negotiating borders: community and the … · sikhs themselves) that everything to do with sikh...

Man In India, 92 (1) : 55-76 © Serials Publications

Address for communication: Najnin Islam, PhD Fellow, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata,E-mail: [email protected]

NEGOTIATING BORDERS:COMMUNITY AND THE DYNAMICS OF PUNJABI ANDBIHARI-SIKH RELATIONS IN KOLKATA

Najnin Islam

This article engages in an ethno-sociology of the Punjabi and Bihari-Sikh communities within thecity space of Kolkata. Combining historical research with ethnographic study it tries to take aclose look at the tenuous zone of interaction that these communities share. It focuses on thedeeply fractured nature of the community, popularly perceived as a homogenous immigrant groupin the city, along the lines of ritual practice and place of origin. The resulting hierarchic socialformation ends up placing the Punjabi-Sikhs in an advantageous position compared to their Biharicounterparts. Numerically and economically stronger the former group engages in multifariousactivities with the purpose of reforming the latter: this impulse for reform springing from disdainof their syncretic practice and desire to initiate them into the hegemonic Khalsa panth/order of theSikh religion. This article attempts to map these activities through detailed ethnography of thesetwo groups. Simultaneously it also looks at informal schools and the discourse of Sikh identitycoming out of certain other organizations like the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat. With these as its focus,the article engages with larger questions of territoriality, community formation and the shiftingarena of identity construction. In speaking of these two communities, I see this article as contributingto a nuanced study of community identities that takes cognizance of intra-community dynamicsoften neglected in favour of a static host-immigrant model analysis while tracing the social life ofsettler/migrant groups.

Keywords: Punjabi-Sikh, Bihari-Sikh, ethnography, identity, community

Introduction

Kolkata has been home to several communities both from within the subcontinentas well as from outside. At various points in time the Parsis, the Armenians, theChinese, Gujratis, Punjabis, Biharis and many more communities have arrivedand settled here. The city too seems to be able to make space for each of thesegroups who in turn devise multiple and creative ways of staking claim to it, be itthrough economic activities, built structures or the very act of living itself. TheSikh community in Kolkata is of particular interest. Primarily a migrant community,it might be viewed largely in terms of two factions- the Punjabi-Sikhs and theBihari-Sikhs. One of the reasons behind mentioning these two groups is to point tothe fact that unlike what is commonly perceived, the Sikh community in Kolkatais not a homogenous one and that this study will look at these two separate groupsand the manner in which they negotiate their position vis-à-vis each other.Consequently it is crucial to take cognizance of the importance of territorialaffiliation. The hyphenated identities of Punjabi-Sikhs and Bihari-Sikhs reveal

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that although a common religion connects them, the fact of belonging to differentgeographical locations marks the manner in which they articulate their identities.

Crucial here would be to ask: Is the hyphen a hierarchic conjuncture? Doesthe positioning of the terms on either side of the hyphen hint at some kind ofpreference with regard to how people want to be seen and perceived? If so, does ithint at a particular manner of carving the boundaries of communities? Consequently,how do we critically understand the concept of territoriality? The idea of territorialityis deemed important because of the general impression and belief (among Punjabi-Sikhs themselves) that everything to do with Sikh religion is to be found in itspurest form in Punjab. Discourses emanating from the Singh Sabha are predicatedon a certain assumption of “internal homogeneity of the Sikh nation within fixedspatial boundaries” (Dusenbery, 2008, p. 103). Mehar Singh Chaddah too in hisbook Are Sikhs a Nation? speaks of Sikhs as being “bound by common race,common language and literature, common land, common history and commonreligion, common joys and sorrows and common political aims and aspirations.”(qtd in Dusenbery, 2008, p. 103) Such assertions run the risk of turning a blind eyeto the multifarious ways in which Sikh culture, religion and politics have come tobe rearticulated and produced in multiple sites outside Punjab. In turning theenquiring eye to a close study of the Bihari-Sikh community in Kolkata, this articleseeks to understand how Sikh customs/culture has been reterritorialised. One ofthe aims of this study is to look at processes and modes of bracketing off communityboundaries. To this end it focuses on the interface shared between the Punjabi andBihari-Sikh communities. Territorial affiliation not only supersedes the fact ofreligious similarity but also endows one group with a certain kind of privilege thatthe other cannot partake of. The dominant group in this regard is the Punjabi-Sikhand the Bihari-Sikhs comprise the weaker section: socially, economically and interms of prestige. Upholders of the great Khalsa Tradition, the Punjabi-Sikhs hadlittle sympathy for the syncretic practices of the Bihari-Sikhs (an issue I shalldevelop later in this article). Punjabi-Sikhs, who were later entrants to the citycompared to the Bihari-Sikhs, took on the latter in several ways, unleashed processesthat continue till date- effectively marginalising the Bihari-Sikh community. Intrying to look at all these issues the study takes a socio-historical view of both thecommunities starting from the time of their settling in the city to their functioningin the present times. It focuses on the issue of intra-community dynamics oftensidelined in favour of inter-community negotiations while studying migrantcommunities.

For an account of the early phase of settlement of the communities I have hadto depend on textual resources. These include a small body of work that discussesthe two communities in relation to their location in Kolkata, historical documentsand some colonial reports. The rest of the work is largely ethnographic. So farthere has not been any scholarly ethnographic work on the Sikh community in

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Kolkata. I have gained much from the insights offered by scholars who havestudied the Sikh diaspora in a transnational context. Also, I have drawn onhistorical studies of the communities for clearer understanding of their sociallocations and have tried to address the general lack of interest and informationabout Bihari-Sikhs through this work. I have attempted to engage in an ethno-sociology1 of the two communities. As a methodological tool I have found itappropriate for it seems to pit itself in unison with the idea of performativitywhich is crucial to my thesis. It is perhaps important to trouble the notion ofidentity and not see it simply as something people have because it has beenhanded down to them. Identity is but the product of a confluence of severalfactors and is ‘hybrid’ in a certain sense because communities are not insulatedunits. In this regard I have found Stuart Hall’s manner of defining cultural identityparticularly important. Hall argues:

Cultural identity is a matter of “becoming” as well as of “being”. It belongs to the future asmuch as to the past. It is not something that already exists, transcending place, time, historyand culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But like everythingthat is historical they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed insome essentialised past, they are subject to continuous “play” of history, culture and power.Far from being grounded in a mere “recovery” of the past, which is waiting to be found, andwhich, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity,identities are the nameswe give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, thenarratives of the past. (Hall, 1993, p. 225).

Individual as well as focus group sessions were conducted in order to enquire intohow members of these two communities understand themselves and the socialworld they inhabit. My ethnographic work has included visits to all the majorgurdwaras in the city, trips to the Khalsa English School, Sunday school, informalschools for Bihari-Sikh children as well as individual and group interviews withmy respondents in their homes and other public places. I have also attended mostof the cultural programs organised by the community in the course of the past twoyears.

The article is divided into four sections. The first and the second engage in ahistorical account of the arrival of the Punjabi and Bihari Sikhs in the city. This isfollowed by the section that looks at the nature of interaction between the twocommunities especially with regard to the measures taken by the Punjabi-Sikhs tobring in the Bihari-Sikhs back into the ‘mainstream’. It tries to look at theimplications of these efforts on the manner in which the present generation ofBihari-Sikhs have begun to envision themselves. The larger issue it tries to addressis how identities are more often than not a matter of training and mobilization.With this as the framework the last section tries to look at another very potentsource that tries to shape Sikh identity in a particular fashion- the Rashtriya SikhSangat (RSS).

