Showing papers in "Sikh Formations in 2011"

Sikh Identity: an exploration of groups among Sikhs

Abstract: Sikh Identity: an exploration of groups among Sikhs Opinderjit Kaur Takhar Ashgate, 2005 215 pp., $100.00, ISBN 978-0-7546-5202-5Opinderjit Kaur Takhar's Sikh Identity begins with the question ‘Who...

Monopolizing violence before and after 1984

Abstract: The events of 1984 have had world-wide repercussions for Sikhs, not only across the globe but across time. Twenty-six years of impunity for the government officials implicated in organizing the systematic massacre of thousands of Sikhs in India demonstrates the obdurate nature of state power to silence a people's history/suffering. Rather than simply reiterate the trauma of 1984, this paper situates the events within a broader canvas of (modern/colonial) state terrorism and its alienating force. To do this it is necessary to chart not only the historical legacy of colonial violence (i.e. the conversion to modernity and the rule of law), but also the political strategies employed by power in the theatrical manufacture of 1984. This paper argues that the theatrical nature of power, which monopolizes violence through the imposition of law, is markedly different from the dramatic response drawn from the people's protest, and this crucial difference is elaborated through a number of troubling dichotomies. The ...

THE MUSIC OF THE SIKH GURŪS’ TRADITION IN A WESTERN CONTEXT: Cross-cultural pedagogy and research

Abstract: Teaching a religious musical tradition within a Western (secular) context, such as the University, involves important aspects of intercultural pedagogy and research in cross-cultural perspective. The Sikh Gurūs’ tradition is here analyzed through an anthropological and semiotic approach that locates Gurmat Sangīt within the academic field of international musicology. Considered for a long time to be a devotional genre of music, the great contribution of the Sikh Gurūs’ tradition to Indian music is yet to be discovered. Academic discussion should involve old and new generations of musicians, as well as Indian and Western scholars trained in the tradition, to highlight historical and practical aspects of performance. This article suggests some issues that could be developed involving students from Western universities in academic research, and suitable dissertation topics. Among these, the vocal techniques in relation to the musical genres, and to the yoga of sound, is one of the most interesting aspects of...

AT HOME IN MOTION: Evolving Sikh Identities

Abstract: This paper was first delivered as the keynote address at the ‘Transnational Punjabis in the 21st 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 revolutio...

What is kīrtan

Abstract: This paper attempts to answer a fundamental question – what is kīrtan? Much emphasis has been laid on the singing of gurbani in rāgas (classical Indian melody systems), the use of tālas (rhythmic patterns unique to Indian classical music) and the use of musical instruments related to the Sikh gurūs. Uniquely, all these three aspects are mentioned without elaboration in gurbani itself. Only the rāga and tāla names are mentioned, but no written specifications are given about their forms and modes of performance. Furthermore, though certain instruments are mentioned in gurbani, such as the rabāb, pakhawaj, kinnari vina and khartal, it contains no descriptions of their making, tuning, stringing and/or playing techniques. The implications of this mismatch are explored in this article, where it is argued that the oral tradition and its particular pedagogy and training is still extant and provides many of the answers that are highly sought after in the recent turn to ‘traditional’ methods, styles and instruments...

The hermeneutics of sikh music (rāg) and word (shabad)

Abstract: From 21 to 23 May 2010, an international conference under the title ‘Hermeneutics of Sikh Music (rāg) and Word (shabad)’ was held at Hofstra University, Long Island, New York. The conference brough...

SIKH/MUSLIM BHAI-BHAI? Towards a social history of the rabābī tradition of shabad kīrtan

Abstract: This article situates the rabābī tradition of kīrtan within the backdrop of politicized religious boundaries, which find it increasingly difficult to locate the Muslim presence within Sikh history and sacred music. The musical recitation of Sikh sacred hymns through shabad kīrtan has its origins in the appointment by Gurū Nanak of his companion Bhai Mardana in the fifteenth century. This story of origins, while being an integral part of how shabad kīrtan is reflected upon, has not been adequately explored for its significance in terms of social relations, not least for what are now seen as oppositional locations of Sikh and Muslim. The article explores how a social history of the rabābī tradition within context raises a number of questions about how we conceptualize shabad kīrtan within wider currents of identity, religious boundary-making, professional association and spiritual music.

