Engendering the female voice in Sikh devotional music: Locating equality in pedagogy and praxis

ABSTRACT

The Sikh Gurus promoted gender equality, but still women’s voices are being silenced from playing Gurbānī Kīrtan inside the Golden Temple. The reasons for their exclusion center around the sexualization of the female body, purity and pollution, appeals to tradition, and questions of musical proficiency. Today, Sikhs in India and the diaspora ask that the Sikh philosophy of equality be fully enacted in pedagogy and praxis. Through ethnographic investigation, historical analysis and critical inquiry, this paper addresses the importance of liberating the Sikh self and psyche from institutional systems of oppression to reclaim Sikh sovereignty, equality and the female voice.