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Settling in: A Brief History of Arrival

Sikh presence in the city of Kolkata has a long and rather interesting history.Believers say, Guru Nanak had visited this place in 1509 and then Guru Teg Bahadurwhile returning from Dhubri in Assam had stayed here in 1670.2 Some of theearliest Sikh settlers in the city were Nanakpanthi-Khatri traders. Several sourcesspeak of these traders and their presence in Bengal as also their tremendousopulence. Some of the most important names that find place in Bengal’s historyare that of Omichand (variously spelt as Aminchand, Ominchand or evenAmeerchud)3 and Huzuri Mal. The former is known to have played an importantrole in Bihar trade in the first half of the eighteenth century. He also had tradinglinks with the East India Company and is known to have left a mammoth portionof his property (later valued at Rs. 42 lakhs) as debottur to Sree Gobind Nanakji.4

Omichand has passed down in popular memory as someone who helped “all theSikhs of his class”. (Bose, 1978, p. 313) Interestingly, a local rhyme that talks ofthe special possessions of several people makes mention of Omichand and hisbeard!5 There however remains some confusion regarding the identity of Omichand.The Bihari-Sikh community who came to partake of much of his property claimshim as one of their own kind. Conversely writers like Radharam Mitra describehim and Huzuri Mal as Sikhs of Punjab. Huzurimal inherited much of Omichand’sproperty and is remembered as the one who helped build the gurdwara at BaraBazar, now known as the Bara Sikh Sangat.

Punjabi-Sikhs have been part of the city for almost a century now. Recruitmentin the colonial army often brought them here. Rural Sikhs of the Jat or agriculturalcaste, designated by the British as a martial race were often stationed in SoutheastAsian countries like Hong-Kong, Singapore and Malaysia or even in East Africancountries like Kenya and Uganda. Kolkata’s pre-eminence as an important portmight have facilitated Sikh presence in the city.6 However it was only in the earlypart of the twentieth century, after the introduction of modern surface transport inthe city that they began to settle here in substantial numbers. Dr. Himadri Banerjeespeculates how the economic pressure of the World War days, loss of jobs fromthe British army and political disturbance in the Punjab in the early part of thetwentieth century might have acted as incentives to out-migration from the Punjab(especially the Doaba-Manjha region). He further adds that although migration tothe then Calcutta might not have been a particularly lucrative option from aneconomic point of view, the expansion of the city and the development of moderntransport system did ensure the migration of a number of Punjabis into the city.(Banerjee, 2010) Punjabi-Sikh life in Calcutta developed around the nucleus ofthe transport system. Anjana Roy Chowdhury too in her discussion of occupationalgroups in Bhawanipur talks about the coming of Punjabi-Sikhs in the city after theFirst World War. Many had retired from military service and took up the transportbusiness that was developing in the city. She speaks of a French taxi company in


Rowland Road that trained them to become drivers. It was around this nucleus thatthe Sikh community grew up.(Roy Chowdhury,1964).

Another distinct wave of migration to the city took place post the partition ofIndia. A fairly large segment of Punjabi immigrants (both Sikh and non-Sikh)arrived in the then Calcutta and settled here. Several of these new migrants werehoteliers, small entrepreneurs and businessmen. Pijush Kanti Ray mentions theDhanpathohar area (pre independence north-western part of the country, the areacovered by the Jhelum and Sindhu rivers: at present in Pakistan) as one from wheremany Hindu and Sikh people had shifted base to Kolkata after partition. (Ray,2002) Many of them had engaged in motor parts business.7 Transport, it seemsremained the main occupation of the bulk of the Punjabi-Sikh community inKolkata. According to a survey conducted by J. N. Paul of the IndianAnthropological Society, in 1973, 64% of the Sikh population here was engagedin the transport business. Sardarji taxi-drivers have long been part of the citytransport system.8 This trend has however undergone a substantial change as therehas been a steady decline in the number of Sardarji taxi-drivers in the city over theyears. Educational aspirations coupled with the tendency to go abroad, diminishingreturns from the profession as well as decrease in the prestige associated with thejob has led to such a change.9

In terms of the community’s spatial location, Bhawanipur remained the zoneof high concentration. This however was a later development. The initial nucleusof the Sikh community was the Barabazar, Kolutala area. Dr. Keya Dasgupta tracesthe spatial shift of the community from the densely populated areas of centralCalcutta to Bhawanipur and Kalighat as being essentially connected with the shiftsin occupation from trade and military services to transport business. High rentscoupled with inadequate space for keeping vehicles made the shift necessary. Theareas around Bhawanipore that were sparsely populated then seemed suitable.Eventually, several commune-like clusters also grew up around the gurdwaras thatthey set up in Garcha, Bagmari, Dum Dum, Howrah Diamond Harbour and Dunlop.Spatial spread of the community at present remains more or less same although theconcentration has altered. Of late there has been an increasing trend to shift toAlampur10.

A discussion of the community’s history in the city is perhaps incompletewithout any reference to the active role they had played in conjunction with theirBengali counterparts during the freedom struggle in general as also specific eventslike the boycott of Simon Commission and the Civil disobedience Movement. Adetailed discussion of this aspect comprises a separate project in itself and is beyondthe scope of the present study. However it does need to be mentioned that Sikhs inKolkata, just like in other parts of India have been deeply embroiled in India’sstruggle for freedom and their link with the radical politics of Bengal has beenmuch talked about.11 Conversely the Akali movement, the Gurdwara Reforms Act

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that had its genesis in the Punjab travelled to Bengal and did in many ways affectSikh life in Kolkata starting from the forming of an Akali unit in the city toprecipitating a shift in the balance of power so far as ownership and control ofgurdwaras in the city was concerned. City gurdwaras, especially Gurdwara GarchaSikh Sangat and Gurdwara Jagat Sudhar made space available for politicalcongregations, some of which were attended by the likes of Subhash ChandraBose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad,Sri Gopinath Bardolai, Dr. Shyama PrasadMukherjee. One instance of open praise for the Sikhs of Kolkata by SubhashChandra Bose is to be found in his speech at a congregation in Jalianwalabagh inApril 1931. Netaji mentioned how Sikhs in Kolkata are admired by Bengalis fortheir real spirit and sacrifice for the cause of the nation. He even mentioned GurditSingh as someone who had won the hearts of the people of Calcutta through hisservice to the nation (Ray, 2002). If the old records of Garcha gurdwara beartestimony to the close links shared by the Punjabi-Sikhs and Bengalis during thefreedom struggle, an earlier phase of Punjabi-Sikh history and its connection tothe city has been immortalized through the construction of a small memorial onthe banks of the Ganga at Budge Budge. This memorial recounts the struggles ofBaba Gurdit Singh and other Sikh men (several of whom were members of theGhadar party) who were disallowed by the British to disembark from the shipKomagathamaru when it reached Kolkata (1914) after having been denied entryinto Canada and Hong Kong. At present the Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj at BudgeBudge celebrates Shaheedi Diwas in order to pay respect to those who lost theirlives in the struggle against the British that followed their attempts to disembark atCalcutta. This event is attended by Sikhs from all over the city. Gurdwaras makespecial provisions like hiring trucks to enable people to attend this program.Performances by special guests from Punjab, shabad kirtans, langar and a ceremonialvisit from the gurdwara to the memorial make it a well attended yearly function.12

The Punjabi-Sikh community has consolidated itself well in the city. Attemptshave been made to organize themselves either through associations or other bodieswith a view to bringing the community together and ensure their own distinctivespace within the cultural milieu of Kolkata. In this regard mention may be made ofthe two Punjabi dailies that are printed and circulated in the city; Daily DeshDarpan13 and Navi Parbhat.14 Besides these, the magazine The Sikh Review is alsopublished from Kolkata. Highly revered, it is widely circulated all over India andreceives bulk subscription from all over the world. It is brought out by the SikhCultural Centre, set up by Captain Bhag Singh in 1953 and is being publishedfrom the very same year.

