This book examines the constructions and representations of male and female Sikhs in Indian and diasporic literature and culture through the consideration of the role of violence as constitutive of Sikh identity. How do Sikh men and women construct empowering identities within the Indian nation-state and in the diaspora? The book explores Indian literature and culture to understand the role of violence and the feminization of baptized and turbaned Sikh men, as well as identity formation of Sikh women who are either virtually erased from narratives, bodily eliminated through honor killings, or constructed and represented as invisible. It looks at the role of violence during critical junctures in Sikh history, including the Mughal rule, the British colonial period, the Partition of India, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, and the terror of 9/11 in the United States. The author analyzes how violence reconstitutes gender roles and sexuality within various cultural and national spaces in India and the diaspora. She also highlights questions related to women's agency and their negotiation of traumatic memories for empowering identities. The book will interest scholars, researchers, and students of postcolonial English literature, contemporary Indian literature, Sikh studies, diaspora studies, global studies, gender and sexuality studies, religious studies, history, sociology, media and films studies, cultural studies, popular culture, and South Asian studies.

This important new contribution to the New Cambridge History of India examines chronologically the entire span of Sikh history from prehistoric times to the present day. In an introductory chapter, Professor Grewal surveys the changing pattern of human settlements in the Punjab until the fifteenth century and the emergence of the Punjabi language as the basis of regional articulation. Subsequent chapters explore the life and beliefs of Guru Nanak--the founder of Sikhism; the extension and modification of his ideas by his successors; the increasing number and composition of their followers and the development of Sikh self identity. Professor Grewal also analyzes the emergence of Sikhism in relation to the changing historical situation of Turko-Afghan rule, the Mughal empire and its disintegration, British rule and independence.

First published in 1963, this remains the most comprehensive and authoritative book on the Sikhs. The new edition updated to the present recounts the return of the community to the mainstream of national life. Written in Khushwant Singh's trademark style to be accessible to a general, non-scholarly audience, the book is based on scholarly archival research.

This brief introduction to Jainism and Sikhism is designed to help readers understand these important religious traditions. With both nuance and balance, this text provides broad coverage of various forms of Jainism and Sikhism with an arresting layout with rich colors. It offers both historical overviews and modern perspectives on Jain and Sikh beliefs and practices. The user-friendly content is enhanced by charts of religious festivals, historic timelines, updated maps, and a useful glossary. It is ideal for courses on Jainism, Sikhism, and South Asian religions and will be a useful, concise reference for all readers eager to know more about these important religious tradition and their place in our contemporary world.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory.

Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.

This pocket-sized paperback is ideal for travelers, students and spiritual seekers. Simple Guides Sikhism will help you to understand what it means to be a Sikh (especially the guru-disciple relationship), recognize the key festivals of the Sikh year as well as the different aspects of Sikh worship and practice. The guide will also help you to avoid faux pas in conversation, in travelling and in personal relationships.Contents: . History (including How a guru is perceived and Punjabi heritage). Teachings (including Universality of truth and Monotheism). Sikh Traditions (including The caste system and What is Dharma?). Scriptures (including Historical Context and The Dasam Granth). The Gurdwara and Sikh Worship (including Family gurdwaras and History of the Golden Temple). Festivals (including Gurpurb and Diwali). The Khalsa (including Baisakhi day and Sahaidhari Sikhs). Rites of Passage (including Birth and Wedding ceremony). Sikh Sects (including Namdhari Sikhs and The 3H organization. Sikh Diaspora (including Migration to East Africa and Integration)

This book is a major intervention in the understanding of the dynamics of internal migration in South Asia. It traces the historical roots of certain migrant Sikh communities to the south and north-east India; chronicles their social, religious and economic practices; and examines peculiar identity formations. This first-of-its-kind empirical study examines the socio-economic conditions of Sikhs in the Deccan and the North-East who are believed to be the descendants of the soldiers in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army despatched to the two regions in the early nineteenth century. It draws on extensive ethnographic accounts to present the social realities of the different communities, including language, religion, culture, occupation, caste, marriage and kinship, and agency. It also questions the idea of Sikh homogeneity that many within the community have come to believe in, while revealing both differences and similarities. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, migration and diaspora studies, religion, especially Sikh studies, cultural studies, as well as the Sikh diaspora worldwide.

Louis E. Fenech offers a compelling new examination of one of the only Persian compositions attributed to the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708): the Zafar-namah or 'Epistle of Victory.' Written as a masnavi, a Persian poem, this letter was originally sent to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707) rebuking his most unbecoming conduct. Incredibly, Guru Gobind Singh's letter is included today within the Sikh canon, one of only a very small handful of Persian-language texts granted the status of Sikh scripture. As such, its contents are sung on special Sikh occasions. Perhaps equally surprising is the fact that the letter appears in the tenth Guru's book or the Dasam Granth in the standard Gurmukhi script (in which Punjabi is written) but retains its original Persian language, a vernacular few Sikhs know. Drawing out the letter's direct and subtle references to the Iranian national epic, the Shah-namah, and to Shaikh Sa'di's thirteenth-century Bustan, Fenech demonstrates how this letter served as a form of Indo-Islamic verbal warfare, ensuring the tenth Guru's moral and symbolic victory over the legendary and powerful Mughal empire. Through analysis of the Zafar-namah, Fenech resurrects an essential and intiguing component of the Sikh tradition: its Islamicate aspect.

