When Guru Gobind Singh left the company of Bahadur Shah in

This chapter explores a scandal involving a guru that raises questions of imitation, ‘guru fakery’ and rights of religious representation. In 2007 the guru presiding over the Dera Sacha Sauda devotional order stood accused of publicly copying a Sikh guru and Sikh ritual forms, provoking sustained civil unrest in areas of north India. The DSS ritual no doubt mimicked the Sikh baptism ritual, but it was a very particular, and for Sikhs, troubling kind of mimesis – for in a double manoeuvre, it critiqued the very ‘religion’ from which it lifted. Imitation was not, in this case, the sincerest form of flattery, but a claim on the ‘devotional real’. The chapter thus introduces a notion of corrective mimesis as part of its delineation of the complex conjunction of different ‘types’ of copying, or modes of mimetic pressure point, that inhered within the DSS act of imitation.

This article is based on excerpts from the Spirit of the Sikh written by Professor Puran Singh in 1920's and published by Punjabi University Patiala in two volumes during 1982. Puran Singh was a great scientist, mystic poet, and a visionary and interpreter of the Sikh cultural consciousness. This article reflects the personal views of the great Sikh scholar which seem to be relevant for understanding Sikhism and the geopolitical aspirations of the Sikhs.

Sikh Formations, 2022

This article explores the ideological roots of the tension between the Sikhs and the left organizations of Punjab in the context of Kisan Morcha. During the year-long protest movement, Deep Sidhu became the focal point of this tension. This article argues that the roots of this tension are far deeper than is commonly realized. The process of modernization and psychic McDonaldization that resulted from it, are the driving forces behind this tension. Deep Sidhu represented the singularity of Sikhi and Punjab that resisted this global drive towards uniformity. However, his death also sparked a new political consciousness.

Below are a series of objections from a member of the Sikh religion. They have been adapted from the original messages we received, but the main gist of the objections were kept so that the readers may understand what the Islamic responses to such objections would be. We have separated the objections in "sessions" based on the number of messages we received in this respect.

It is a peerless description and analysis of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, rightly penned on the occasion of centenary commemoration of this massacre. The victims came from all religions, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Jains thus underlining the reality that anti-colonial struggle was a united struggle of all Indians. This massacre also produced one of the greatest martyrs of India, Udham Singh (who was present at the site of the carnage) who decided to avenge this massacre. He waited for 21 years to kill one of the main perpetrators, Sir Miachael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, London on March 13, 1940. When arrested and asked for his identification, Udham Singh told the interrogators that his name was MOHAMMED SINGH AZAD, underlining the unity of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Sad that the protagonists of two-nation theory destroyed this great heritage, shamelessly. https://nayadaur.tv/2019/04/13-april-1919-13-april-2019-100-years-of-jallianwala-bagh-slaughter/?unapproved=1045&moderation-hash=c7fbd8efb4b6c0413b39b82f95bf2a16#comment-1045 Reproduced with thanks to NAYA DAUR, Islamabad. It is an exclusive work of Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University.

isara solutions, 2022

This paper seeks to study the institution of Masands ,and how this institution was abolished by Guru Gobind Singhji before he prepared for introducing the new institution of Khalsa. Masands started misusing their spiritual and social position and started misappropriating the offerings of Sikh for their personal ends. They also saw themselves as a force to reckon with, whenever some conflicting claims to Gurugaddi arose within extended household of Gurus. This paper makes use of Gurmukhi literature to study the role of Guru Gobind Singhji in the abolition of Masands.

Economic and Political Weekly, 2007

Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2011

During the reform movements instigated under British colonialism , Sikh identity and tradition were re-framed according to various foreign hierarchies of ascent, transcendence, and separation. Undergirding this colonial discourse lay the distinction between animality and humanity, such that the reformation split the animal body from the rational mind in the creation of Sikh-ism as an Indic mimete of a Christian-type monotheism. This hierarchical "verticality" overlooked the temporal and horizontal tenor of Sikh scripture wherein the body is the site of socio-religious praxis. It is argued that the hermeneutic task now demands a recovery of the suppressed "pantheistic" or horizontal dimension in Sikh scripture. In such a task, an uncanny resemblance arises between how European philosophers describe the animal's difference (from the human) and how the Sikh Gurūs describe the saint's difference (from the human), such that the Sikh's embracing of the world could be more aptly described as an animal sublime. The figure of the animal thus serves as an intriguing node about which the uniqueness of the Sikh mystical body can be re-read, while at the same time revealing an unblinking critique of the modern Western subject. By speaking in a postcolonial, postorientalist, and posthumanist voice, the Sikh mystical body resonates with and probes further the subversive voices internal to modern Western discourse (here depicted primarily by Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch). for reading earlier drafts of this article, and making many helpful suggestions. I must also thank the reviewers and the editor of the JAAR for their very supportive and critically illuminating comments-all remaining errors are mine.

Religion, 1989

Guru Nanak and successive Sikh Gurus proclaimed the need for inner devotion rather than the external physical requirements of Hinduism and Islam. Nonetheless, Sikh worship involves particular postures and symbolic acts. Some tendencies in popular Sikh practice echo the ritualism and asceticism of Hindu tradition. Arguably, the stronger a Sikh's faith is in the scriptures as the Guru's embodiment, the more striking these tendencies may appear to be. When a Sikh is admitted through the amrit 1 ceremony into the Khalsd, the pure Sikh community, the amrit (sweetened water) is administered by Panj Pvare (lit. five beloved ones). Not only must these individuals be equipped with the panj kakke, the five outward signs of Sikh commitment, and known to live strictly in accordance with the Sikh code of discipline, but they must also be physically whole. The ideal of physical as well as spiritual wholeness can be traced back to the period of the ten Gurus (Guru Nanak was born in 1469 CE, Guru Gobind Singh died in 1708 CE). Sikhs increasingly needed to defend both themselves and the religious freedom of other non-Muslims from aggressors. From the time of the sixth Guru, Hargobind, they were required to be competent warriors. Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 institutionalised the sant-sipahi (saintsoldier) model. The baptisand, receiving the amrit (nectar) of initiation, still crouches in a posture of military preparedness-bir asan-with left knee raised. Wholeness, in Sikh terms, is particularly expressed in the uncut hair (kesh) for both sexes. This is not restricted to head and facial hair. For the Sikh prohibition of haircutting many mutually supportive arguments are advanced. If hair is removed or cut of one's own volition (as opposed to during surgery for example) repentance and another amrit ceremony are required according to strict orthodoxy. In fact the term used to describe an orthodox or committed Sikh is`keshdhdri', i .e. one who has kesh (uncut hair). Dyeing the hair and *Paper prepared for `The Body : a Colloquium on Comparative Spirituality', University of Lancaster 1987 .