A set of Khalsa Schools also operate within the city. The first Khalsa Schoolwas set up in 1935. The Khalsa primary school still operates in the old building ofthe Garcha gurdwara. There are three other Khalsa schools in the Bhawanipurarea: Khalsa High School (set up in 1953) Khalsa English Medium School (set up


in 1967) and Khalsa Girl’s School. Apart from these Gurmukhi Public Schoolsoperate in Howrah and Alampur. The aim of these schools as Mrs. Rekhi, Principal,Khalsa English School puts it is to impart modern education to Sikh children in amanner that is commensurate with a Sikh way of life.” (Rekhi, Personal Interview,March 29,2011) Mention might be made here of the Sikh Forum15 and GurmatParchar Society16 as taking care of the socio-cultural and religious aspects of Sikhlife in Kolkata.

The Sikh Nari Manch and Eko Pasara are devoted to the upliftment of womenwithin the community. Set up in 2001, the Nari Manch by their own descriptionworks for the “religious, social and economic upliftment of Sikh ladies” (Kaur,Personal Interview, March 10, 2011) and has a total membership of about twohundred women at present. It tries to provide employment opportunities to womenwho are willing to work.17 Apart from this it also holds medical camps and offersstudentships to meritorious but economically backward students. The work carriedout by the Manch is indeed commendable. However the idea of women’sempowerment remains largely circumscribed by the logic of motherhood and awoman’s ability to play it out well.18 Women’s “upliftment” is seen as a necessaryadjunct to her role within the community as the one who brings forth “changeywaaris”19 Eko Pasara, founded by Mrs. Davinder Kaur works exclusively for girlsand women within the community. Apart from funding girls’ education in theKhalsa Schools, it also helps destitute Sikh women to find employment in the city.In fact in its most recent venture Eko Pasara has tied up with the Khalsa Girl’sSchool to provide employment to poor Sikh women and widows. Provisions havebeen made for them within the school campus to sit and sew salwar suits and makea living out of it. (Kaur, Personal Interview, April 5, 2011).

Bihari-Sikhs: Past and Present

The Bihari (Agrahari) Sikhs on the other hand are much older settlers in the city.They were primarily a community of small traders scattered in different urbancentres of Bihar from Sasaram to Bhagalpur, along the banks of the Ganga. Contactof Sikhism with Bihar can be traced back to the close of the 15th century. Accordingto the Sikh annals, Guru Nanak had visited Bihar on one of his journeys. Someconversion did take place so that before the birth of Guru Gobind Singh, a networkof Sikh maths was already in existence. Early census reports mention Bihar in the17th century as the chief mart town in all of “Bengala”, with a commanding positionon the Ganges. Ved Prakash in his book The Sikhs in Bihar speculates that thismight have acted as an incentive to the enterprising Punjabi traders especially theKhatris to come in touch with this part of the country. In fact large colonies ofKhatri traders had established themselves at Agra, Paryag, Benares and Patna. Aswas the norm, some of these men might also have preached thereby helping tospread the message of Sikhism in this part of the country. Francis Buchanan’s

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writings and Census Reports show how Sikhism had claimed disciples among thelower castes in Bihar. The Agraharis especially trace their roots to Guru TegBahadur’s visit to Bihar in the 17th Century (mid 1660s). Several colonial documentstalk about the Agraharis of Sasaram. Hunter in his Statistical Account of Bengal(1878) describes the Agraharis as people who had become Sikhs by descent20 andhad settled in the Shahabad district two hundred years ago. L.S.S. O’Malley in hisarticle “The Agraharis of Sasaram” rues that no satisfactory explanation of theirorigin is obtainable from them. In speaking of their origins, most of his respondentsattempted to explain how they derived their name. According to some they arecalled Agraharis because they are descendants of one Agar whereas others rejectthis theory completely and believe that their name is derived from the professionof their ancestors who were basically labourers engaged in the chopping and saleof agar, a sweet odoured wood. There are still others who attribute their name tothe fact that their ancestors were originally from Agra. This last view is in facttaken up by O’Malley who hypothesizes that the famine of 1556-57 in northernIndia might have been instrumental in bringing several people out of these places.This also fitted in with the Agrahari claim to O’Malley that they had been settledin Sasaram for about fourteen generations. Although the fact of their origin remainsfuzzy, as Prakash points out, there is no doubt that the Agraharis had settled inSasaram before Guru Teg Bahadur’s visit. Initially the Agraharis were notfinancially well off. In fact they were labourers or petty hucksters who “used toperform begari till the time of the Mutiny.”21 (O’Malley, 1904, p. 42) Later theyprospered in trade by selling cloth and grain and travelled all over Bengal in orderto vend their goods.

It was towards the end of the eighteenth century that the Agraharis beganarriving in the area now designated as Kolkata, then an emergent city, either byboat along the Ganga, or by cart or even by walking. In his article titled ‘Agraharisof Calcutta: A minority group within the larger Sikh community’, Dr. HimadriBanerjee suggests that perhaps some developments in the composition of Bihartrade following the Battle of Plassey in 175722, the rise of Calcutta as an importantcommercial centre and Agrahari expertise in overland business facilitated theirmigration to the city. It is suggested that the Agrahari Sikhs represent the firstbatch of Sikh settlers here.(Banerjee, 2009) Existing literature as also my owninteractions with members of the community suggest that Bara Bazaar and itssurroundings was perhaps the main area where early settlement took place. Thepossibility seems plausible given that Bara Bazaar, since the mid eighteenth centuryhad begun to establish itself as a major trading area, “a permanent, residentialwholesale market” and like some “lodestone had started attracting traders fromnear and far”. (Gupta and Chaliha, 1990. p. 113) Trade in fact remained theirprimary activity in the city during the early years and quite a few flourished by it.Cotton trade, brocade, embroidery work are some of the activities they engaged


in. With time, the community’s settlement also spread outwards from Bara Bazarto Tulapatty and Mechhua. The community prospered mainly through textile tradein the late nineteenth century. However they preferred to “stand away from thenationalist politics of the next century because of their long term commercialconnection with the British Raj.” (Banerjee, 2010, p. 18) This was also the time oftheir gradual economic decline. Several factors contributed to this- “lack ofeducation coupled with their inability to expand their trading frontiers, followedby the decline in overseas trade and above all the Great Depression of the 1929”(Ibid) affected the community’s economic potential adversely. There is not muchto suggest that the community regained its economic strength or potential in anysubstantial way.