Recognized masterpieces of Indian literature, the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth are fundamental to the Sikh religion, not only in the physical layout of temples and in ceremonies of worship, but as infallible reference texts offering counsel and instruction. Teachings of the Sikh Gurus presents a brand new selection of key passages from these sacred scriptures, translated into modern English by leading experts, Christopher Shackle and Arvind-pal Singh Mandair. Including six longer compositions and many shorter hymns thematically organised by topics such as Time and Impermanence, Self and Mind, Authority, and Ethics, the book's accessible and carefully chosen extracts distil the essence of Sikhism's remarkable textual and intellectual legacy, depicting how its message of universal tolerance suits the contemporary world. The detailed introduction and notes to the translations aid readers' comprehension of the hymns' form and content, as well as providing some historical context, making it an ideal introduction to Sikh literature.

Joseph Davey Cunningham (1812 1851) joined the East India Company's army thanks to the patronage of Sir Walter Scott. He became the assistant to Colonel Claud Wade, a political agent on the Sikh frontier, in 1837, and spent eight years in various political roles living among the Sikh in the Punjab. While writing a report in 1844 for the government, he decided to undertake the history of the Sikhs, and received encouragement for the project from his father, Scottish poet and author Allan Cunningham. He spent four years on the book, and while it established his reputation as a historian of India, it also destroyed his career as a colonial official: he fell foul of the Army in India for his revelation of supposedly secret negotiations with Sikh leaders, and allegations of corruption, during the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845 1846.

This book explores a traumatic event known throughout India as Operation Bluestar. During the Operation, the Indian army entered one of Sikhism's most sacred shrines, the Darbar Sahib in the city of Amritsar, to dislodge militants who had taken shelter within. Among the many who died during Operation Bluestar was the militant leader, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who is now remembered and commemorated as a martyr. Sikhs revere their martyrs. Images and religious souvenirs of martyrs share space with posters and portraiture of the ten Sikh Gurus. The visual idiom is a key form of remembering the modern martyrs of Operation Bluestar. Despite the emotive imagery, a tension exists between the need to forget the violence of militancy and remembrance of martyrs. It is this tension that shapes accounts of "what happened" in the city of Amritsar in 1984 before and after Operation Bluestar. But "what happened" is an account that changes over time and between storytellers. Each account might have a little omission, a small part that is overlooked, ignored, or sometimes laid to rest. Memory has the quality of bringing the past into the present, but with deletions that suit the storyteller and audience. This book traverses the terrain of memory, hollowed out by little bits of forgetting.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory. Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.

'the indispensable reference point for...an historical and sociological understanding of the Sikh tradition...these volumes are a tribute to [the] capacity for both a sympathetic and a balanced rendition of Sikh history.' -Times of India 'Singh has done a good job of turning dry history into informed reading.' - Sunday Mail A History of the Sikhs First published in 1963, this remains the most comprehensive and authoritative book on the Sikhs. The new edition updated to the present recounts the return of the community to the mainstream of national life. Written in Khushwant Singh's trademark style to be accessible to a general, non-scholarly audience, the book is based on scholarly archival research. Volume 1: 1469-1839: This volume covers the social, religious and political background which led to the formation of the Sikh faith in the fifteenth century. Basing his account on original documents in Persian, Gurmukhi and English, the author trac es the growth of Sikhism and tells of the compilation of its sacred scriptures in the Granth Sahib. The transformation of the Sikhs from a pacifist sect to a militant group called the Khasla led by Guru Gobind Singh is portrayed in detail, as is the relationship of the Sikhs with the Mughals and the Afghans, until the consolidation of Sikh power under Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The Sikh religion has a following of over 20 million people worldwide. However,events such as the verbal and physical attacks on Sikhs just after September 11, where Sikhs were being mistaken for Muslims, suggest that the Sikh faith still remains mysterious to many. This Very Short Introduction introduces newcomers to the meaning of the Sikh religious tradition, its teachings, practices, rituals and festivals. Eleanor Nesbitt highlights and contextualizes the key threads in the history of Sikhism, from the first Gurus to martyrdom, militarization, and the increasingly significant diaspora. Examining gender, caste, and the changes that are currently underway in the faith, Nesbitt considers contemporary Sikh identities and their role in our world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Sikh Confederacy consisting of military units or Misls rose from the ashes of the crumbling Mughal Empire in the Eighteenth century. As a result, under the leadership of General Baghel Singh they conquered the Red Fort of Delhi in 1783 leading to the Sikh Empire being formed in the Punjab under Maharajah Ranjit Singh in 1801. During this time the East India Company also expanded its frontiers and territories, witnessing the rise and the progression of the Sikhs. This was coupled with the influx of Christian Missionaries who came to convert the Sikhs into the British way of thinking. The two Empires were destined to clash and the Anglo Sikh Wars of 1845-1849 witnessed some of the bloodiest battles Victoria's Britain fought, with major losses on both sides. The annexation of the Punjab led to the employment of the Sikhs into the British Indian Army. This led to the Sikhs becoming part of many British campaigns, including their major contributions in the First and Second World Wars. This book weaves the reader through anecdotes and important events highlighting the relationship between the British and the Sikhs which exists to this day. In this deeply-researched book, Mann uses rare anecdotes to provide recognition to early descriptions from British administrators, writers and illustrators who depicted the history of the Sikhs and the land of the Punjab. The book is also supplemented with a number of Anglo Sikh treaties which determined relations in the Nineteenth century.