Understanding inter-brasian conflict

Abstract: The phenomenon of Sikh and Muslim conflict has been largely analysed in anthropological and sociological works in terms of a product of angry youth or ethnic hatred or religious passions This paper explores the main ways in which the increasing tensions between Sikhs and Muslims have been articulated in the landscape of postcolonial Britain It investigates the most prominent explanations provided both in academic and popular literature to understand the various causes seen to fuel this type of conflict, that is ethno-religious causes, multicultural issues and as the symptom of youth delinquency The paper offers a critique of such accounts and moves towards an ontological understanding of conflict, that is, to elaborate the central role of conflict and its relationship to the political as the site for contestation between ‘friends and enemies’ This reading of Inter-BrAsian conflict enables us to open up a new space to re-evaluate the nature of Sikh and Muslim tensions within the diasporic context

Making meaning of 1984 in cyberspace

Abstract: VANCOUVER –A group of B.C. Sikh students who wore controversial T-shirts to school have sparked a debate within their community and left some wondering why a group of youths would latch onto a divisive movement dating from before they were born. The students showed up to Surrey's Princess Margaret Secondary School earlier this month wearing shirts emblazoned with the word Khalistan, referring to a Sikh separatist movement advocating for a Sikh homeland in India's Punjab region that was often linked to violence in the 1980s. On the back was a quote from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Khalistan advocate who was killed during India's 1984 raid on the Golden Temple. School administrators told the students not to wear the shirts again. Some have brushed off the T-shirts as youthful rebellion or dismissed the students as naive and uninformed. The teens, however, insist they know the history and wanted to make a statement that would be heard. ‘When people see this, they'll look at it and be like, “Wow, there's pe...

Sikh sacred music, empire and world music

Abstract: This article explores the moral language around Sikh sacred music (kīrtan) that emerged as a result of the imperial encounter in the wake of the Singh Sabha movement. In addition, it investigates the possibilities for the study of Sikh kīrtan as ‘world music’. On the whole, it aims to find answers to questions such as: What is cultural and what is universal in the study of the practice of Sikh sacred music, and what is part of the Sikh identity politics of ‘difference’?; To what extent do identity politics and ancient Sanskrit music theories hinder the study of kīrtan as world music, and how is this related to the Sikh resistance to the translation of the Sikh sacred scripture? Above all, it finds orthodox Sikh ideas about authenticity and aesthetics in kīrtan problematic in the light of historical change, recording and new media technologies as well as diasporan influence.

REVIEW ARTICLE: Politics of emancipation and The Sikh Memory

Abstract: For the last thirty years, we have been witnessing an upsurge of the capitalist mode of production in a neoliberal avatar. One consequence is that the political state has become more brutal and oppressive. The hard-won welfare state has been gradually dismantled under the pressures of free market ‘logic’. On the other hand, we have also witnessed the rise of identity politics in myriad forms, invariably justified with the help of postmodernist notions. This identity politics proclaims itself as being far more radical than the orthodox left. The paper, by a close reading of the book The Sikh Memory and by tracing postmodern thinkers' political affiliations, argues that any kind of politics that ignores the fundamental issues of capitalism, class, labour and social injustice in favour of identitarianism and such things as cultural memory, collective unconscious, affect, intuition, aesthetic and non-rational has an inherent tendency to fall prey to fundamentalist political practices in one form or another.