At present the Agrahari Sikhs constitute a small community living in the BaraBazar, Narkeldanga area, mostly engaged in small time trade or other odd jobs. Inmy own ethnographic work I have not so far come across any common localitieswhere Punjabi and Bihari-Sikhs coexist (though occasional exceptions are there).They often call themselves Sanatani Sikhs or even Hindu-Sikhs. There’s asubstantial concentration of Agrahari families in the Narkeldanga area which hastheir gurdwara. Gurdwara Chota Sikh Sangat on Mahatma Gandhi Road is alsomanaged by them. A primary school, Guru Nanak Vidyalay is run within thegurdwara premises. Accredited by the West Bengal government, the school wasoriginally set up in 1936. The Agrahari Sikh Samaj, originally set up in 1925 is theapex body that is in charge of both the gurdwaras as also of conducting religiousprograms and other activities within the community. One also gets to hear of Bihari-Sikh youth organizations like the Gursikh Jatha24 that is dedicated to the task ofspreading the message of the Gurus among the Bihari-Sikh populace in the city.There are perhaps no separate organizations that work exclusively for and withBihari-Sikh women.25

A close look at the two communities brings to the fore certain glaring disparities.The Bihari-Sikh community is by no means as organized as their Punjabicounterparts. They remain marginalized both economically as well as socially withinthe larger Sikh community of Kolkata. The fact of social marginalization or at anyrate, the lack of extensive interaction comes out clearly in the words of some ofmy Punjabi-Sikh respondents. Asked about the Bihari-Sikhs they came up with arange of responses like:

They call themselves Sikhs but their culture is very close to that of Hindus. (Singh, PersonalInterview, Spetember 16, 2010)

Again,

Bihari Sikhs are not as articulate or financially strong like us…so there is not much interactionbetween us and them.

(Kaur, Personal Interview, September 26, 2010)

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The fact of social marginalization is further evident in the ascription of “nakli” or“kachha” Sikhs that most of my Agrahari respondents complained of. Several factorscontribute to the ascription of this slur. The accusation of falsehood derives fromthe very fact of them being Biharis hinting at a certain kind of territorial/locationalbias as also the manner in which they conduct their ritual life. The Agraharismaintain a highly syncretic profile. Not only do they celebrate the major gurpurabs26

but also engage in idol worship. Chhat Puja, Janmasthami are some of the festivalsthey celebrate apart from worshipping goddess Laxmi, Ganesh and Kali. In manyAgrahari households one gets to see a portrait of Guru Nanak sharing space withan idol of goddess Laxmi or Kali. It is interesting to note that most of the availabledocuments on the Sikhs of Bihar point to the prevalence of Hindu rituals in theirlives. Buchanan’s description of the Nanakpanthis indicates the presence of thepractice of worshipping a Hindu deity. The presence of similar practices in Purneais evident from Martin’s account of the district. L. S. S. O’Malley too talks abouthow the Agraharis, inspite of worshipping the Granth, continue to recognize andpay due homage to an ishth devta as also a kul devta who might be any one fromamong the Hindu pantheon or other gods like Narsimh or the Panch-Pir 27. Indrawing attention to these writings I do not mean to suggest a necessarily directline of continuation or even advocate in favour of these practices but to simplypoint out that the presence of certain so called Hindu rituals among the Bihari-Sikhs (especially the Agraharis) is really an age old phenomenon that hasn’t goneeither unnoticed or undocumented at all.

So far as the conduct of rituals is concerned, to the Agraharis, their respect forthe gurus and the worship of idols do not seem to strike a discordant note or seemincommensurable with each other. While their membership of the Sikh religionmakes it necessary for them to follow the words of the Gurus, the worship ofHindu idols has been naturalized as part of an age-old tradition that is germane totheir identity- a sense of identity that does not necessarily trace its roots toperformative practices within the Hindu tradition. Within the Great Tradition ofSikhism however it is precisely this syncretic element that is the cause of muchdiscomfort often translating into open accusations of falsehood. The Agraharitradition’s capacity to accommodate the Khalsa/Sahajdari duality along with otherpopular practices was and is looked down upon with disdain by the Punjabi-Sikhswhose ideology was framed largely by that of the Singh Sabha which emphasizedupon the need for a Sikh identity distinct from that of the Hindu. Within such anarrangement, the rahit (code of conduct) was crucial and anything beyond it wasdeigned either spurious or an aberration. Within this grid then, the syncretic practicesof the Agraharis had no place and this difference of opinion came to have seriousimplications for the life of the community. Such ideas as ‘The homeland of Sikhismis Punjab and that only Punjabis are true Sikhs’ seem to have played an importantrole.28 The Agraharis thus come to be perceived both as a threat (to the grand


narrative of Sikhism rooted in the geo-cultural perspective of Punjab) as also anembarrassment. Besides, what also needs to be taken into cognizance is the factthat Sikhs have largely come to define themselves as an ethno territorial communityoften making them intolerant towards the other modes by which Sikhs “can and doconstruct their collective identity.” (Dusenbery, 2008, p. 94).

Beyond Boundaries: Identities in Flux

However, to assume that open antagonism is the only interface existent betweenthe two groups would be to take a grossly reductive view of the situation. A closelook at the manner in which these two communities engage with each other atpresent opens up a whole new array of exciting possibilities. Though socialinteraction has been limited, there have been efforts in the recent years to “buildrelations” with the Agrahari Sikhs. This effort is propelled by the desire to salvagethem from their present state of being and bring them back into the “mainstream”.As one of my respondents puts it:

Social interaction with the Bihari Sikhs is very less. There is much incompatibility in termsof our financial status and also our “taur tarikey”. However this is not to suggest that we aretwo isolated groups. The Sikh Forum has trained many Bihari-Sikh kids. Infact the musicteacher in the Sunday school at present is actually Bihari. If you see him, talk to him, youwon’t be able to tell that he is not a Punjabi.

(Pal Singh,Personal Interview,October 1, 2010)

This avowed “mainstream” then, is largely defined by the codes of conduct of thedominant group. This creates a bit of a conundrum- on the one hand is the need topolice the boundaries of the community, on the other hand, the assumption of acertain role/mode of being by those of the other group is sufficient for the dominantgroup to relax its boundaries and allow others to partake of some sense of solidarityin whatever tangential ways. To this end the Punjabi-Sikhs have started Punjabilanguage and Dastaar Bandi29 classes in two of the Bihari-Sikh gurdwaras.30 Certainlogic of uniformity marks the activities of these schools. It comes out clearly inseveral statements like the following. Asked about the need for the dastaar bandiclasses, a member of the organizing board stated:

The Biharis do not know how to wear the pagdi properly. The way they wear it, it seems asif they are doing it just because they have to…as if under some compulsion. We want toteach them the correct way to wear a pagdi. Afterall it is an important part of Sikh ‘garima’.If you look at the way the Biharis tie their ‘pagdi’ even you will be able to discern immediatelythat he is not a Punjabi. (my emphases).

(Gill, Personal Interview, November 6, 2010)

The oddity of this statement is palpable. There is perhaps hardly anythingincongruous about the fact that the Biharis do not look like the Punjabis and yetthis statement brings to the fore a kind of attitude that negotiates two distinct strands:on the one hand is a certain push towards uniformity and it is submission to this

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homogenizing process that would bestow upon the Biharis the prestige due tothem as Sikhs. On the other hand this comment is representative both of the logicbehind these classes as also of the clear unproblematic link that exists between arhetoric of authenticity and Punjabi-Sikhs. Also this statement is crucial in so faras we discern in it a propensity towards articulating difference. Interestingly, thisarticulation requires the presence of two competing or mutually exclusive blocs:the Bihari-Sikhs on the one hand and the Punjabis on the other. What we witnesstherefore is the consolidation of a category called ‘Punjabi’- as if it were uniform,as if all the constituent elements in it were just the same. To this end then, thiscategory is steeped in multiple omissions- of the non-Khalsa practitioners of Sikhismas also Punjabi-Hindus and Muslims.

