made possible by the affluence of Sikh communities beginning with the previous ‘Brain Drain’ generation. In particular, the author discusses this ‘kirtan generation’ of Sikhs, educated in gurdwara schools, and their growing leadership of Sikh communities.     

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.     

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 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.     

身份认同动机：概念、测量与心理效应

身份认同动机（identity motive,简称身份动机）是引导个体进行身份建构、寻求特定的自我概念与自我评价的心理需要,主要包括自尊、效能、连续、意义、独特、归属六种动机。近十年的研究表明,不同的身份动机在身份的建构、维持、防御与改变等过程中协同发挥作用,而且动机的满足可以增强幸福感和心理适应。未来研究应进一步检验动机维度、考察发展规律、开发实验范式、探究神经机制。     

The millennial generation of Sikhs in North America

ABSTRACT

Millennial Sikhs are second- or in some cases third-generation children born in North America in the last two decades of twentieth century. They have been actively involved in the process of ‘renewal and re-definition’ of the Sikh tradition. Cross-cultural encounters heighten their sense of identity. They constantly draw from their Sikh inheritance the universal values of social justice and equality to reach out to their non-Sikh neighbors and to fight against discrimination and injustice. Their principal strategy has been to downplay the Punjabi cultural traditions of their parents and to highlight the universal aspects of their faith in their dealings. Although they have consciously stayed away from the ‘factional politics’ of gurdwaras, they have made incredible strides in Sikh activism and political arena.     

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.     

CONTRARY NARRATIVE SPACES AND THE SIKH WOMAN: Imperial aftermaths in Bhisham Sahni's Tamas and Gulzar's Maachis

Public nationalistic discourses construct ideas of national belonging for the privileged few while the minorities and the exilic struggle to find a place within nation-states in the postcolonial world. In the production and construction of the nationalistic discourse and identity, private narratives, often gendered accounts, are elided, and a masculinist and heteropatriarchal construct dominate. In this paper, I will examine private narratives ensuing the 1947 partition of India and the Sikh militancy in Punjab from 1984 onwards in order to incorporate an alternative interpretation regarding ideas of national belonging for the Sikhs, especially for the diasporic Sikh women.     

Inside the Guru's Gate: ritual uses of texts among the Sikhs in Varanasi

The images and representations of Sikhs in contemporary Mumbai cinema and popular culture, rife with portrayals of eccentricities that the audience loves to disregard eventually, point to a cultural turn that has become a power-laden strategy to regulate Sikh otherness and consequently, re-present it through a predominant, controlling gaze. In tracing such sense of carnivelesque otherness with which Sikhs have been portrayed in most Bollywood films, this paper aims to explore the configuration and re-configurations of Sikh subjectivity as an Other that remains marginalized by their difference and can only be acknowledged through a Hindu-centric lens of approval. Through depictions of what I call as Bolly Sikhs, a dubious space is created which is filled with contextual disjunctures and inconsistencies, a bricolage where Sikh identities and practices are jumbled up or deliberately misrepresented; sometimes the Sikh is presented only through subtractions and absences. The discursive limits of Sikh representation, presence and absence, when examined in context of cultural analyses offered by cultural critics as Edward Said, Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon, Foucault and Homi Bhabha, among many others, enable us to understand the neo-Orientalist rhetoric whereby Sikhs can be seen as displaced or assimilated, if not betrayed in creative/visual representations. The Sikh thought/mind is nullified and/or absorbed within the hegemonic implications of Hindu thought and the Sikh body is at times, a fashionable icon of vibrant, colorful excess and at others, an object framed in terms of weaker ethos unable to achieve any accomplishment by itself.     

Changing Identities to Change the World: Identity Motives in Lifestyle Politics and Its Link to Collective Action

In this article, we assume an interdisciplinary approach to the study of why and how people transpose political considerations to their lifestyles. Our aims are threefold: to understand the meanings and perceptions of people engaged in lifestyle politics and collective action; to examine the motives guiding individual change; and to explore the linkage processes between lifestyle politics and collective action. Identity process theory is considered as a lens to examine the processes and the motives of identity via a thematic analysis of 22 interviews. This study combined interviews with people seeking social change through their lifestyles with interviews with members of action groups and social movements. We found that each participant's identity is guided by identity motives such as distinctiveness, continuity, and psychological coherence. Besides, lifestyle politics is evaluated as an effective way to bring about social change, depending on the individual experience of perceived power to bring about change through collective action. Overall, lifestyle politics states the way in which the participants decided to live, to construct their identities, and to represent their beliefs about the right thing to do. Lifestyle politics complements collective action as a strategy to increase the potential of bringing about social change. The implications of this research are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the processes of identity and lifestyle change in the context of social, environmental, and political change.     

Reorganization of personal identity in the context of motivational dynamics and internal dialogical activity

Identity is constantly constructed and reconstructed. It may be assumed that there are six fundamental motivational goals according to which it is organized: self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, and meaning (Vignoles, 2011 ). Moreover, identity is shaped by its dialogical nature (Hermans, 2003 ; van Halen & Janssen, 2004 ). The longitudinal study was conducted to examine both the motivational and the dialogical basis of identity structure dynamics. The results showed that the more the identity element was connected with a sense of continuity and the more dialogical it was, the greater the perceived centrality of this element was after two months. Furthermore, the more the identity element satisfied the self‐esteem and belonging motives, the more positive was the affect ascribed to it. In the behavioral domain of identity, participants more strongly manifested those identity aspects that were earlier rated as more dialogical and satisfying the motive of belonging. The results showed that the motivational underpinnings of identity along with its dialogical nature explain changes in identity structure.     

The divisive potential of differences and similarities: The role of intergroup distinctiveness in intergroup differentiation

In this article we examine the relationship between perceptions of intergroup distinctiveness and intergroup differentiation. Research in this area has highlighted two contrasting hypotheses: high distinctiveness is predicted to lead to increased intergroup differentiation (self-categorisation theory), while low distinctiveness or too much similarity can also underlie positive differentiation (social identity theory). We argue for a theoretical integration of these predictions and outline their domains of applicability. In addition to empirical studies from our own laboratory, support for these hypotheses in the literature is examined meta-analytically, and we assess the power of a number of moderators of the distinctiveness ‐ differentiation relation. We focus on group identification and salience of the superordinate category as the most powerful moderators of this relation. We report evidence that low group distinctiveness leads to more differentiation for high identifiers, while high group distinctiveness leads to more differentiation for low identifiers. In addition, our meta-analysis revealed that when the superordinate category was not salient, low distinctiveness tended to lead to differentiation (albeit not significantly so) while high distinctiveness led to differentiation when the salience of the superordinate category was high. A model is proposed integrating our predictions concerning moderators of the distinctiveness ‐ differentiation relation. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed and we suggest directions for future research.     

Social and political activism amongst British Sikhs: Responses to issues of equality and human rights – a new way forward?

ABSTRACT

This article discusses two key issues relating to activism amongst British Sikhs. The exploration focuses upon the mobilisation of Sikhs at rallies and protests surrounding human rights issues, as well as their overall objection to caste legislation in British Law. The revelations surrounding the British Government’s involvement in Operation Bluestar came as a huge shock not only to British Sikhs but also to Sikhs worldwide. This paper will discuss whether the British Sikh community has taken on a fresh approach when confronted with issues surrounding equality and human rights and will explore how youth led Sikh groups and organisations have responded to contemporary challenges by using Sikhi to encourage activism amongst British Sikhs.