THE CONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition
By Harjot (Singh) Oberoi
Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Pages : 494


Profusely referenced and exhaustively documented, the plethora of original research citations makes this book an excellent resource for many a future scholar. Harjot (Singh) Oberoi writes well. The facts are all there and nobody can argue with them. But I find a serious problem with his logic, perhaps with his fundamental premise. He focuses on what it meant to be a Sikh in the 19th century.

It is a fascinating study: The existence of religious boundaries in Punjab with particular reference to Sikhs. The 19th century was a time of great ferment for Sikhs. Hindu practices had corrupted Sikh teachings. Having lost independent political power, Sikhs faced nascent Hinduism, which was anxious to claim Sikhism into its fold as just another offshoot. Many reform movements such as the Tat Khalsa and the Singh Sabha arose within Sikhism to redefine its pristine glory.

Harjot contends that within the Indian cultural setting ambiguity and fluidity marked religious, particularly Sikh, identity. Sikhs moved in and out of several different identities. So it was possible, until very recently, to have competing and ambiguous definitions of who is a Sikh. Currently Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, Harjot embarked on these questions 16 years ago. They became a part of his research for the Masters and the Doctoral degrees. The questions remain important.

In 1954, Horace Miner of the University of Michigan published a spoof of anthropologic research titled "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema". Nacirema is American spelled backwards. The modern Americans came across as a superstitious, guilt ridden, sexually repressed, primitive people. It was rib tickling, funny parody but with a serious edge.

When outsiders look at a culture they bring a view and a bias; pure objectivity doesn't exist nor can it. There are no lenses that do not distort. Miner had his facts right and so does Harjot; it is the interpretation that does not sit well. At times Harjot achieves the impossible. He seems able to view Sikhs as an outsider with little knowledge of Sikh tradition and less sympathy. In one example of many, here is Harjot talking of the Singh Sabha:

"A new cultural elite aggressively usurped the right to represent others within this singular tradition. Its ethnocentric logic subsumed other identities and dissolved alternative ideals..."

Heady stuff, his writing! Harjot cites figures from the Khalsa Directory of 1900 on the number of Sikh professionals but adds an egregious comment, "Since there is nothing to compare these figures with, it is hard to judge their accuracy." Yet, in the next paragraph, he quotes without comment or demurral from the Census Report of 1881: "The Sikhs are the most uneducated class in the Punjab."

The presence of demi-Gurus which many Sikh families revered (and still do) indicated not ambiguity in Sikh doctrine as Harjot contends but laxity in Sikh practice. The Hinduization of the Sikh teaching he terms the "Sanatan" tradition. Sounds good but hasn't he applied a Hindu concept, inventing a new non-existent tradition in Sikhism, to denote the natural waxing and waning found in every movement? The book is replete with such writing. At times it seems like a scholarly mugging of Sikhs and Sikhism.

Despite what Sikh tradition has continuously believed, despite the clear teachings of the Gurus over ten generations, despite the clearly established Sikh identity that can be verified from historical records - despite all that - Harjot claims that Sikh identity, as we see it today, was a product of the Tat Khalsa, Singh Sabha and British interests. He further suggests that true Sikh identity cannot be clearly distinguished from Hindu identity and the two merge effortlessly at every level. In support of this he marshals much evidence in enviable style.

Primarily, he presents several examples (case histories or a laundry list?) of prominent and not so prominent 19th century Sikhs and Hindus to show that in their minds Hindu and Sikh practices were inseparable. At times of birth, marriage and death they followed Sikh rites but also consulted the Brahmin. Many Sikhs followed Hindu injunctions on caste and still do. In many gurdwaras, including the Golden Temple, Hindu idols were installed alongside the Guru Granth. (I too have a Hindu friend who claims that Hinduism is not a religion but a culture; he follows Sikhism, he says. He also worships idols at the Hindu temple. He is an interesting study but not a definition of either Hinduism or Sikhism.) Harjot seems not to realize that such case histories display symptomology and little else. Wherever distinct traditions interact, gray areas of overlap are inevitable. Let me illustrate.

For its first several hundred years a strong movement within Christianity - Jews for Jesus - accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah but remained Jews. (The movement is small but still exists.) It would be foolish to conclude from this that Christian doctrine was unclear.

Or look at many of the present day European Jews who seem highly Christianized in their outlook and practices. Yet no one would argue that a definition of who is a Jew can be derived from them. The Christianized Muslims (Morisos) of Africa also come to mind. Because of the common roots of Christianity and Judaism, early Christian communities were probably not visibly different from the Jews even though the two religions differed in canon and doctrine. As the Christian vision clarified and unfolded with time, the two religious traditions diverged. Now no one would call a Christian some type of "reformed" Jew. Similar reasoning and historical process applies to the young religion of the Sikhs.