The classes held at the Bihari-Sikh gurdwaras are devoted primarily to teachingPunjabi language and Sikh history.31 Students are divided into two groups- thosewho are very young or beginners learning the basics of the Punjabi alphabet andthose at an advanced stage. This latter group is taught Sikh philosophy and way oflife. The rhetoric deployed in the course of these classes is a curious blend ofserious facts, fun trivia and comparative religion in a way that may initially strikean outsider as uncalled for or in any case redundant. Thus to discuss the equality ofgenders guaranteed by Sikhism it becomes necessary to draw attention to the kindsof discriminations against women that forms the bedrock of many Hindu rituals.Similarly mention is made of the “Hindu” concept of “tithi” in order to explainthat in Sikhism every day is Lord’s creation and therefore necessarily “shubh” orgood.32

The children by all means enjoy these comparisons but is entertainment theprimary criteria that shapes the logic of these lectures? What strikes one duringthese classes is the question regarding the necessity of this kind of a so calledcomparative study where old hackneyed rituals within the Hindu tradition (manyof which are no longer practiced perhaps and more so within an urban metropolitancontext) are reiterated to emphasize how egalitarian and enlightened the otherreligion is. Is it necessitated by the fact that Sikhism as a religion has its ownhistory of breaking away from the Hindu tradition or does it have to do more withthe fact that these kids come from families where the influence of Hindu ritualsand traditions is still strong and the benefits of one religion can thus be emphasizedby throwing it into relief against the ‘malpractices’ of the other?

My interactions with students at these schools yielded crucial insights. Askedto introduce themselves, some said they were Sikhs, some only mentioned theirnames33 but most of them described themselves as Punjabis. All of them spokehighly of the classes as teaching them the ‘right conduct’ and helping them tolearn more about Sikhism as well as the Punjabi language, their mother tongue.This was a quite common response and on pointing out to them that technicallytheir mother tongue is Hindi or Bihari, they justified their stance by saying that


Punjabi is their mother tongue because it was spoken by their gurus.34 On furtherinteraction some of them informed that their ancestors had come to the city fromGaya, Patna and Sasaram. What struck me was that their acknowledgement offamilial roots in Bihar did not seem incommensurable with their declaration ofbeing ‘Punjabi’. One of my respondents put it rather succinctly:

Even though our grandparents came from Bihar, we are now Punjabis. (Singh, PersonalInterview,November 7, 2010)

Certainly one of the easiest ways of analyzing this response would be to say that itsprings from a lack of awareness of the geographical connotations of the termPunjabi but that would perhaps be too simplistic and does leave a crucial questionunanswered- what does being Punjabi mean to these boys and girls? It seems intheir articulation of their identity Punjabi has ceased to be a purely geo-politicalentity. If we are to analyze their responses critically, we might discern a dual processof erasure at work. Conceptually at one level, the hyphen seems to have vanishedaltogether from the Punjabi-Sikh construct so much so that there seems to be aneasy equivalence between Punjabi and Sikh: as if being Sikh is equal to beingPunjabi.35 Hence the Bihari boys’ easy assertion about being Punjabi.Simultaneously, the category of ‘Punjabi’ seems to have subsumed that of ‘Bihari’in such a manner that these boys are no longer willing to use it while introducingthemselves. Their active distancing from anything to do with Bihar or Bihari culturecomes out palpably in the distinct sense of disdain they exhibit towards their family’sengagement in Hindu rituals. Interestingly, while speaking of these rituals none ofthem spoke in the first person (us/our) but invariably deployed the third personplural ‘they’ as if speaking of a distant/different group rather than their own families.This springs from a certain representation of their own Bihari culture as beingworthy of such disdain. This problematic then, is reminiscent of Bourdieu’scontention that social magic has the capacity to transform people by telling themthat they are different or in other words the social world constitutes differences bythe mere fact of designing them. Stuart Hall, in his discussion of cultural identityhints at the risks of a similar position. He says:

Every regime of representation is a regime of power formed, as Foucault reminds us, by thefatal couplet, ‘power/knowledge’. But this kind of knowledge is internal, not external. It isone thing to position a subject or set of peoples as the Other of a dominant discourse. It isquite another thing to subject them to the ‘knowledge’, not only as a matter of imposed willand domination, by the power of inner compulsion and subjective con-formation to thenorm. This inner expropriation of cultural identity cripples and deforms.

(Hall, 1993, pp. 225-226)

The question that comes up then is, what implications does this ‘integrativeapproach’ of the Punjabi-Sikhs have on their Bihari counterparts? Whether or notany active indoctrination takes place, the effects are clearly undeniable. Punjabi as

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a category has been emptied out of its geographical connotations and has come tomean pride, prestige, honor and the land of the gurus. Partaking of this categoryeven if verbally is a means of gaining entry into the collective “we” of the actualPunjabi community. Reciprocity or acceptance however remains an ambiguousterrain. The crippling effect that Hall talks about has certainly given way to the‘production’ of newer identities in this case. It is not the kind of hybrid identitythat some versions of cosmopolitanism seem to endorse but one where definingframes displace and replace each other. If cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’as well as of ‘being’, of negotiating both the future and the past, then in the instanceunder scrutiny these very elements come to be drastically rearranged. Theserespondents would rather not ‘be’ Bihari but ‘become’ Punjabi. Rather than beingJanus faced in their approach, the past (defined wholly in terms of their territorialaffiliation and ritual practices) is something they can do without. Ironically, howeverthis act of ‘becoming’ is never complete by dint of the constant pressure to proveoneself to those who they wish to become.

Parents seem to have their own set of concerns behind sending their kids tothese classes. While some expressed concern over the fact that without knowledgeof Punjabi their kids would never be able to know the message of the gurus in itsoriginal form, others felt such training would help facilitate greater interaction oftheir kids with the Punjabi-Sikhs.36 Such a perspective is certainly not condonedby everyone within the community. In fact among the older generation one observesmuch discomfort with this kind of training of the new generation- fearing theformation of a false community that would totally delink itself from its Bihariroots; that would hopelessly keep wanting to be Punjabis without ever findingacceptance. Crucial as this anxiety might be, it perhaps also needs to be remembered,as Benedict Anderson has pointed out that communities are to be distinguished notby their falsity/genuineness but by the style in which they are imagined. And it sohappens that a certain section of the Bihari-Sikh community has begun to imagineitself differently, though ironically, propelled precisely by accusations of falsity.