Guru nanak and rational civil theology

Abstract: By the early sixteenth century, the conditions for a radical reorientation of Indic and Islamic religiosity and sociality had begun to crystallize with the simultaneous resurgence of antinomian rationalism and the expansion of mercantile capitalism across northern India. Combining insights about these dual processes, Guru Nanak formulated discursive and practical strategies for overcoming the social illusion of egoistic selfhood determined by the rise of commodity exchange, on the one hand, and the individualistic soteriological practices of existing faiths, on the other. Overcoming both required translating traditional religious concepts and categories into a framework of everyday collective life. The rational civil theology concertedly formulated in early Sikh scripture presents challenges for writing a contemporary universal history of reason. The essay concludes with an exploration of the incomplete dialectic of neo-Kantian notions of reason in the work of Georg Lukacs by examining a point at which hi...

‘khalistan is dead! long live khalistan!’

Abstract: The Khalistan issue is a dead-end campaign, yet the movement called ‘lehar’ is alive and well. This seemingly contradictory statement becomes evident when the two different concepts of Khalistan and their protagonists are considered. One is a modernist demand for a territorial Sikh State. The other is a resistance against enforced, sometimes violent and arguably unnecessary modernist political and cultural changes that challenge the Sikhs as a people who have a sophisticated concept of nationhood of their own. The territorial Khalistan is largely led by educated modernist Sikhs, diasporic Sikhs in the west and an imagined obsession of academics and journalists since 1984 peddling cliched analysis. It is almost a defunct campaign reduced to slogans of Khalistan Zindabad and annual marches with diminishing attendees. However, the lehar, the real movement of ordinary Sikhs, has been around for at least a century, particularly since 1920, and continues to pose a relentless challenge to the modern Indian State...

Kīrtan chauṇkī: affect, embodiment and memory

Abstract: This paper explores the role and function of Sikh hymn singing (Śabad kīrtan) as it unfolds throughout the early morning Sikh musical service, the Āsa Dī Vār dī Chauṇkī. It considers how hymn singing acts both as a crucible where the recollection of suffering and oppression and spiritual yearning ignite a deep emotional energy (rasa) and as a powerful vehicle to forge a sense of identification between the individual and the group. This subject is studied through an ethnomusicological lens, which, blending historical musicology and anthropology, stresses the importance of human meanings and human evaluation in the musical process. Thus, Śabad kīrtan is not exclusively an abstract, musical concept to be analyzed, but a process of social interaction to be experienced. Furthermore, this musical process, understood phenomenologically, is dependent on time and place, unfolding as a series of social interactions and psycho-emotional experiences that both guide and are guided by the musical process. Thus, an inve...

Relocating the sikh subject

Abstract: In 1993 a number of Sikh Canadian veterans were barred from entering a Legion Hall in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada because they refused to remove their turbans. Using a postcolonial lens to explore this meeting and the historical factors leading to it, this paper offers some important reflections on both the evolution of Canadian multiculturalism and the nature and meaning of Sikh identity in a seemingly postcolonial context. The paper suggests that the Sikh veterans involved in this event were effective at strategically constructing a subject position that relocated them simultaneously at the centre of Empire and Canada's multicultural order.

Musical aesthetic in the gurū granth and implications for the performance practice of sikh shabad kīrtan

Abstract: This paper explores the musical aesthetic of the shabad kīrtan of the authors of the Gurū Granth, presented therein through key concepts such as shānt (peace), sahaj (tranquility), ānand (spiritual bliss), shabad sūrat (Word-attuned consciousness), dhyān (meditation), anhad (mystical vibrations) and Har ras (divine aesthetic experience). Using this aesthetic heritage from the original composers, the paper draws inferences for the use of musical material for an aesthetically consonant rendition of shabad kīrtan. It proposes discernment with respect to the adoption of musical ornamentations, techniques and procedures of contemporary genres of rāg-based music that Sikh shabad kīrtan practice tends to draw upon.

Reducing substance abuse and intimate partner violence in punjabi sikh communities

Abstract: This article outlines the importance of exploring spirituality in working with Punjabi Sikh men who have substance abuse issues and have committed violence towards their spouse. Seventeen in-depth interviews were conducted with South Asian front-line workers that included police officers, probation officers, counselors, social workers, child protection workers and victim service workers. The audio-taped data were transcribed and analyzed by identification of themes and subthemes. Participant comments around religion and the role it can play in prevention and intervention are highlighted. Front-line social service practitioners who work with Punjabi Sikh men need to consider the role the men's religious beliefs can play in substance abuse and intimate partner violence interventions.