In the simpler, smaller, more intimate units of society, such as a village, significant mixing of practices occurs. Such units are fascinating but useless for defining the parent doctrine or for the study of religious borders. They are great for looking at the gray areas between religions, how people accommodate to different needs and demands in their quiet ways. It is here that I find Harjot's work most fascinating and useful. His is excellent and straight forward social history.

It would also be incorrect to compare the role of the Singh Sabha, etc., to that of Martin Luther or other reformers in Christianity. The historical circumstances were different as was the development of the parent Church. Luther argued doctrinal differences and practices based on them. The 19th century Sikh reformers debated Sikh practice and its corruption, not doctrine. The Sikh reformers did not add a single new belief, doctrine, dogma or tenet to Sikhism that was previously non-existent.

Harjot needs to see that the construction of religious identities starts at the central core of a movement and flows centrifugally from its teaching, their dilution is seen at the periphery. Borders - the periphery - are always porous whether they are religious, political, military, social or psychological.

Seeking a definition of religious tenets from lifestyles and practices of people has its own pitfalls. For instance, studying the practices of pilgrims at Lourdes or the people in Haiti would lead to diametrically competing and diverse definitions of Roman Catholic belief. Fun but not very enlightening. For understanding Catholicism one would need to go to the scripture, religious teaching, canon, etc. There is often a quantum difference between teaching and practice. And Sikhs are no exception. Harjot seems to have missed this essential conceptual distinction.

Sikhism is young. Many Sikhs look back to only two or three generations of Sikh identity. In such mixed families mixed practices will occur. But Sikh scholars always reacted strongly to any doctrinal conflict or efforts to dilute Sikh identity or adulterate Sikh practice with Hindu rites.

Harjot notes such instances but rejects their lesson that Sikh identity and uniqueness were doctrinally established. He seems to treat such responses as knee jerk, gut reactions - angry outbursts of minimal consequence. He doesn't see that whenever Sikhs or the Singh Sabha attempted a clarification of their teaching they were not inventing something new, only restating the tried and true.

When looking at Sikhs in the 19th century one needs to remember that Sikhism had very little peace since its inception. Many of the curators of its gurdwaras and its heritage turned out to be non-Sikhs, primarily Hindus. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries when Sikhs wielded political power, the religion attracted many new converts of convenience. Many of them never shed their earlier beliefs and practices entirely but merely grafted on the Sikh identity rather uncertainly. Naturally, their practices remained mixed. But the message and evolution of the Sikh code of conduct and of Sikh doctrine remained clear.

Like the ebb and flow in the affairs of all men, there are many cycles in the five hundred years of Sikh history. During peaceful eras Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims mixed more easily in the rural setting of Punjab where lives are closely interdependent and intertwined. At times of tension, particularly during the watch of Guru Arjun, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, Sikh identity was not quite so fluid as Harjot thinks. Same also during the days of Banda Bahadur.

It was not so popular to be Sikh then. During Ranjit Singh's time many non-Sikhs adopted the Sikh label for political convenience. As a parallel, witness the case of the Marrano Jews in Europe. In the past decade again, because Sikh identity is under challenge, one can see an enhanced awareness of uniquely Sikh values. Like all religions and at any time, Sikhism too has many believers at the periphery who are only marginally connected to the Sikh tradition.

To define Sikh religious boundaries one needs to look at the continuity of Sikh teaching and its uniqueness from others, not showcase selected settings or families at special times in history.

Yes, there has been an evolution in how Sikhs view and define Sikhism since the times of Guru Gobind Singh. But it does not follow that they have constructed, adopted or enforced a new definition of Sikhism as Harjot contends. It is that with time and education Sikhs were (and are) developing a clearer understanding and interpretations of their uniqueness, message and tradition.

To me Harjot's excellent data do not reveal what he claims - that Sikh identity was uncertain or unformed until recently. Instead, his study says that in Sikh practice there was always a tussle between two competing forces. The clear Sikh teaching and doctrines on the one hand and two factors on the other: the predominant Hindu society, and the natural tendency for laxity in discipline seen in all people, somewhat akin to entropy found in all organized systems. This I think is what Harjot's data show quite convincingly.

Prior to this work, perhaps the only treatments of the subject were by Hew McLeod ('Who Is A Sikh?') and two short 19th century monographs in Punjabi - Narain Singh's "Hum Hindu Hain" and Kahan Singh Nabha's "Hum Hindu Nahin"; the latter has since been translated into English by Jarnail Singh. In this book, Harjot makes us think about things that we haven't thought very often and in ways that are not always comfortable. And that is excellent.


Dr. Inder Jit Singh is Professor & Co-ordinator in Anatomy, New York University. Among other publications, he is the author of two books: 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias' and 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress'.

I.J. Singh is on the editorial advisory board of 'The Sikh Review', Calcutta and 'The Encyclopedia of Sikhism', Punjabi University, Patiala.