While some are very clear about the fact that they are Bihari-Sikhs and have atradition distinct from that of Punjabis, several others seem more than willing tocombine both. They defend idol worship in the name of tradition but proveallegiance to the Sikh religion through the conduct of necessary daily rituals. HenceMoti Rani Singh’s statement:

Hum Bihari bhi hain aur Punjabi bhi hain. [We are Bihari as well as Punjabi] (PersonalInterview, September 27, 2010)

as she held out a thread tied around her neck for me to see. The thread had miniplastic replicas of the kanga and the kirpan attached to it. This I felt was aninteresting gesture. She did not have the real kanga and kirpan on her but thesesymbolic adornments became her claim to being a Sikh or in her understanding aPunjabi: identity having been metonymically transcribed on to these objects which


in turn enabled her to project and claim an insider position vis-a-vis her ‘outsider’interlocutor. There were several others who made no such ‘mistake’ about thecategory of Punjabi and for whom it is but a purely geographical location. Awareof the ‘differences’ that exist in the manner in which they conduct their rituals,they see it as only too natural. Drawing attention to the fact of locational/geographical diversity, one of my respondents, Prakash Singh insisted how localtraditions are bound to leave its mark upon people’s practices and he sees thecontinuation of certain Hindu rituals within the Bihari-Sikh community as part ofthis process. Hence his assertion “Punjabis are hardliners. We are not.” He adds,“There are certain things that are part of our tradition and it’s difficult to get rid ofthem. In fact we cannot. There are so many things we do like blowing the conchshell…” he trails off. (Personal Interview, September 30, 2010) Yet this staunchstance appears somewhat tempered when he attempts to justify the rationale behindthe Punjabi classes. He explains it as being necessary for the younger generationin order to understanding what ways they are different from others: the nature ofthis “others” remaining sufficiently fuzzy at this point.

Equally important were some other responses. Some made mention of Sardarjis,“pure Punjab er lok” (pure people of Punjab) who according to them, comprise60% of the entourage to Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu. Instances were broughtup of Sardarjis in the city who actively participate in Vishwakarma puja as docertain Muslim families: the tone suggesting to me an attempt to emphasize somekind of a shared fallibility: as if to say, if partaking of Hindu rituals is “dharm/sidhhant virodhi” (against the codes of religious conduct) then there are severalothers who can be blamed for the same thing and that includes the accusersthemselves.

If this comprises one end of this diverse spectrum then on the other end wouldbe individuals who do not work with any fixed notions of who they are; neversuggesting as if they are ‘situated’ within one organic pack as Dr.Amartya Senputs it.37 (Sen,2006) Thus my respondent Pawan Singh is at once a strong defenderof his Bihari roots, one who works in tandem with his Punjabi brethren to advocatethe rahit and stop idol worship among his people and who in moments of self-assured confidence quips in between sips of his steaming tea, “amra kichhu na.amra khali Kolkatar Sikh”38 (Personal Interview, September 29, 2010). Pawan isnot alone in this. There were several others who responded in a similar fashionthus striking home once again that identity is after all contextual and it is entirelydependent on the discerning subject which of the several competing loyalties andpriorities he/she would choose to cater to.

RSS and Bihari-Sikh liaison

A discussion of issues of identity consolidation will perhaps be incomplete withouta look at one more component that is indeed a principal player in the field of Sikh

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identity discourse. This is the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat or the RSS. A fruitful place tobegin this discussion might be to go back once again to the Punjabi languageclasses held by the Punjabi-Sikhs in the Bihari-Sikh gurdwara.

Talking of the classes many of the Punjabi-Sikhs complained of the resistancethey faced at the local level. Fear, apprehension, suspicion are quite common andperhaps to some extent even justified reactions on the part of the Bihari-Sikhs andsome of the Punjabi-Sikhs seem to acknowledge that of their own accord but theirgreater fear seems to be discontinuation of the classes under the influence of acertain group of people belonging to the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat (RSS). While theaim of the Punjabi-Sikhs/SGPC appointed persons is to initiate the Bihari-Sikhkids into the true Sikh panth by weaning them from the various Hindu rituals theyengage in, the RSS does exactly the opposite. An organization created to fosterHindu-Sikh unity; it actively propounds the idea that Sikhs and Hindus are oneand the same people and must therefore work together. Dr. Jaspal Singh sees theRSS (that calls itself a socio-cultural organization and not a religious body) as anattempt to “absorb the distinct religious identity of the Sikhs into the folds ofHinduism – the majority religion of India – in a cleverly subtle way.” (Singh,2001, retrieved from www.sikhreview.org/september2001/culture2.htm) The firstget together of this organization was held in Delhi in 1986 and then again in Amritsarin November where it was formally inaugurated.39 At present it has five hundredbranches scattered all over the country. The RSS has its own set of definitionsabout the Sikh panth. It views Sikhs and Hindus as a unified entity with the Sikhsbeing a part of the larger Hindu society40. It even regards Sikhs as a sect of Hinduism;one based on certain differences, a phenomenon common to several religions.Further, it propounds that the Sikh religion and the Khalsa Panth were created toprotect the nation and the Hindu religion and that Guru Teg Bahadur had sacrificedhis life in order to protect the Hindu religion and society.41 Further, Sikh gurus areseen as descendants of Ram, specifically Lav-Kush, Baba Banda Singh, GuruGobind Singh as Hindu patriots. This tendency is equally evident in some of thevisual material used and circulated by the RSS. Non-sympathisers see in all thisthe continuation of an age old tradition, one of the actors being Swami DayanandSaraswati and his views about Sikh Gurus and scriptures in response to whichBhai Kahan Singh had written the book Hum Hindu Nahin-We are not Hindus.

Looked at from a pan-Indian context, one might discern the presence of severalPunjabi-Sikhs on board the RSS (the presence of Sikh parcharaks and politiciansat various RSS programs having been much written about and criticized. Also theAkali Dal’s collaboration with the BJP and its subsequent endorsement of the RSSis a known fact) but the Kolkata scene presents a slightly different picture. In myconversations with the General Secretary of the RSS wing in Kolkata, it becamevery apparent that they receive no support /are not entertained by/are unable tocollaborate with the Punjabi-Sikhs in any way. Speaking of the followers of Guru


Ravi Das in the city as people who worship both the Granth Sahib and Hindu godsand goddesses he hinted at some kind of ostracisation from the dominant Sikhgroup that he sees as having “monopolized the Sikh religion”. (Bhushan, PersonalInterview, April 19, 2011) Most of the RSS programs are conducted either at theChota Sikh Sangat or the Narkeldanga Gurdwara. This instance is particularlyinteresting because of the rigid lines that exist between the RSS and the largerPunjabi-Sikh community. The question then is, why is there such amiability andcollaboration with the Bihari-Sikh community? Do Bihari-Sikhs collaborate becausethey find some sort of ideological support for their practices? As for the Punjabi-Sikhs42, they speak in hushed tones about the RSS connection with the Bihari-Sikhs and fear that all their efforts at training the latter will be foiled by the RSSwith their ‘Sikh and Hindu are same’ theory.

This then opens up a whole new dimension in the field of Sikh identity. Thehyphen remains a hierarchic conjuncture shifting and shuffling the categories onboth ends, giving rise to cultural formations that are protean in their possibilities.Punjabi-Sikh, Bihari-Sikh, Hindu-Sikh, Bengali-Sikh thus become a range ofavailable frameworks that people might choose to affiliate themselves with. Crucialhere would be consider that all these affiliations need not be unitary or even finalin any sense of the term. Indeed, more often than not the rhetoric of ‘authenticity’of the dominant group tends to degenerate into that of essentialism. But the workingof the RSS upturns the possibility of any easy theorizing about the effects of thedominant group on the others. It has set into motion a parallel set of discourses thatframes Sikh identity within the larger paradigm of Hindu identity. Bihari-Sikhs ontheir part seem to be toeing the line between these two constructions quiteeffectively: their definition of themselves being a totally contingent affair.