‘british by right, punjabi by heart’

Abstract: Media serves as a medium for self-assertion and identity formation by identifying and distinguishing Punjabi identity from Indian identity. Punjabi films assert a separate identity from Hindi cinema. This distinct identity is also found in representations of Punjabis living abroad. Punjabi films portray a self-contained and insular Punjabi diaspora that is gendered. While more nuanced than the male chauvinism found in Punjabi films from the 1990s, current films still depict hyper masculine spaces within the Punjabi diasporic communities. I analyze three Punjabi films Munde UK De, Jee Ayaan Nu and Asa Nu Maan Watana Da to show how they reinforce hyper masculine and hyper nationalist Punjabi image through the diasporic characters.

Early sikh historiography

Abstract: In this paper I explore how ‘doxa’ has influenced the historical study of medieval and early modern Sikhism. In particular the paper focuses on the reign of Guru Hargobind and his intellectual contest with his cousin and spiritual rival, Miharvan. The contest between Hargobind and Miharvan demonstrates how medieval Sikh society was not conveniently divided into ‘orthodox’ and ‘unorthodox’ sections. Rather, the Sikh community was influenced by a variety of socio-economic, political and intellectual factors that affected the way in which the community thought about Sikhism. Moreover, the paper examines how dialogical readings of primary sources can enable scholars to develop a more dynamic historical understanding of early Sikhism.

Bhangra Moves: from Ludhiana to London and Beyond

Abstract: Bhangra Moves marks a new juncture in writing on ‘bhangra.’ Numerous short writings since the late 1980s have discussed musical activities, under the rubric of ‘bhangra’, of Diaspora Punjabis and other South Asians in various Western locales. Their common themes have treated musical preferences as a form of resistance and involvement with music as part of processes of identity formation. These essays, mostly penned by Western-based authors, have frequently been concerned with interactions between the cultural East and West. Arguably, such studies have contributed to ‘bhangra’ taking a stereotypical role in academic discourse as a sort of identity-conscious ‘Diaspora music’ par excellence. Anjali Gera Roy has been chasing down bhangra for over a decade, all over the globe – hence her book’s concern with the global ‘moves’ of music, dance, and Panjabiat. Dr Roy’s present work reflects the academy’s shift from the idea of Punjabi diasporas to the idea of global Punjabi culture. In what might be considered this work’s most important gesture, West Bengal-based Roy displaces binary East– West conflict with perspectives on Punjabi music from within ‘Hindustan.’ Several of the chapters in Bhangra Moves were previously published as journal articles and this contributes to the feel of the text as a collection of essays rather than a connected narrative. Chapter 1 establishes the difference between this and prior, Diaspora-focused studies, with its emphasis on multidirectional flows and bhangra music’s cultural position after its ‘return to India.’ While Punjabi enthusiasts may take it for granted, it is significant to note that bhangra is the first regional, non-film music to have ‘crossed over’ and truly challenged the market dominance of film song. In Chapter 2, Roy alleges that, Punjab’s ethnological history notwithstanding, many individuals have a deep-seated ‘purity fetish’ that predisposes them to reject ‘hybrid’ forms of bhangra music, which are perceived to contain ‘Black’ and ‘White’ musical elements. The broader idea is that older forms of bhangra are considered to inhabit a ‘sacred’ cultural space, and as such they are thought to be violated when ‘bhangra’ is put in ‘profane’ spaces, such as the disco. While this theme recurs in Bhangra Moves, here the focus is on how the sight of women ‘uncovered,’ as in videos and stage shows, constitutes such a perceived violation. The ‘myth of authenticity’ is tackled in Chapter 3. Roy argues here that, though all ‘bhangra’ genres contain different degrees of ‘contamination’, nonetheless certain genres and practitioners are ‘consecrated’ as ideal representatives of the ‘pride’ of Punjab.