Conclusion

The attempt of this study has been to provide a differentiated chronicle of the Sikhcommunity in Kolkata- one that is able to account for the presence of severalfactions within the community, take cognizance of the multiple flows that determinehow members of the community construct their sense of who they are as well astheir sense of affiliation (or lack of it) to the place of settlement and the so called‘place of origin’.

One of the ideas I had evoked at the very beginning of this study was that ofterritoriality and how that inflects the discourse of identity among Sikhs in Kolkata(as also elsewhere). The multiple discourses that assert an unproblematic linkbetween the geo-political space of Punjab and its centrality in the consolidation ofSikh identity however, beg the question, what implications might these have fornon-Punjabi Sikhs who have in several ways reterritorialised Sikh customs andrituals? In the context of Kolkata I have tried to look at the Bihari-Sikh communitywith these concerns in mind. My findings have brought to the fore a complex web

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of negotiations involving the Bihari-Sikhs, the Punjabi-Sikhs and the RashtriyaSikh Sangat with the latter two exercising completely opposite pulls on the former.More than anything else, I feel, this part of the study reveals just how tenuous thecategory of identity is: unstable, ever changing, contingent, bringing to mind StuartHall’s assertion that “there is much need to think of identity as a production, whichis never complete, always in process…” (Hall, 1993, p. 222) Simultaneously itpushes for recognition of not only cultural convergences and divergences but alsoof ambivalence: a state where one does not necessarily choose unitary affiliations,one that is able to account for the presence of multiple contradictory pulls thatmay not erupt but exist parallely nonetheless. Consequently it also hints at theconclusion that communities are not insulated units operating along the axes ofinclusion and exclusion. The lives of the people, the cultural processes under studyreveal how the construction of community boundaries has to deal with shiftingregisters of self identification that partake of discourses of both exclusivism andporosity.

Note

1. The deployment of this term here refers to Sikh understandings of their social world andtheir place in it, as reflected in what Sikhs say and what Sikhs do as they live their lives,interacting with other Sikhs and with non-Sikhs. This is the sense in which McKim Marriotdefines the term it in ‘Constructing an Indian Ethnosociology’ (1990) in McKim Marriott(ed.), India Through Hindu Categories. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

2. It needs to be mentioned here that the current understanding of the geographical parametersof Kolkata are not applicable here. The time under consideration is one when theconglomerate of Kalikata-Sutanuti and Gobindapur was in existence. Also there is noempirical proof of the guru’s visit to this place. Based firmly on their belief in stories of theGuru’s visit, several gurdwaras have been built all over the city.

3. One of the earliest mentions of Omichand is to be found in the writings of General Polierand George Forster. Their report indicates both the opulence of this merchant as well as hisreligious identity as a Sikh. See report reproduced in Ganda Singh. 1962. Early EuropeanAccounts of the Sikhs,p.67.Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.

4. For more details see N.K.Sinha.1961. Economic History of Bengal: From Plassey toPermanent Settlement Vol I, Appendix B, p.241. Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay.

5. The poem goes:

Banamali Sarkar er bariGobindaram er chhariOmichand er daariHuzurimal er kori

Roughly translates as:

Banamali Sarkar’s houseGobindaram’s stickOmichand’s beardHuzurimal’s money.


Quoted in Piyush Kanti Rai. 2002. Kolkatar Protibeshi. p. 150. Kolkata: Tathya o JanasanjogBibhag, Kolkata Pourashangastha.

6. In my own ethnographic study, I have come across families who spoke of their fathers/grandfathers of having arrived in the city with the aim of sailing abroad. However havingexhausted their money they decided to set base here temporarily and earn their fare butended up settling here for good.

7. Pijush Kanti Ray also mentions one Sardar Chattar Singh Rakhi under whose guidancethey had formed the Dhanpathohar Biradri in 1948 and whose office can still be found onno.9 Mango lane in the city.

8. Pijush Kanti Ray traces a history of how it all began. Sardar Raghbir Singh Bir, an extremistfreedom fighter had to flee Punjab in order to avoid police persecution. Raghbir, an ally ofSubhash Chandra Bose, settled in Calcutta. It was during this time that he bought fifty taxisand employed people of his community as drivers, thereby introducing them to a professionin which they came to have almost a kind of monopoly for years to come.

9. Several Sardarjee taxi drivers interviewed by Suchandana Gupta express such views. SeeSuchandana Gupta, “If it’s a taxi,it has to be a Sardarjee”, The Telegraph, 31-7-1994.

10. This is largely propelled by the fact that the gurdwara in Alampur possesses an enormousamount of property and land. It gives out land in the adjoining areas only to Sikhs andintends to build up an exclusively Sikh colony: Information provided by Mr. Narinder PalSingh, Personal Interview, October 1. 2010.

11. For detailed discussion see Himadri Banerjee. 2010. ‘Home Away from Home: PunjabiSikhs in Eastern India’, Social Transformation of North Western India in the 20th Century.New Delhi: Manohar Publications.

12. Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj, Budge Budge has been one of my ethnographic sites. This sectionis based on my own observations during the Shaheedi diwas function that I had attended on29th September 2010.

13. This newspaper has a long and checkered history. Started in 1933 by Niranjan Singh Taliband printed from the Kavi press, it was closed down by the British authorities in 1945 andreopened only after 1947. Information provided by Mr. Hardev Singh Grewal, Editor-in-chief, Navi Parbhat. Personal Interview,March 25, 2011.

14. Started probably in 1952.

15. Conducts the Gurmat Sikshya Camp every year for children. It also holds Sunday schoolsevery week with a view to familiarizing children with their own culture.

16. Translates roughly as the ‘Society for the dissemination of the teachings of the Guru’. Itinvolves elderly members of the community who meet at intervals to discuss and debateover religious issues, listen to the kirtan or to the teachings of the Sikh gurus.

17. I am told, women have been given desk jobs in several city companies run by Sikhentrepreneurs as also in newspaper offices like Navi Parbhat and Des Darpan.

18. This observation is arrived at after prolonged interaction with the founding members,attending their programs and functions.

19. This would roughly translate as “healthy successors”. Healthy here has connotations notonly of physical health but also refers to morally sound individuals.

20. L. S. S. O’Malley in his article says that his Agrahari respondents had claimed to be “trueSikhs and not merely, as Hunter states in his Statistical Account of Bengal, Sikhs by descent.”

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L.S.S. O’Malley. 1904. ‘The Agraharis of Sasaram’,Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal.LXXVI(III): p. 35.

21. L. S. S. O’Malley, ‘The Agraharis of Sasaram’ in Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol.LXXVI, Part III, 1904. p. 42.

22. Dr. Banerjee explains how this was a time of serious economic change in Bihar. The steadypenetration of the East India Company’s political authority in the post-Plassey decades, theresultant dislocation in overland trade, which passed through major urban centres of Bihar,the strict monopoly of the Company over the cultivation of opium and indigo, the disastrouseffects of the famine of 1770 and the introduction of several harsh land revenue demandsfrom 1772 made matters worse. For detailed discussion see Himadri Banerjee, “Agraharisof Calcutta: A Minority group within the larger Sikh Community’ in Himadri Banerjee,Nilanjana Gupta and Sipra Mukherjee ed.2009. Calcutta Mosaic: Essays and Interviews onMinority Communities of Calcutta. pp. 164-194. New Delhi: Anthem Press.

23. Ibid.

24. This organization has about 35-40 young members dedicated to spreading the message ofthe gurus so that the Bihari-Sikh population comes to know their true roots. Interestinglyhowever they do not interfere at all in thecommunity’s practices of worshipping other gods.

25. Founders of the Sikh Nari Manch did say that there were a few Bihari-Sikh women membersbut described them as rather reticent, non-confident characters. In my own work with theManch I did not have the opportunity to meet any Bihari-Sikh member not did I see any ofthem in the several programs held by the Manch that I attended. That the Manch remains alargely ‘Punjabi’ platform is somewhat hinted by the fact that all their programs are conductedin the Punjabi language.

26. Festivals marking the birthdays of Sikh gurus.

27. O’Malley says: “The common class however have no scruples in worshipping the imagesof Hindu gods and in adopting the religious customs of their Hindu neighbours. Althoughthey continue to worship the Granth, which is they aver their ishth devta or favourite god,they also recognize a kul devta or family god. The latter may be any of the regular Hindupatheon such as Devi, Durga, Hanuman, Mahbir or even less orthodox gods like Narsimhor the Panch Pir- the adoration of the latter being due possibly to the fact that Sasaram isdistinctly a Muhammedan town, as the personages of which they say the Panch Pir consists,appear Mohammedan, viz Subhan, Parihar, Ajab Salar, Gur Muhammad and Bahlim. TheAgraharis commonly employ Brahmans for religious ceremonies like other modern Sikhs.L. S. S. O’Malley.1904. “The Agraharis of Sasaram”, Journal of Asiatic Society. LXXVI(III): 38.

28. The discourse emanating from the Singh Sabha/Tat Khalsa Movement consolidated acanonical Sikh identity such that it became possible for the Sikh public in the early 20thcentury “to think, imagine and speak in terms of a universal community of believers unitedby uniform rites, symbols and scripture.” Verne A Dusenbery.2008. Sikhs at Large:Religion,Culture and Politics in Global Perspective. p. 95. New Delhi: OUP.

29. Dastaar means pagdi: the turban worn by Sikhs.

30. The setting up of these schools did face a lot of resistance as many were anxious andsuspicious of the motives of the Punjbai-Sikhs in setting up schools in their gurdwaras.However there were many who supported the move and felt it necessary to educate Bihari-Sikhs in the ‘true’ history of Sikhism. Besides, economic factors also seem to have played


an important role. Training in these schools and close connection with the Punjabi-Sikhcommunity often ensures job opportunities. My respondent Mr. Narinder Pal Singh put itcrisply: “Many Bihari-Sikh boys who we had trained at the Sunday schools have beenappointed as teachers in the Dunlop, Alampur and Kahlsa Schools. It helps them a lot,ensures them proper livelihood. So why would not they associate themselves with us?”Personal Interview, October1, 2010.

31. The teachers, I am told are appointed by the SGPC. They conduct classes at the NarkeldangaGurdwara every Sunday and at the Chota Sikh Sangat every Saturday. Students in theseschools are tested on their knowledge of Sikh history and Punjabi language from time to time.External examiners and question papers are sent fromthe Sikh Missionary College in Ludhiana.

32. Discussion is based on my attendance of Punjabi classes held for Bihari-Sikh children atthe chota Sikh Sangat and the Narkeldange gurdwara.

33. That they are learning a way of conduct/naming that they are otherwise not habituated to isevident in the manner in which they introduced themselves. Thus Pinky ‘Singh’ had to benudged by her friend before she could realize her mistake and reintroduce herself as PinkyKaur.

34. Such replies came after being prompted by the teachers. This opens up an area of enquirythat will be discussed shortly in relation to the students’ description of themselves asPunjabis.

35. Critically speaking there is a larger discourse behind the creation of kind of a template atthe level of politics also: one that posits the notion of a Sikh ‘homeland’ as being inextricablylinked to the physical territory of Punjab.

36. The term that was used here was “uthna-baithna” that hints at a kind of social interactionthat is intimate and that happens among equals.

37. Amartya Sen, ‘Making Sense of Identity’ in Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Dentiny(New York, W.W.Norton and Company Limited: 2006) pp. 19-39.

38. Translates as “We are nothing but Sikhs of Kolkata”.

39. The timing is also seen as opportune. The general atmosphere of fear and helplessness afterOperation Bluestar and the November carnage was cashed in by the RSS.

40. “All Hindus are Sikhs and Sikhs Hindus. We are all one. Some grow hair and some don’t.I say that All Hindus are Sikhs and all Sikh are Hindus. Our principles are the same. Withthe help of unity, we become very powerful…People are right when they say that Hindushave the power to make Hindustan a leader in the world!”: words spoken by new RSS chiefRaju Bhaiya on 16th November 1997 at Guru Nanak Dev Stadium, Ludhiana quoted inDr.Sukhpreet Singh Udokay, 2001, ‘Hinduization of Sikh Faith and History’ retrieved from<http://www.info-sikh.com/PageRSS1.html> 23rd April 2011.

41. It even says things like : “The Sikh Panth is like a beautiful and perfumed bouquet of rareflowers belonging to the vast garden called the Hindu dharma” and “Khalsa Panth is a nectar-filled fruit growing on the tree of Hindu dharma.” (Sangat Sandesh released on 6th August1988 at Nanded. Reproduced in Dr. Jaspal Singh, 2001, ‘A New challenge to Sikh Identity’accessed from http://www.sikhreview.org/september2001/culture2.htm 22nd April 2011).

42. I do not wish to generalize but in my fieldwork so far I have not come across any Punjabi-Sikh who openly sympathises with or supports the ideology of the RSS whereas I havecome across quite a few such Bihari-Sikh informants.

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Bibliography

Anderson, Benedict. (2006). Imagined Communities. New Delhi: Verso.

Banerjee, Himadri (2009). “The Agraharis of Calcutta: A Minority Group within the LargerSikh Community” in Nilanjana Gupta, Sipra Mukherjee and Himadri Banerjee (ed.), CalcuttaMosaic: Essays and Interviews on Minority Communities of Calcutta, pp. 164-194. NewDelhi: Anthem Press.

Banerjee, Himadri (2010). “Sikhs and Sikhism in Eastern and North-Eastern India (c. 1700-2000) Singh in Gajinder Singh (ed.), Sikhs Living in States Other than Punjab, pp. 16-21.Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies.

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List of People Interviewed

Avtar Singh. Employee, Sikh Cultural Centre. 16 September 2010.

Bharat Bhushan Gupta. General Secretary. Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, Kolkata 19 April 2011.

Davinder Kaur. Founder, Eko Pasara. 5 April 2011.

Hemjit Kaur. Housewife and active member of the Sikh Forum. 26 September 2010.

Jagmohan Singh Gill. General Secretary, Dunlop Gurdwara 6 November 2010, 12 February2011.

Karan Singh. Student in Sunday School. Narkeldanga Gurdwara 7 November 2010.

Kawaljeet Kaur Rekhi. Principal, Khalsa English School 29 March 2011.

Moti Rani Singh. Housewife. Narkeldanga 27 September 2010.

Narinder Pal Singh. Retired serviceman, Member of the Sikh Forum 1 October 2010.

Pawan Singh. Businessman. Barabazar 29 September 2010.

Prakash Singh. Member, Agrahari Sikh Samaj 30 September 2010.

Sunita Kaur. Advisor, Kolkata Sikh Nari Manch 10 March 2011.

negotiating borders: community and the … · sikhs themselves) that everything to do with sikh...

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